Public "unaware" of food origins - BBC news article

[JustMe]

I've just read this article on the BBC website.

Just where on earth do people think food comes from, and how can they be so unaware of this?

Perhaps they've been watching too much Star Trek and think everything on the supermarket shelves has been produced by a replicator on the USS Enterprise?

[harpy]

I read that too but I must say these sort of surveys always make me feel a bit sceptical. I wonder whether the respondents think the questions are too silly and don't give proper answers, or else whether they have phrased the questions in such a way to get the results they want (easily done!).

If I was asked whether a sausage originated on a farm I might well think it was a trick question.

[absentmindedfan]

I love the fact the NFU (National Farmer's Union) are having 'open weekends' on selected farms so you can go along with all the family and be brainwashed into thinking cows walk happily in the fields and chickens roam wide open spaces.
I bet none of the factory farms are open this weekend. Personally I think if you wish to eat meat you should visit a factory farm and walk through an abbatoir as a primary school trip, to see where food really comes from.

[Greenboy]

A bit like the McDonalds farm adverts in the nationals, "OOO look a happy cow", "OOO we only eat happy burgers". Sod off- does anybody actually buy this crap ?, i mean the advertising ploy, not McDonalds, - then again.....

[Linxie]

I think a lot of people probably buy that crap! It eases their conscience. I think a lot of people would stop eating meat if they were actually confronted with the truth so they just try to bury their heads in the sand. Thats a cowardly attitude if you ask me.

As for the BBC article ... doesn't surprise me at all. Not after watching all these food programme where people say things like "What the hell is this" "erm ...thats an avocado!". Or my personal favourite, a young girl who asked what a carrot was as she had never seen one with its leaves on, fresh out of the ground. Its very sad!

[BlackCats]

I think the public is mindbogglingly brainwashed and loads of people really think that humans need to eat animals to be healthy and that animals are killed humanely whatever that means!

Even the picture alongside that BBC article shows healthy looking piglets out in sunshine which just feeds the myth.

I went on school holiday to another country when I was about 16 and they served us avocado and only me and my friend had ever heard of it.
It makes me cringe when you go abroad and you can always see the British people ordering egg and chips or something.

Where do these people think these animals/ vegetables come from if not a farm?

[JustMe]

Since posting the original thread earlier today I've come across a couple of potentially useful links that relate to this.

Stickers from Animal Aid... and an e-card type link to circulate.

[cedarblue]

heard an embarrassing clip on this subject on radio 5live this morning - they were asking people from stevenage (or st. evanarge as i prefer to say ) where porridge came from - the answers ranged through;

"dont' know"
"a field"
"scotland"

*- sigh*

[Hemlock]

Believe me people really are as thick as ****! At work in the NHS I meet some right idiots. If they can't have a pill to cure it they are not interested, hugely fat 8 year olds with their mum who want their kid gastric banded because they can't be bothered with a diet and exercise regime.
I asked one woman if she would be prepared to try a diet change to relieve her menopause symtoms and she looked at me as if I was a piece of snot.