Weetbix or Weetabix?

Above is a ridiculous thing. It isn’t new news by any means but in New Zealand is a company called Sanitarium who make products called Weetbix and Marmite. In the UK is a company who make Weetabix and another who make Marmite (I wouldn’t be surprised if the UK products are older but I’m not sure). These products are not the same by content but do equate to a wheat-based biscuit cereal and a yeast extract spread.

Why am I telling you this? Because Sanitarium feel so threatened by these two big UK brands that they won’t allow Weetabix to be sold while clearly named on the packet…and in the spirit of free market economics, the NZ system allows them to disallow the sale of a brand which clearly looks and sounds different (Weetbix are sold in a big blue box and are square in shape). Absurd! Unilever, who own Marmite in the UK, retail their product as “Our Mate” here instead. Somebody somewhere must think consumers are stupid.

It makes me a little suspicious of Sanitarium as a brand when they behave in such anti-competitive, odd ways…although I can’t say I have issues with their products. They even tried to take a small UK importer to court over it. Madness.

You may be curious which brands I prefer…well the UK ones (especially the Marmite…no other brand comes close)…but then I grew up with them so I guess my palate is adjusted to them. 🙂

Do Geckos Drink Sprite?

There were a lot of geckos (and skinks and chickens) living on Niue. At night you can hear the geckos calling each other.

One gecko kept appearing in the hotel room each night, in the bathroom, so we named him Bathroom Bob. However, Bob had a trick up his proverbial sleeve…when returning late one night and searching for him to ensure he wasn’t going to be trod upon, Bob was instead located lurking in a glass from which I was enjoying Sprite just earlier that afternoon…so do geckos drink Sprite? Perhaps they do!

Uga Crossing

The Uga (pronounced “unga” in Niuean) is also known as the coconut crab or robber crab. This is the largest land-living arthropod in the world and is cherished and prized by the Niuean people (they even have crab races).

The Uga is a crab which lives on land for its adult life, indeed it cannot swim, and yet the eggs are released into the ocean to start their own circle of life. It grows to a fair size for a scavenger…and I have to confess to having tried it in a restaurant, wherein I found that it tasted really good too.

Please note that I did not eat the crab I am holding, and indeed these particular crabs are trained to be tame (by the chap with the dreadlocks) and are used to being handled. You have to be rather respectful of anything with pincers of that size (and slow down if they are crossing the road)!

Buy Palm Oil Free

I was at Auckland Zoo recently and noticed a sign regarding the desire to try to eliminate the containing of palm oil in the products we buy on a day-to-day basis. The intention of this is to help mitigate against the clearance of native forest in countries like Indonesia, Malaysia and more – simply to allow space for the farming of palm oil. This forest clearance is removing habitat for many species such as the well-known Orangutan.

Some people may say “Why should I care?”, to that I would suggest that if we continue to rape the natural world without a second thought then our surroundings will be particularly desolate, dull and colourless one day in the future – and who knows if we might just need one of these species one day? Don’t other species have as much right to their little corner of the Earth as we do? A more selfish angle might be to think about how bacteria are fighting back against antibiotics…who knows where the next magic drug will come from. 

Of course, often the countries supplying such products and the people living there are in want of the money that rich western companies and countries will provide, so the most important thing is to try to strike the right balance to give everyone and every species a fair go. Sustainability is everything.

So how do you eliminate palm oil from your shopping? Please look at the photo below and do some research for your own country’s labelling. To start with, try to buy alternatives where any ingredients show something relating to “palm” in them. I guess that is the end of my palmolive soap purchasing for a start…and Bisto gravy granules too (a sad day indeed).

Together we might all make a difference for our and for future generations to enjoy.

Budget Peas

When you buy a bag of the cheapest peas in the supermarket, the question has to be asked…why on earth do you need to have a slogan on the packet?

But I must say, I think “…one, two, pea!” could catch on, for all the wrong reasons!

Zero Caffeine “Coffee”

Occasionally, I have recently experienced pretty painful abdominal cramps and have been exploring what might be causing this. One of the items I have a feeling could be to blame is coffee.

I enjoy coffee, especially a nice flat white, although not as much as I enjoy tea. As I began looking online for items about the sorts of things coffee could cause, I was amazed at just how bad for your digestion this drink can be…and that decaffeinated coffee (which I’m not overly keen on anyway) still has caffeine in it and isn’t necessarily that much better for you.

Anyway, I thought I would see if there were alternatives and came across something called Teeccino which is an American brand which is mostly organic and uses chicory, carob, dates, figs, nuts and natural flavourings to create a slightly sweet alternative to coffee without the nasty potential side effects. I was rather surprised that I really liked it, that it was not dissimilar to coffee in taste…and that with figs in there, it can only have positive digestive impact I suppose!

On telling parents about this, they mentioned something called Camp coffee (again chicory-based but with sugar (!!) and water added) which has been around a while which seems to mainly be a baking ingredient (but you can add water to make a drink). It is interesting that old ideas can come full circle to create a new market which can have health benefits.

Anyone else tried Teeccino? What do you think?

Obsessed with Food?

While watching a cookery show of some description on TV recently I was wondering why on earth we, as people, are so obsessed with watching shows wherein a large part of it is people stuffing their faces and telling us how good it tastes (some of whom have cooked it first)?

Does this seem strange to anyone else?

If I sat you right next to someone and asked you to watch them eat, complete with the sound effects, you would probably think it was disgusting, so why do we have so many TV shows about it? Most of the time you won’t be trying to cook it yourself anyway. It doesn’t really make sense.