In the UK there is no law controlling the nutritional information shown of packaged foods. There are guidelines that allow at least +/- 20% leeway for each component (so an item with 10g of fat could actually have 8g or 12g), and being guidelines it doesn’t matter if it’s more.

That’s disappointing, of course, but what’s more surprising is that animal feed is tightly regulated; if cows ate Sainsbury’s prepared curry it would have to follow pretty closely what it said on the pack (to protect us, the ultimate consumer of the cow), but if we’re eating the curry, or the cow, it need not.

Man cuts off penis in restaurant.

I bet he took the last After Eight as well. Some people have no class.

We had a cake for my son’s birthday a couple of days ago, and I was reminded of one of the benefits of living in the UK – decent cake. It is, as with so many other things, possible to get good cake in the US, but you have to know where to go as the default is a kind of blown polystyrene block garnished with milky sugar. And not in a good way. In contrast Sam’s cake, from the local supermarket, had chocolate icing that tasted of actual chocolate, slathered over a sponge that tasted of sponge-cake, rather than just sponge.

Man I’m hungry.

The BBC tells us that Sainsbury’s has withdrawn some of its own-brand muesli (that’s granola for you colonial types) from the shelves following the discovery of moth parts in the mix. Pretty unpleasant, of course, but presumably one of those things that happen from time to time when you’re selling food that looks like moth parts. But hidden in the article is a clue to the true unpleasantness involved here (emphasis mine):

“As soon as the issue was identified through an increase in customer complaints, the product was withdrawn from stores.”

One wonders what the baseline is for moth part complaints.

Joy of joys, you can now buy Fanta Limon in the UK. Admittedly it’s called Fanta Lemon, which isn’t so exotic, but now every day can be a holiday!