The small print on a restaurant menu; Odd disclaimer

Don_Kiddick · 28-02-2008, 19:46

Went out for a posh nosh with R-lass, the lad n the inlaws last week at the Brecon in Rovvrem.

The lad pointed out at the bottom of the menu a line that read something like

"Some of our ingredients may contain GM products"....

Now. Being bolshy AND very anti GM (I won't even feed it to my chickens!) I asked the woman with the clipboard exactly what ingredients were GM as neither I nor my boy wished to eat it.

She was clueless & made no attempt to offer to find out either.

Gave me some bobbar about 'we have to put that, it's the law..'

then added 'the chicken is free range' - like that made it GM free

Anyway we played (almost as safe as) safe & had the chicken. Which I hasten to add was very nice indeed.

But, has anyone else found this with menus/ disclaimers/ lack of knowledge?

Should she have made more effort to find out for me?

Still miffed

cloudybay · 28-02-2008, 19:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Don_Kiddick

Went out for a posh nosh with R-lass, the lad n the inlaws last week at the Brecon in Rovvrem.

The lad pointed out at the bottom of the menu a line that read something like

"Some of our ingredients may contain GM products"....

Now. Being bolshy AND very anti GM (I won't even feed it to my chickens!) I asked the woman with the clipboard exactly what ingredients were GM as neither I nor my boy wished to eat it.

She was clueless & made no attempt to offer to find out either.

Gave me some bobbar about 'we have to put that, it's the law..'

then added 'the chicken is free range' - like that made it GM free

Anyway we played (almost as safe as) safe & had the chicken. Which I hasten to add was very nice indeed.

But, has anyone else found this with menus/ disclaimers/ lack of knowledge?

Should she have made more effort to find out for me?

Still miffed

You expect too much. I'm surprised restaurant staff in Rotherham can actually read let alone know what GM is. Just be grateful for small mercies.

PS what is GM ?

willman · 28-02-2008, 19:52

i'm always amazed when they have disclaimers about nuts.

Don_Kiddick · 28-02-2008, 19:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by cloudybay

You expect too much. I'm surprised restaurant staff in Rotherham can actually read let alone know what GM is. Just be grateful for small mercies.

PS what is GM ?

Grey Matter I think

sccsux · 28-02-2008, 19:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by cloudybay

PS what is GM ?

General Motors (Vauxhall/Bedford owners).

Also, Genetically Modified foods

sccsux · 28-02-2008, 19:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by willman

i'm always amazed when they have disclaimers about nuts.

Especially on nuts. Which really is insane

cloudybay · 28-02-2008, 19:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by willman

i'm always amazed when they have disclaimers about nuts.

Me too. Especially when they say that no nuts have been harmed during the filming of this product. Who films it exactly then ?

sccsux · 28-02-2008, 20:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by cloudybay

Who films it exactly then ?

Another nut with a camera.

Now showing on youtube

Don_Kiddick · 28-02-2008, 20:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by cloudybay

Me too. Especially when they say that no nuts have been harmed during the filming of this product. Who films it exactly then ?

It's taking the Pistachio I think

cloudybay · 28-02-2008, 20:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by sccsux

General Motors (Vauxhall/Bedford owners).

Also, Genetically Modified foods

I thought it meant Government Manifesto................equally tasteless but disappears as quickly as promises and pie crusts.

happyhippy · 28-02-2008, 20:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Don_Kiddick

Went out for a posh nosh with R-lass, the lad n the inlaws last week at the Brecon in Rovvrem.

The lad pointed out at the bottom of the menu a line that read something like

"Some of our ingredients may contain GM products"....

Now. Being bolshy AND very anti GM (I won't even feed it to my chickens!) I asked the woman with the clipboard exactly what ingredients were GM as neither I nor my boy wished to eat it.

She was clueless & made no attempt to offer to find out either.

Gave me some bobbar about 'we have to put that, it's the law..'

then added 'the chicken is free range' - like that made it GM free

Anyway we played (almost as safe as) safe & had the chicken. Which I hasten to add was very nice indeed.

But, has anyone else found this with menus/ disclaimers/ lack of knowledge?

Should she have made more effort to find out for me?

Still miffed

She probably thought it had something to do with Vauxhall.

edit: sorry sccsux, didn't notice your post

Hallamton · 28-02-2008, 20:31

The disclaimer can be found on pretty much every menu and is a legal requirement. It doesn't mean your food will have any GM products in it, it's just one of those annoying little disclaimers similar to the ones you find on a pack of nuts saying "May contain traces of nuts".

-Michael

DIVA · 28-02-2008, 20:42

What really winds me up are menus that for the starters and main course have a couple of veggie options, clearly marked with a V. When you ask the waitress if they've got any veggie desserts they look at you like you're a moron, and say , 'I think they all are'. So you ask them if the cheesecake is gelatine free, they come back 10 mins later and say 'no'. So you ask if the chocolate pudding is lecithin and mono and di-glycerides of fatty acids free, or, if the ice cream contains no animal fats, and the come back, saying 'no'. Why are restaurants so pathetic?

Hallamton · 28-02-2008, 20:45

Because restaurants like that aren't real restaurants. My guesses are that most of the food is brought in and so product knowledge is near to zero unless they read up on it themselves. In the kitchens I've worked in where food is fresh, I can tell you 100% what's in and not in the food I make. These sort of restaurants are few and far between though

-Michael

Don_Kiddick · 29-02-2008, 08:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hallamton

The disclaimer can be found on pretty much every menu and is a legal requirement. It doesn't mean your food will have any GM products in it, it's just one of those annoying little disclaimers similar to the ones you find on a pack of nuts saying "May contain traces of nuts".

-Michael

But that's just the annoying thing Michael. Once I read the disclaimer I really needed to know what I was actually eating because I abhor GM for the sake of GM the like of which we have seen over the past 2 decades.

The legal requirement to print it should include the legal requirement to know what is & what isn't - to me - poisonous.

It might as well have said "One of our dishes has been spit in by a tramp"

Hallamton · 29-02-2008, 08:52

To be honest I don't see the problem with GM products, but that's off topic....

If the chefs were worth their salt, they would be able to tell you what goes in the food, however since most places nowadays are microwave happy and buy in most of the products they sell, it gets harder and harder to find out what is actually in the food.

It's ashame but there's nothing much you can do. Sorry!

-Michael

jfish1936 · 29-02-2008, 09:43

Now if you object to a GM product, that's easy to identify. But what if your chicken is fed on corn grown in an open field, and some GM pollen drifted across, so there were some GM genes in the chicken food. Does that, for you, make the whole chicken "unclean". Do you draw the line at non=GM foods grown on land where compost from GM crops has been used as fertiliser?
If a cow is fed on GM feed, does its manure contaminate foods grown on the manured land?

It may be very hard for a restaurant to trace the provenance of all its supplies back more than a few steps; so the easy thing is to put in this phrase which annoys you.
Now I could trace all the food I buy for my family, but I don't think it's worth the trouble and expense.

Many plants we eat nowadays are far different from their ancestors, but of course they were modified by various chance processes; that form of GM is OK, isn't it?

*Twinkle* · 29-02-2008, 09:58

Training in most (not all) restaurants is next to non-existant.... If someone asks me if its got a certain ingredient in it and I don't know, I apologise for my lack of knowledge and go find out! I don't just guess! lol!

I dont know whats GM free in the place I work.... But I shall find out this weekend incase anyone asks!

theripsaw · 29-02-2008, 10:02

It would be very hard to check whether their ingredients and their ingredients ingredients and their ingredients ingredients ingredients etc dont contain GM food. Just choose a dish with few ingredients to lessen the chances

Don_Kiddick · 29-02-2008, 10:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by jfish1936

Now if you object to a GM product, that's easy to identify. But what if your chicken is fed on corn grown in an open field, and some GM pollen drifted across, so there were some GM genes in the chicken food. Does that, for you, make the whole chicken "unclean". Do you draw the line at non=GM foods grown on land where compost from GM crops has been used as fertiliser?
If a cow is fed on GM feed, does its manure contaminate foods grown on the manured land?
It's this flagrant disregard for everything by the 'scientists' that infuriates me - DK
It may be very hard for a restaurant to trace the provenance of all its supplies back more than a few steps; so the easy thing is to put in this phrase which annoys you.
Now I could trace all the food I buy for my family, but I don't think it's worth the trouble and expense.
You would if you knew what they are X-crossing genes with -DK
Many plants we eat nowadays are far different from their ancestors, but of course they were modified by various chance processes; that form of GM is OK, isn't it?

Yes because crossing a plant naturally will not work if if nature doesn't allow.

But putting animal genes (like scorpion poison) into crops to kill (paralise) crop parasites (insects) is above & beyond reason.

And with no exhaustive human experimentation to observe any problems what chance have we?

Call me a Luddite but... mark my words