Franken-furter

Franken-Furter (or The Monster of Frankenstein food)

What end is there to man’s ingenuity?

His ability, when he’s in the mood,

To engineer our daily intake,

And bugger about with our food.

You’ve just got to read a few labels,

Although the print’s incredibly small,

To discover what it is they’re up to,

And find out how they’re conning us all.

Don’t get me started on sausages:

They use lots of the skin, sinew and some bristle,

Rusk, knuckle, a blizzard of gizzard,

And then add in plenty of gristle.

From slurry, and factory-floor sweepings,

And bits left over I’ve discovered,

“Chopped and shaped”, and certain “selected cuts”,

And also “mechanically-recovered”.

Then to make it frozen, or microwaveable,

You’d be surprised at what they have to do:

Colourings, flavourings and texturings,

With modified starch and other bits of goo.

Then they add extra sugar and some salt,

Followed by several e-numbers,

Preservatives and acidity agents,

And God knows what they’ve done to cucumbers.

There’s modifiers and regulators,

Emulsifiers and some thickeners,

Stabilisers and other weird stuff -

It’s a wonder it don’t sicken us!

They hide the grams of saturated fat -

They don’t like their product to look flaccid,

So they pump in fructose and glucose syrup,

Topped up by di-glycerides of fatty acid.

Glazing agents and flavour enhancers,

All the things that we’re supposed to hate:

Add a dash of something not natural,

Plus monosodium glutamate.

It all goes in to our processed foods,

Not just Cheesy Wotsits and Turkey Twizzlers,

But chicken nuggets, and ready dinners,

Pizzas, pies and those meaty sizzlers.

But they make it sound so attractive:

Branding family members sounds less messy:

John West, Mother’s Pride and Daddie’s Sauce,

Then there’s Uncle Ben and Auntie Bessie!

These packagers have a lot to answer for:

Food scientists mucking about with our cheese,

Selling heart-attacks on a plate,

Hiding the grease and making us highly obese.

Never mind the Scots loving fried Mars Bars,

Or cream teas, chocolate or late-night kebab,

They’re pumping too much gunk into our food,

And slowly turning us all into flab.

So we’ve all got to wise up a bit,

About calories and carbs – it’s not too late -

Just look out for their “serving suggestions”,

And avoid anything “made from concentrate”.

Avoid chicken masala-type pizza,

Don’t eat Dogburgers, unless you’re bent,

And look out for the magic words on labels:

“Beware: May Contain Nourishment”.

Copyright Andy Fawthrop 2016