French costs and quality of food, high and dire!
After having lived in France for over 10 years during the past 10 years I feel I am qualified to give the following guarded warning to those travelling over to Frogland this summer.
Since returning to live in the UK in February we are absolutely amazed, neigh, overjoyed by the quality and range of foods available in British supermarkets in stark comparison to what we had so sadly come to expect in France!
Our weekly shop in the UK we find to be between 45% & 50% lower and as for the quality, there simply is no comparison as it is that much better.
We had come to accept and expect to see fruit and vedge in the French supermarkets quite literally going mouldy on the shelves, lettuces with their outer leaves going black and slimy and haricot beans looking generally spent.
As for pre-packed meat, it was common place to see meat that was going a greenish hue in the pre-pack trays and almost all of the beef having the word "laitier" on the label. For those that don't know, this is meat that comes from a dairy cow which has
come to the end of its' long milk producing life. If you look closely at the label it will also show the date of birth of the cow, the day of slaughter and almost always, it will be on the shelves within 24 hours of the slaughter. No wonder the 'laitier'
beef is as tough as old boots and no doubt still full of all the drugs and potions a dairy cow is filled with during its' milk producing life.
Of course in the UK, dairy cows are not allowed into the human food chain, but in France it is very much the norm!
So if you are going to France this summer, I hope you have a very enjoyable holiday, but you will find it to be very expensive to buy your food and the quality is more than likely to be considerably inferior to the quality you are used to buying back in
the UK.