Swans in trouble today

[Tim Lewis]

Has made the bbc in London:

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-63120107?fbclid=IwAR3bovu2Sm3W3B8vlAxgCT5lq1eYEBgmsabY4tFRHP9FeUkLKSokx5zFhpU

 

 

[haggis]

With the abundance of water birds we have seen on the BCN I just hope that avian flu doesn't get here. It has been so nice to see so many moorhens and coots. We won't talk about the geese 😊

[Jerra]

6 hours ago, Athy said:

More like trade descriptions act, I'd think: they aren't salmon so they can't be sold as such. "Huss" or just "rock" are probably O.K. I don't suppose anyone would want to order "dogfish and chips". It's similar to the rule which prevents sausage-like items of less than a certain meat content (65% for pork, I think) being sold as "sausages". If you see a ready meal sold as "bangers and mash", that usually means that the sausage-like bits are of poor quality.

I have often wondered how they get away with this:

 

[Leemc]

1 hour ago, Jerra said:

I have often wondered how they get away with this:

 

These are surprisingly not bad👍

[blackrose]

As far as colonies of wild sea birds out other wild fowl I'm concerned, but I don't care about swans. Their numbers are ridiculously inflated by all the people who feed them and they've become like white water rats begging for food. They're not really wild animals anymore. If swan populations are decimated I'm not too bothered. It won't be a popular view but I don't care about that either. 

Edited October 5, 2022 by blackrose

[Ronaldo47]

9 hours ago, Athy said:

 It's similar to the rule which prevents sausage-like items of less than a certain meat content (65% for pork, I think) being sold as "sausages". If you see a ready meal sold as "bangers and mash", that usually means that the sausage-like bits are of poor quality.

My understanding is that that legal percentage of  meat only  applies to uncooked sausages for retail sale to the public. For catering sausages sold wholesale  for ultimate use in cooked food, the figures for meat content are halved.  In the 1970's you could buy packs of  uncooked sausages cheaply from our works canteen. The packs  were prominently marked   "Catering sausages, not for retail sale".  I only found out about the reduced meat content years later, but they always tasted good.  Perhaps it was the Sodium Monophosphate! 

Edited October 5, 2022 by Ronaldo47
typo

[Jerra]

43 minutes ago, blackrose said:

As far as colonies of wild sea birds out other wild fowl I'm concerned, but I don't care about swans. Their numbers are ridiculously inflated by all the people who feed them and they've become like white water rats begging for food. They're not really wild animals anymore. If swan populations are decimated I'm not too bothered. It won't be a popular view but I don't care about that either. 

Do you have a reference  for this assertion please?   My references say the population has been static for a  few decades.

1 hour ago, Leemc said:

These are surprisingly not bad👍

However whatever they taste like the government says they can only be called sausages if the contain meat.

[gatekrash]

11 hours ago, Ronaldo47 said:

My understanding is that that legal percentage of  meat only  applies to uncooked sausages for retail sale to the public.

Reminds me of the sausage rolls the MoD used to buy to put in their brown paper 'horror bags' (packed lunches). I made the mistake of reading the contents one day. 'Minimum 8% meat content'. And they definitely didn't taste good.

[Leemc]

19 hours ago, blackrose said:

As far as colonies of wild sea birds out other wild fowl I'm concerned, but I don't care about swans. Their numbers are ridiculously inflated by all the people who feed them and they've become like white water rats begging for food. They're not really wild animals anymore. If swan populations are decimated I'm not too bothered. It won't be a popular view but I don't care about that either. 

That's your view. Personally I don't want to see any animal suffering and dying in such a horrible way. 

[Naughty Cal]

I suspect there is an outbreak of bird flu here on the Grantham Canal.

 

We have seen 3 birds of 3 different species all looking very sickly in the short walk from Denton to The Dirty Duck and back.

[chevron]

On 03/10/2022 at 21:48, Jerra said:

The import and sale of weights containing lead for angling was banned in 1986 so lead poisoning is an interesting diagnosis.  Is there much shooting in the area, as I think the majority of shot is still lead.

 

So it may not be fishermen to take all the blame.

Just recently there’s shooting going on in the fields near Middlewich towpath side heading towards Davenham. My thought was it’s too near the tow path but they seem to face away from the towpath when shooting. The guns they are using are extremely loud.

[Jerra]

7 minutes ago, chevron said:

Just recently there’s shooting going on in the fields near Middlewich towpath side heading towards Davenham. My thought was it’s too near the tow path but they seem to face away from the towpath when shooting. The guns they are using are extremely loud.

The birds could pick up shot while grazing the fields.   As you will know birds eat "grit" to use in the gizzard to pulverise the food, I assume some of modern lead poisoning is owing to lead shot picked up on land thinking it is grit.

[MtB]

On 05/10/2022 at 20:53, Ronaldo47 said:

My understanding is that that legal percentage of  meat only  applies to uncooked sausages for retail sale to the public.

 

And what counts as "meat", we have to ask ourselves.

 

I suspect it is all the bits of a pig that don't look like meat and can't be sold as meat. The skin, the ground up bones, the brains, stomach and all the other organs minced up ultra-finely.

 

I don't eat sausages for this reason. As they say, there are two things in this world you really really don't want to watch being made. Laws and sausages.

 

 

[Jerra]

13 hours ago, MtB said:

 

And what counts as "meat", we have to ask ourselves.

 

I suspect it is all the bits of a pig that don't look like meat and can't be sold as meat. The skin, the ground up bones, the brains, stomach and all the other organs minced up ultra-finely.

 

I don't eat sausages for this reason. As they say, there are two things in this world you really really don't want to watch being made. Laws and sausages.

 

 

I suspect if you only buy uncooked sausages you will probably be OK or buy from a butcher you know who makes their own.

 

The government say:

 

Types of meat you can’t sell

You can’t sell products that contain certain ingredients if the product is ‘uncooked’, meaning it’s sold on the basis that it needs further cooking before consumption.

You must not use any of these ingredients in uncooked products made and sold in England:

• feet
• intestine (except as sausage skin)
• lungs
• oesophagus
• rectum
• spinal cord
• spleen
• stomach
• udder

[Jerra]

Digging a little deeper with regard to meat, the government legislation site says:

 

“meat” means the skeletal muscles of mammalian and bird species recognised as fit for human consumption with naturally included or adherent tissue but does not include mechanically separated meat

 

To me skeletal muscles are an important point as;

 

"The skin, the ground up bones, the brains, stomach and all the other organs minced up ultra-finely."

 

 

Are not skeletal muscles.

 

Naturally adherent tissue seems to mean the end of the muscle which attaches it to the bone.

[gatekrash]

3 hours ago, Jerra said:

I suspect if you only buy uncooked sausages you will probably be OK or buy from a butcher you know who makes their own.

 

The government say:

 

Types of meat you can’t sell

You can’t sell products that contain certain ingredients if the product is ‘uncooked’, meaning it’s sold on the basis that it needs further cooking before consumption.

You must not use any of these ingredients in uncooked products made and sold in England:

• feet
• intestine (except as sausage skin)
• lungs
• oesophagus
• rectum
• spinal cord
• spleen
• stomach
• udder

I'm guessing this is specific to use of these items as 'ingredients' rather than as a separate item. As I can buy pigs trotters from my local butcher which are definitely feet!

[Jerra]

1 hour ago, gatekrash said:

I'm guessing this is specific to use of these items as 'ingredients' rather than as a separate item. As I can buy pigs trotters from my local butcher which are definitely feet!

Presumably.  

[Ronaldo47]

Isn't tripe a cow's  stomache?  But then it is not sold as meat. 

[Jerra]

1 hour ago, Ronaldo47 said:

Isn't tripe a cow's  stomache?  But then it is not sold as meat. 

Tripe is indeed the lining of a cow's stomach.   Most ruminant's would be the same but I have never heard of sheep's tripe.

 

Edit to add at least if you choose to buy tripe you know what you are getting rather than if it was included in a sausage  without you knowing.

Edited October 9, 2022 by Jerra

[tree monkey]

13 minutes ago, Jerra said:

Tripe is indeed the lining of a cow's stomach.   Most ruminant's would be the same but I have never heard of sheep's tripe.

 

Edit to add at least if you choose to buy tripe you know what you are getting rather than if it was included in a sausage  without you knowing.

I was sure I had heard of sheep tripe in the dim and distant past but I had to check and yes apparently it is a thing.

 

Neither would find a place in my cooking tbh, horrible stuff

[Jerra]

27 minutes ago, tree monkey said:

I was sure I had heard of sheep tripe in the dim and distant past but I had to check and yes apparently it is a thing.

 

Neither would find a place in my cooking tbh, horrible stuff

I would agree, my Dad however loved it.

[tree monkey]

2 minutes ago, Jerra said:

I would agree, my Dad however loved it.

Same, but my parents also liked dripping butties, sugar butties and other such weirdness 

[Jerra]

31 minutes ago, tree monkey said:

Same, but my parents also liked dripping butties, sugar butties and other such weirdness 

It must have been a generation thing mine also had "bread and dripping" and brown sugar sandwiches.

Edited October 9, 2022 by Jerra

[Bacchus]

Never been exposed to tripe (with the caveat that I once watched daytime TV...) but dripping is wonderful stuff. My dear ol' mum (a yorkshire lass) would save the beef dripping in ramekin with the best/gelatinous bits in the bottom and the fat on the top. Modern equivalent - get some quality butcher's bacon, cook it in a non-stick pan with no added fat, and then fry a slice of bread in the fat that comes off; manna.

 

Back on topic... I have noticed a few swans around the Staines area behaving oddly. There is a slipway near me where they congregate (because idiots feed them there), and a couple of days ago I noticed that some of the ('orrible) things had wandered out towards the main road and were just sitting on the verge looking disdainfully at passing traffic. One down my lane doing the same. They almost looked drugged.

[IanD]

16 hours ago, Jerra said:

Tripe is indeed the lining of a cow's stomach.   Most ruminant's would be the same but I have never heard of sheep's tripe.

 

Edit to add at least if you choose to buy tripe you know what you are getting rather than if it was included in a sausage  without you knowing.

 

Or there are andouillettes, which are the worst conceivable option on all counts -- French sausages made from tripe... 😞