A year without packets
Honig is having a vlogger from Almere cook for his family with packets and sachets for an entire year. With its ‘easy and quick meals’, the food manufacturer is presenting itself as the saviour for busy households. Nonsense, says anti-packet-and-sachet campaigner Karin Luiten of Koken met Karin.
Karin Luiten, better known as ‘Koken met Karin’ (number 46 in the FavorFlav top 100), has been fighting food manufacturers’ false claim for years that cooking is difficult and takes a lot of time. And that, as a busy person, you should therefore especially not attempt it without calling in the help of packets and sachets.
Suburban Dad
She does this in her cookbooks, such as the most recent Slim zónder pakjes en zakjes. And she does it online and offline in various ways. When it was announced that vlogger The Suburban Dad from Almere would expose his family with three children to Honig packets and sachets for 365 days, Karin Luiten couldn’t believe what she was reading. The aim of this ‘365-day challenge’ is to get busy families eating together again. (No, very cleverly, nothing is said about healthy eating!)
Karin Luiten: ‘That those parents are doing this to themselves: fine. But those poor children who had to help unload such an entire truckload of packets. We Dutch eat far too much salt. And not because we sprinkle salt on our eggs. It has been proven that 80% of this comes from processed products, with packets and sachets having been number one for years. Moreover, everyone knows that you still have to add minced meat and vegetables yourself to a sachet of Bolognese sauce mix. So why do you need that sachet? The only things those poor children will be consuming from those packets for a year are salt, sugar, bulking agents and thickeners. Without them, they would be a lot healthier.’
Sorry, but cooking is not difficult or complicated.
As a counterpoint to the ‘365-day challenge’, Luiten created a Facebook page called ‘365 days without packets’. On it, she calls on everyone to demonstrate with easy recipes without packets and sachets that cooking is not complicated at all. Does she want to stop Honig this way? ‘No, you can’t stop a company like that. But you can create awareness among consumers. And that awareness is already growing. If you looked at the reactions on Honig’s Facebook page five years ago, you saw nothing but fan mail. Now there are critical questions. Such as what all that salt is good for.’
The recipes on FavorFlav also prove that packets and sachets are not necessary at all. Of course, there is nothing wrong with tinned tomatoes, jars of mayonnaise and ready-made puff pastry from a packet. Luiten: ‘You really don’t have to start making your own yoghurt or kimchi.’ Has Honig responded yet? ‘Yes, I received a friendly email from a PR woman. I had apparently got it completely wrong. Honig only wants to help people.’
If you would like to contribute to ‘365 days without packets’ on your own blog or on the Facebook page, you can. Here’s how.
