Wet street

A back street in the Les Halles district.

On an avenue

 

L'Avenue de l'Opéra

To market for lunch

The covered Marché des Enfants Rouges is known for exotic food stalls with outdoor tables.

Above: a section of the painted entrance; savory lamb and chicken tajines

Butt out

A rare anti-litter campaign (68-euro fine per mégot), but why so few anti-smoking campaigns?

On sign: "350 tons of cigarette butts per year" cleaned off Paris streets then,
"Let's do the right thing. Let's respect Paris."

Open door

Door of an apartment building attached to L'Église Saint-Paul-Saint-Louis.

Salon de l'Agriculture

For those missing the countryside...

Paris International Agricultural Show

2018

Porte de Versailles

Ends Sunday March 4

Always check the label

A shopper carefully makes sure her choices are GMO and additive-free, yet the writing is so small she may eventually give up.

 

(click to enlarge) 

***

 

Remember mandatory ingredient labeling? It was supposed to empower consumers, but in practice it mostly just created a wall of fine-print chemical names that the average person either can’t (or won’t) decode. And even if they check the label they’ve become so used to seeing things like “sodium acid pyrophosphate, monoglycerides, datem, calcium sulfate, tbhq, yellow 5 lake, red 40 lake” in fine print that their eyes just glaze over. They’ll flip the box back to the front and when they see “Made with Real Fruit!!,” toss it in the cart.

 

The labeling of ingredients was a good step, but confronted with a clump of miniscule unpronounceable words on a package, most now just shrug it off. Food companies know this. That’s why they bury the ugly stuff in 6-point font and spend millions making the front of the package scream “New and improved,!” or “25% less sugar!”(then quietly replace it with sucralose and maltodextrin). It doesn’t feel like food anymore; it feels more like chemistry homework. I'm always surprised that people continue to buy. - BPJ