Loblaws Canada grocery prices: Shoppers irate at Toronto store cutting off roots of green onions.
A photo of green onions being sold with the roots chopped off at a Toronto Loblaws store is stirring more anger online against the grocery giant.
The photo posted to the Reddit forum Loblaws Is Out Of Control shows bundles of green onions without the roots at the bottom being sold for $1.79 per bunch.
Many in the comments pointed out that cutting the roots off of a green onion impacts how it tastes, as well as how long it stays fresh.
“I wouldn’t buy those, Glittering_Search_41 wrote. “If you cut off the ends they aren’t retaining their flavour.”
“They will also not keep very long with the root removed,” Mralisterh wrote. “Quartered the shelf life of them, you can already see oxidation. They’re going to rot within days.”
Others speculated that the product could have been chopped by the supplier, or by a new employee in the produce department.
The person who posted the photo said it was the second time they’d seen onions being sold with the roots cut off at the Loblaws located along Toronto’s Lakeshore.
“I believe this is more of a concerted effort to not allow us to regrow our purchased produce and to extract maximum profit,” Party_Setting7622 wrote.
A similar photo of rootless green onions being sold has been posted to the forum before, where one user wondered: “Is that to stop us from regrowing them at home?”
If you cut off the ends they aren’t retaining their flavour.
Loblaw did not respond to a request from comment from Yahoo Canada.
Urban farming expert shares easiest greens to grow at home
During the first lockdown of the COVID-19 pandemic, green onion became a trendy vegetable to showcase on social media, thanks to how easily they can sprout by putting the roots in a glass of water.
Arlene Hazzan Green, co-founder of the Backyard Urban Farm Company in Toronto, says there are many other vegetables that can be grown at home like a house plant, and without a plot or garden.
“All you need is a pot with holes, some potting mix, a saucer, a watering can, some sun and seedlings,” she says.
Hazzan Green explains there’s two types of plants — cold hardy plants, which can grow in cooler temperatures, and heat loving plants, which need frequent and direct light.
Leafy vegetables like kale, arugula, lettuce, chard and mustard greens and herbs, like basil and mint, fall into the first category and can be grown simply in a flowerpot on a window sill or balcony this time of year.
“You don’t need to wait until May 2-4 weekend, which is what everyone thinks,” she says. “I’ve got seedlings that I got started indoors and now I’m planting them outside.”
Tomatoes can also grow easily in a pot, though they fall under the heat loving plant category and need to grow outside and receive lots of sun.
“They’re great on a balcony,” Hazzan Green says. “And they’re way more tasty when you grow your own.”
When it comes to planting green onions, urban farmer Derek Barber of Homestead Toronto says they can be grown from seed, which is generally done in soil. You can also take the ends of another green onion, which would otherwise go to waste, and place them in water to sprout indoors. An entirely new onion won’t grow but you’ll get the leaves. This trick can be done a few times.
“It’s a great way to reuse vegetable scraps and it’s nice to have an ongoing supply of green onion leaves indoors,” says Barber. “The bottom does slowly decompose so you need to cut the new onions higher up the stem to avoid the soft part and you need to change the water regularly.”
Barber says this sprouting trick can also be done with celery, carrots and radish. Though you’re not getting a complete vegetable from it, the sprouts will produce leaves that make a great garnish and can add some fresh flavour to your meals.
HALIFAX – Police have accused a Nova Scotia man of murdering a woman reported missing from the province’s Annapolis Valley after U.S. authorities detained a suspect at the Houston airport as he was preparing to board a flight to Mexico.
The RCMP say they charged 54-year-old Dale Allen Toole with first-degree murder after he was extradited by U.S. authorities and landed at Pearson International Airport in Toronto on Thursday.
RCMP Insp. Murray Marcichiw said investigators have yet to find the body of 55-year-old Esther Jones, but he said police believe there was sufficient evidence to lay the murder charge.
The search for Jones began on Labour Day after family members reported her missing.
RCMP Cpl. Jeff MacFarlane, lead investigator in the case, says Jones was last seen Aug. 31 at the Kingston Bible College in Greenwood, N.S.
MacFarlane says the accused, who is from Tremont, N.S., was not a suspect until police received key information from the Jones family and the community.
He said police executed a number of search warrants at locations in and around Annapolis County, including the communities of Kingston, Greenwood and South Tremont.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
MONTREAL – The Quebec government says Canada’s special representative on combating Islamophobia must resign, after she sent a letter to college and university heads recommending the hiring of more Muslim, Arab and Palestinian professors.
The existence of the letter, dated Aug. 30, was first reported by Le Journal de Québec, and a Canadian Heritage spokesperson says it was sent to institutions across the country.
In her letter, Amira Elghawaby says that since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas in October 2023, a dangerous climate has arisen on campuses.
She says to ease tensions educational institutions should be briefed on civil liberties and Islamophobia, and that they should hire more professors of Muslim, Arab and Palestinian origin.
It was this reference to hiring that drew the immediate indignation of Quebec’s higher education minister, who called on Elghawaby to resign, saying she should “mind her own business.”
Minister Pascale Déry says hiring professors based on religion goes against the principles of secularism the province adheres to.
Speaking to reporters in the Montreal area, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that while each university will make its own hires, Elghawaby’s role is to make recommendations and encourage dialogue between different groups.
Later in Repentigny, Que., Premier François Legault criticized Trudeau for defending Elghawaby “in the name of diversity” and refusing to call for her resignation.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
VANCOUVER – A report into a triple stabbing at a festival in Vancouver’s Chinatown last year says the man accused of the crimes had been let out of a psychiatric care facility 99 times in the year prior without incident.
The report, authored by former Abbotsford Police chief Bob Rich, says the suspect in the stabbing, Blair Donnelly, was on his 100th unescorted leave from the BC Forensic Psychiatric Hospital on Sept. 10, 2023, when he allegedly stabbed three festivalgoers at the Light Up Chinatown Festival.
The external review, ordered by the provincial government after the stabbings, says Donnelly was found not criminally responsible for killing his daughter in 2006 while “suffering from a psychotic delusion that God wanted him to kill her.”
Rich’s report makes several recommendations to better handle “higher-risk patients,” including bolstering their care teams, improving policies around granting patient leaves, shoring up staff training in forensics and the use of “risk-management tools,” such as GPS tracking systems.
The B.C. Ministry of Health says it has accepted all of Rich’s recommendations and has already begun implementing them including “following new polices for granting leave privileges at the hospital.”
Court records show Donnelly is due back in Vancouver provincial court in March 2025.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
