Sama Hoole@SamaHoole
Norway have qualified for their first World Cup since 1998, and the first thing they did was ship in their own cheese, fish and 6,000 oranges. A touching show of faith in the American food supply.
Start with the cheese, since they hauled 116 kilograms of it across the Atlantic. Dairy in the United States can come from cows injected with a growth hormone called rBST, which has been banned across Europe for years and does not even have to appear on the label over here. Norwegian cows never go near it, so the players would sooner bring their own.
The fish follows much the same logic. A good deal of American tuna is treated with carbon monoxide, sold to the trade under the lovely name "tasteless smoke," which fixes that bright red colour and keeps it looking fresh long after it has quietly stopped being so. Europe banned the practice in 2003, while America still permits it.
Then the oranges, all 6,000 of them, because the US happily lets growers spray the skins with Citrus Red 2, a dye the World Health Organisation's cancer agency calls a possible carcinogen, all so a slightly green orange can pass for a ripe one on the shelf. Europe will not let it anywhere near food.
So when a side with one shot at a World Cup takes a long look at the local cheese, fish and fruit and flies in a tonne of their own instead, you can understand how they got there.
A ringing endorsement of American food, obviously.
