Why buy high welfare meat

I came across a shocking video today via twitter regarding Animal Equality's undercover investigation into East Anglican Pig Company, which is quoted as "the third largest pork producer and leading supermarket supplier in the UK". 


Please be aware the below video has graphic scenes that some viewers may find distressing (me being one, I watched it once and can't bring myself to watch it again)

Although I think that the end message pleading with people to become vegan somewhat spoils the video (I don't think trying to guilt trip people into going vegan is the way to gain support) I still find the video shocking.


I don't think many of us realise how animals in the meat industry are really treated, I think we have this nice vision of pigs running around and being happy and being treated with dignity and respect- but from this video this isn't always the case.  OK, so (hopefully!) this is a one off case, and since this footage has been taken the farms shown are under investigation- but how can we be sure? The scary thing is this company provides major supermarkets in the UK, and how many of us check the welfare standards of the pigs that made our bacon? Or do we go for the cheapest?


It's likely that people's desire to eat meat regularly, and to pay less for it has gone to increase the need for intensive farming methods as shown in the video.


I really do not want this blog to turn in another vegetarian blog ranting about how "meat is murder" because I don't believe that is the best way to get a message across, and I don't think meat is murder, but I disagree with the way meat is produced and therefore have chose to become vegetarian. However, I would urge people, PLEASE try and buy high welfare meat, it may mean that you may have to cut down on the meat you eat but you're not going to keel over from a few meat-free meals. And it will stop incidents like this occurring again.

Back to the books!

I have a degree in Biochemistry, I think it became clear quite early on that I was on the wrong course, but instead of changing to something more suitable I decided to bury my head in the sand and carry on regardless.  Unsurprisingly, this meant that not only did I not enjoy university as much as I could have done, but I found it extremely stressful and ended up with a classification lower than I expected.

After this, I decided to turn my back to science altogether, and so have been working in administration since graduating in 2007.  Which was going fine until recently, when the itch to go back into science became too much as I saw course mates become Doctors (both Ph.D. and medical) one of these, despite not having completed her Ph.D. yet had a paper published in Nature (scientific journal). EDIT: Another friend, has now completed a Ph.D, and on top of that is a cycling blogger who has been quoted in the Guardian!

But I've been out of the science area for quite a while, and it's not one to stand still, plus I don't want to go back to Biochemistry. So instead of doing what I did at A level and just rush into it (I really think young people are under too much pressure to make such life changing decisions in so little time) I started to think about what I WANTED to do.

During A Levels, I considered Dietetics, as from an early age I've been interest in food and health. As a child, I was quite a fussy eater and my Mum often persuaded me to eat food by telling me it was good for me. I remember being delighted that Beetroot had great health benefits and it tasted good too!  But I dismissed it as an possibility because at the time I didn't feel like my diet was particularly healthy, and I hate feeling like a hypocrite- I don't get how health professionals can lecture patients on smoking and then nip out to the smoking shelter to puff on their own cancer sticks. However, my diet has now improved (and on reflection, my diet wasn't as bad as I thought) so I looked into that again, but again, dismissed it as due to not getting the grades I expected, I would need to do a four year undergraduate course, which I'm not prepared to do, plus the more I looked into it, the more it didn't seem to be for me.

When I started looking into Dietetics, another possibility came to light- nutrition. It seems like it may be a bit more up my street, and seems a bit more 'sciency' than dietetics. Plus I would be able to study it at Masters level.  However, I still wasn't too sure- it looks great on paper, but will it be something I enjoy? Or will it turn out exactly like my first degree?

So when I read that Open University do a short course in Understanding Human Nutrition, I saw a chance to test the waters before diving in. So I signed up for the May start date, and my course materials came today!

I'm really looking forward to getting back into studying again, and I'm hoping to share some of the things I learn along the way on this blog, so watch this space....

Warm Asparagus Salad

After reading May's edition of Cook Vegetarian and seeing Masterchef Finalist Dean Edwards' recipe for Minted pesto British asparagus and potato salad, I decided to do my own version, substituting the minted pesto for the rest of the vegan red pesto I had left over from earlier that week.

There was a slight disaster when I attempted to roast the cherry tomatoes for a full hour as instructed in the recipe- they just burnt and I spent a good while trying to remove the charred remains from my oven dish! So I decided to stick with uncooked cherry tomatoes instead!

Served with some tear and share Garlic bread- a bit too garlicky for  my liking (and I LOVE garlic!). Please note, I did have more than this, I was underestimating my portion size a little here.

Ingredients (Serves 2):
125g cherry tomatoes (halved)
1 bundle of asparagus ('woody' end removed and cut diagonally into three)
125g new potatoes (halved)
Salt and pepper to taste
About quarter of a jar of vegan red pesto (but more would be better)
Olive oil
Pine nuts (toasted)

Recipe (around 25 mins)
1) Preheat oven to 200C/400F/Gas 6
2) Boil new potatoes until cooked through
3) Put asparagus in oven proof dish, drizzle with olive oil, season and roast in oven 6-8 minutes
4) Add a a little olive olive to pesto to loosen it
5) When potatoes and asparagus are cooked, toss together with cherry tomatoes, pesto and pine nuts.
6) Serve warm with whatever you desire!

The boy, who had never had asparagus before approved of this recipe (despite not sounding overjoyed when I told him we were having salad for tea) especially the pine nuts but thought it could be improved with cheese (his response to everything!). I quite enjoyed it, but when I have a food processor and don't have any pesto that needs using up I'd love to give this a go with the minted pesto as suggested in the original recipe.

A Spring 'Taste of Trafford'

Last Sunday we visited Trafford's Spring Food Festival in Altrincham (are you getting the hint that I'm a bit obsessed with food festivals yet?!).

It was quite a small event and took place in Altrincham's market. The Vegetarian Society's Cordon Vert cookery school were there giving cookery demonstrations throughout the day (which makes sense as the VegSoc headquarters is 15 minutes down the road!) and I managed to scrounge a free taster of the Breakfast wrap with crispy tofu and egg omelette, which was interesting, I never considered tortillas for breakfast!

As well as the cookery demonstrations, they were giving out recipe cards and booklets, I really like the one titled 'Season to taste' which gives recipes for each month depending on what is in season.

As for the rest of the festival, there was quite a selection of independent companies selling food items, including the lovely Lush Brownies (their triple chocolate brownie was divine- lovely and moist in the middle!), Fudgebox with their amazing flavoured fudges and gourmet handmade nut roasts from Thank Goodness! (for their online store delivery is £5 and the minimum order is one box of 4 x 350g nut roast, or 3 x 500g nut roast, however order 4 boxes and delivery is free so it's worth stocking up!).

As for the food at the festival, I thought the vegetarian options were quite limited although this seems to be the case for most festivals. I ended up with a Mediterranean vegetable pasta bake from Bespoke Food Company, where all the food was vegetarian, the only other option (apart from loitering around Cordon Vert and filling up on free samples) was a savoury crepe and I'm not a lover of crepes in general, especially not savoury ones. I was disappointed that a lot of the other stalls didn't offer veggie options.

All in all it was a good day, I'm not too sure if I would visit again, it would depend on how we got there as we ended up on the Metrolink which was £4.30 return, and given that you could go round the market in around an hour or less I don't think it was worth the transport cost.  Another issue was the festival's own currency, which was something called Tesetas (£1= 1 teseta) and was available in books of five (£5) which meant people ended up spending more than they needed, however a lot of the stalls also took proper money and apparently any unused tesetas could be used at participating restaurants in Trafford for a specified period.

"I'll eat cow, but eat dog? That's just disgusting"

We happily chomp down on a nice piece of beef, pork, lamb or chicken, but offer most meat eaters something 'exotic' and they recoil in horror.

Why is that? Why is it that we are happy to eat some animals but to eating others is frowned upon?

I think our general reluctance to eat cat, dog, rabbit or even kangaroo meat in the UK is because we associate it with the animal it came from.  We can't think of these meats without thinking of loyal companions or of animal documentaries on kangaroos carry around their joey in their pouches. 

But somehow we don't make this association with beef, pork, lamb or chicken. Is it because they are hideous animals? I don't think so, we seem to have quite a fondness for these animals when they're alive, people go 'aww' over lambs and micro pigs have really taken off as pets. The truth is that these animals can be just as adorable as cats and dogs.

Then there's the fact that we seem to aid the dissociation of these animals from their meat by giving the meat different names to the animal it came from- like beef and pork. Would people still buy it if it was labelled 'Cow' and 'Pig'? And would people still buy meat if butchers hung up the whole animal instead of us only viewing it in the unrecognisable pieces it is cut into?

Since the recession, people want to spend less but without cutting down on meat, therefore TV programmes like Super Scrimpers show people how to cook cheap pieces of meat such as kidney. It's quite interesting to watch people's reactions to gutting kidneys, they don't seem to like the look of it and the fact it looks like what it is.  But we're happy to eat cow muscle.

I remember working with a Chinese guy, who use to relay us tales of all the different things he had eaten, once he told us he'd eaten donkey and the whole office was horrified.  The next day he came in to have 'Donkey Killer' taped to his chair. There was nothing cruel meant by it, and it was all done in good humour (he actually loved the attention) but even then, before I started to think about the meat on my plate thought "I bet there are Indians that are horrified that we eat cows".

A month or so ago I watched a video called 'Cooking Kitty' produced by the vegetarian society as part of it's butcher's cat campaign which poses the question; 'Why do we make pets out of some animals, but mince meat out of others?' The video itself I'm not keen on, it attempts to use mild emotional blackmail to get you to change how you think.  But the campaign did make me think about why we choose to eat some animals but not others, and that fascinates me, and was one of the reasons that lead to my choice to become vegetarian.

By doing this post, I don't wish to promote vegetarianism in any way, especially not in an emotive one but if you do take anything away from this, take away that all meat is equal, regardless of the animal it came from and if you choose to eat meat, stop being so horrified by people eating rabbit, you're eating a cow.

Britain and vegetarian cuisine

Today I bought my first copy of Cook Vegetarian, and read an interview with the Hairy Bikers on their love of vegetarian food, when I came across a comment by Si (the Geordie one) about how vegetarian options in British restaurants are more of 'vegetarian excuses'.

I couldn't agree more.

I'm not a big fan of cheese, and avoid mushrooms where possible, so I'm constantly disappointed when dining out by the vegetarian options available, which seem to be either cheese or mushroom, or sometimes both.  Or even worse, the 'vegetarian options' are not even vegetarian, it was only last year that I was in a pub and all their fish dishes were labelled as vegetarian and last weekend the vegetarian options at a Cafe included pasta with pesto (made with anchovies) and parmesan cheese (made with calf rennet).  I ended up with a mozzarella sandwich, the other option was a cheese and egg sandwich.

It seems that the restaurant industry in the UK either doesn't care for it's vegetarian clientèle, and these offerings are mere  'token' gestures, or it  assumes that all vegetarians like the same things. This just isn't true, vegetarians, like meat eaters have different tastes, so why should we put up with poor options?

The lack of knowledge of some restaurants scares me- not knowing what is vegetarian and what isn't? OK I can understand if most people do not know what pesto and parmesan contain, but these people work in the food industry, it's their responsibility to know.

Back to the article, which goes onto to say that the Bikers have found that the best vegetarian food is in Italy and India- a fact that I've found myself.  When you go to Indian and Italian restaurants you can always find a great selection of vegetarian options. But why is this? What is it that Britain is getting wrong?

I think it has something to do with their attitude to vegetables and their ability to make it the star of the dish rather than the side kick. If you look at traditional British cuisine it centres around meat and two veg- even then the vegetables are boiled within an inch of their life and look unappetising. This is the main obstacle I had when I first experienced vegetarianism through knowing people who are vegetarians- I could get my head round what they ate for tea if they just had the two veg!

The inability for Britons to get over the meat and two veg concept is what makes many vegetarian dishes in restaurants so dull- you end up with 'cheese pie' or more often these days 'cheese tart' because the chief trying desperately to think of what will accompany the potatoes and peas instead of the meat. Whereas other cultures do this so much better, India has wonderful chickpea curries, Italy has refreshing pasta dishes, and many other cultures are just able to make vegetarian cuisine far more exciting.

Don't get me wrong, some places do make more of an effort and offer more choice to their vegetarian clients, but this should be the norm, not an exception to the rule.

Vegetarianism and me.

Well I've finally gone and done it.

I've finally stopped dipping my toe into the proverbial vegetarian pool, took a big breath and dived in, I have now decided to officially label myself a vegetarian.

The truth is, that I've drastically cut down on meat since last December, and I haven't really missed it, and on the occasions I've eaten meat I've not enjoyed it and felt bad about doing so.

It all started around Easter last year when I gave up meat for lent, during this time I really craved meat and ended up having a meat binge at the end of the lent period. I now put this down to the lack of cooking knowledge and poor options at restaurants.

Afterwards I went back to a more normal level of meat consumption which for me is quite low anyway and consisted of mainly chicken and the occasional smoked salmon bagel at weekends.  But around Christmas I watched the last thirty minutes of a programme whose name escapes me now, but basically the 'presenter' (I presume some TV chief or food critic who I'd never seen before) attempts to grow his own food for Christmas and compare it to what you get at the supermarket.  As part of this he decided to rear his own turkey.  At the end of the year, after all his work he hosts a Christmas meal offering both his home made produce and those from the supermarket.

When it comes to evaluating the turkey, they show his free range turkey, which was a tiny thing which they worked out to be worth around £60 (OK, that's a guess, but it was something ridiculous like that) and an offering from Bernard Matthews, which was twice the size of the free range turkey and would cost around £30.  They then showed a flashback from earlier on in the episode from the presenter's visit to the Bernard Matthews farm, and shows how the turkeys were kept in what looked like large sheds, pretty much like battery hens but with more room- but it was still not good. The representative from Bernard Matthews then explains that if the turkeys weren't kept in these conditions, then the average family wouldn't be able to have turkey at Christmas.

This made me think about vegetarianism again; did I feel right about animals being kept in these conditions just so I could afford it's meat? I would class myself as an animal lover, and I can never understand how people can do such cruel things to cats or dogs, but it can be so easy to turn a blind eye to how animals are treated in the meat industry. I changed my bank last year from a popular high street bank to the Cooperative as I didn't like the thought that I didn't know what my money was being invested in, whereas with the Coop I have that reassurance that they only invest in companies who meet their ethical policies. I feel the same about meat- I can't guarantee that the chicken in my meal has been treated in an ethical way, unless I have the money to spend on free range products.  And even then, that only guarantees their treatment on the farm, not how they were treated at the slaughterhouse.

In addition, I've never been a fan of meat on the bone, or any kind of meat that looks like the animal it came from.  By avoiding these cuts, it meant I could shy away from what I was actually eating. But if I ever catch a clip on TV of someone hacking up a dead pig, I find it hard to watch. The more I see of images like this, the more I find it  hard to disassociate the meat on my plate from the animal. And that I find hard to stomach.

Another factor in my decision is the environmental impact of the commercial meat industry.  Since being at school and learning about the impact of greenhouse gases on the environment I've always been concerned about the environment. Not only do cows account for 1/3 of the methane produced by human activity but farming animals wastes resources such as land and water. In a world with an increasing population- is this sustainable?

I'm not going to to go around shouting 'meat is murder' because I don't believe it is- we are part of the food chain and we have evolved to have canine teeth because it was advantageous to our ancestors to be able to eat meat.  However our increasing desire for meat has driven commercial farming methods which neglect the welfare and health of animal and ignore the environmental impact on our planet.