Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall tonight 9pm

[Birdie Wife]

Hi johnty, I think you are totally right! Maybe the best thing they could do is find out how easy it is to grow veg. The digging would do them no end of good, they would have lots of inexpensive and excellent food, and then maybe they might only eat meat maybe three times a week, instead of every day, and so the meat they do eat can be higher quality. Sorted!

[SarzWix]

JOHNTY!!!
Good t see you're back pal
It was HughFW's Meat Book, as well as River Cottage programmes which changed our meat-eating habits. Still buy from supermarkets sometimes, as our local butcher closed a couple of years ago, but we now always go for the Free Range/Organic option and just add beans/lentils etc to make it go further. Not difficult really, and our plates now average half veg, & a quarter each carbs & protein. Not doing any of us any harm!

[piskieinboots]

Thyroid Lady is (appears to be) a natural leader so hopefully she will see the light and others will follow

[Flummery]

True confessions!

I watched it with interest (and a bit of predictable horror). I didn't eat meat for 15 years. About 3 years ago I started to eat fish due to severe arthritis in my feet - I didn't want to be crippled at 55! Eating fish a couple of times a week certainly improved matters. About 3 weeks ago I had a re-think. My reasons for not eating meat were entriely on animal welfare grounds. 15 years ago you caouldn't get free range chicken round here, or ourdoor reared pork. It was all factory farmed. In the last few years things are (slowly) changing. People are now producing traditonal pork from pigs on fields, living in arks, and chickens getting out into the fresh air. I have had a lot of 'first time for 15 years' moments in the last few weeks! My current theory is that if these farmers can't make a living from their humanely reared meat they will simply go back to factory farming, so I'm supporting them. I don't think the prices are unreasonable. After all, they have cost a life. I still won't eat meat every day - I've got 15 years' worth of good veggies recipes to draw on the rest of the week!

I hope it opens a few more eyes.

[littlemark]

I propose a fat trading scheme. Big boned people in the UK chould be sponsored to lose weight. Every pound lost becomes a £ used to develop fair trade with Africa. I'd shed a few for that cause. Fat for famine...

Good idea, but I'm guessing the uptake would be much higher if it was some kind of 'Obesity-offsetting'. ie. no need to actually stop eating all the pies and cakes, just offset the guilt in some ingenious way to the millions of people who haven't got enough to eat...

Mark

[johnty greentoes]

Good idea, but I'm guessing the uptake would be much higher if it was some kind of 'Obesity-offsetting'. ie. no need to actually stop eating all the pies and cakes, just offset the guilt in some ingenious way to the millions of people who haven't got enough to eat...

Mark

I think this is a real goer...how do we get it done?

[PAULW]

Sorry I am about to have a rant!
I left school at fifteen and went to work in a slaughterhouse I have also in my time worked as a knackerman, I have seen everything from barley beef to veal crates.
Why do people suppose that if a pig is reared outdoors it life is better than an indoor reared pig, I have picked up at outdoor piggeries where the pigs are belly deep in mud/pee and poo in the middle of winter, they have litters that then get stuck and drown in this mess the death rate of piglets are far higher than indoor reared litters, and why do people suppose there is a differant taste to a rare breed animal that is fed intensivley,
take Jimmys farm he set out with the big idea of rare breed pork that would wander about the woods eating acorns and beetle grubs before the year was out he couldn't get them to market quick enough, the hard facts of having to pay the bills soon knocked the romantic idea on the head and factory farming was the name of the game.
When I was a kid the chicken dinner was a rare treat, chickens that had come to the end of lay went in the pot,
we are never going to get back to the picturesque idea of the farmers wife feeding the chickens and collecting the eggs from the barn and the pig reared by the family in their county cottage that kept them in ham and bacon for the rest of the year, but we have to feed the people of this country,
I am not against the ideal of better welfare for our food animals but it is unfortunate that the majority of people have no idea where or how their food is produced and are happy to eat the cheap food that is available and after all this is what the EU was supposed to be set up for so there would never be the shortages food ,it is going to be an uphill struggle to prise the unlucky fried kitten out of their hands and get them to eat a more ethically reared chicken.

[Birdie Wife]

it is going to be an uphill struggle to prise the unlucky fried kitten out of their hands

please tell me that's a Freudian slip???

[piskieinboots]

please tell me that's a Freudian slip???

oh heck sure hope so

[PAULW]

BW I bet that from now on you will never be able to walk past that fastfood outlet without thinking of unlucky fried kitten

[PAULW]

Taken from an article in the Times

It remains unclear exactly what labels such as free-range or organic really mean. They often seem more like badges of moral superiority over the cheap people eating cheap meat who can't afford self-congratulatory conspicuous consumption.

[piskieinboots]

BW I bet that from now on you will never be able to walk past that fastfood outlet without thinking of unlucky fried kitten

Hum, I've always had my doubts as to what is exactly in that!! Cheers PW, my waistline thanks you

[moggssue]

Hum, I've always had my doubts as to what is exactly in that!! Cheers PW, my waistline thanks you

Hmm - I always did think it was a bit stringy .. now maybe I can convince the stepkids away from it too ... !

[Birdie Wife]

ROFL good thing I'm by myself in the office today

[fivespud364]

we Have bought less and less chicken from supermarkets to the point where we only now buy free range from our butcher since Hugh's last effort on chickens when he had the batch of folks to river cottage to change their ideas on eating chicken i found the programme very good and i think there is much more thought provoking stuff to come as i said earlier in this thread i have done my bit to promote it buy having Hughs banner on my website. Couldn't believe the bit when the poultry guy that came to help him got threatened with no job if the industry gets put in a bad light.

I think things will change eventually but it will take time people are beginning to wake up to what really happens with their food and i think the organic movement needs to encourage it more buy loosing the tag for organic read expensive it doesn't have to be so some friends of ours are starting up a co-operative of producers to sell produce thats affordable organic. i will be growing the veg side of it.