Responsible meat-eating

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  • Couldn't find a specific poultry thread, which was the focus of this post, but I guess it's a general meat-sourcing post anyway:

    Ive been feeling more and more sketchy about eating chicken and this recent chicken business is kind of the last straw for me. I wondered if anyone had any tips on good places to buy chicken (and other meat) responsibly. I'm generally trying to be a 'better' meat eater - eating less and being more careful about where I buy it.

    I'm not sure what 'free range' means in supermarkets any more, and presumably that has no indication of standards in the production process anyway. Are there any supermarkets who have good or bad reputations for standards of their suppliers? Should I just be buying my meat at my local butcher? If so - what are good questions to ask them re. where their meat comes from?

  • A good butcher will be able to tell you their source. Expect smaller and more expensive but generally I find a quality chicken breast to be as filling as the cheaper ones.
    I order from Waitrose, their free range stuff is generally better than most. Visually different sometimes due to feeds and breeds.
    Where abouts do you live?

  • eating less

    ^this

    I'm not a subscriber to the whole meat is murder thing and have real problems with the environmental impact of vegetarian diets as well as the horrendous and admittedly far worse damage caused by the meat industry.

    I think meat is something that is supposed to be eaten in moderation as part of a balanced, mainly vegetarian, diet. Better for us, better for the environment and fewer animals harmed.

    Finding the best possible source for your meat is something worth doing but I have come to the conclusion that it is pretty tricky to do in London. Where my parents live in Suffolk, it is pretty easy to buy meat from a butcher where you can find out where the animals are farmed and go and see their conditions. And the best bit is that happy meat tastes better.

    Tldr of anybody knows where good meat is in London, I'd want to get involved.

  • the whole meat industry does make me feel uneasy, even with new " welfare controls "
    not sure i could go all out veggie though
    eat decent meat once or twice a week, good for you and the environment

    where to find the decent meat is the question though

  • I'm fully on board with eating a lot less meat. It feels like the single biggest thing I can do to make myself a more responsible consumer when it comes to food. Also I'm not bad at cooking and I make a lot of curries, both of which make cutting down on meat easier I would say.
    I have a butcher up the road so I'll go and chat with him. I've bought stuff from there in the past but generally convenience wins for me - same old lame excuses of work, kids etc but there we are.

    I live in Bristol so I'm probably in a reasonable location when it comes to finding good suppliers of meat. need to get off my arse and do some research I guess!

  • Proud Sow is my local. I've been pretty happy with it.

  • When I lived in Brockley I always got decent meat from Peter James butchers on Ewhurst Road, the lamb and beef, at least, was from named suppliers who can be checked.

    Looking on the Internet it seems to have been recently hipsterised and is now calling itself the "Proud Sow". Seems to be supplying the same stuff though.

    [Edit: seems everyone really has moved to Brockley] ^

  • Also, I really got in to cooking through my local uni butcher saving me cheap cuts from good quality sources.
    You just have to learn how to cook them.
    ^Ticks a lot of boxes

  • Bristol? I'm there now. Rare on North St. is excellent if pricey.

  • "organic" has the highest animal welfare standards and any british meat labelled as such in a supermarket is often the best bet.

  • I read that article too, and it's in keeping with my experience: the last bits of chicken I bought from Lidl were stinking despite being well within date. Pretty much stopped buying meat from supermarkets after that.

  • I've been trying to reduce my environmental impact of late. Having been brought up in the north east it wasn't a meal without meat. I'm finding it much easier to reduce it at lunch rather than dinner. You might be best finding a farm/abattoir that will supply you direct if you buy half an animal. It can negate a bit of the cost by buying in bulk and they tend to have higher welfare standards.

  • I've been think about this a lot over the last couple of years. And I have cut down my meat consumption quite substantially.
    However I'm still not happy with choices I feel that animal welfare is not quite there yet. We have choices like fair trade organic and free range.
    What I would like is animals that treated well and as nature intended.
    The truth about food programme was an eye opener with a third of our chicken coming from Thailand. I found conditions not adequate, food is soy rather then grains for more protein and flouresecnt lighting is used to keep them awake for longer so they eat more. With careful breeding we can now get from egg to full size in about 40days.
    I really don't think this natural and why the meat is of such poor quality.
    To save our planet we need to use less land to grow animal feed. It's crazy. We can survive with much less land used for agriculture and stop destroying the planet.
    Beef from America is also likely to increase after brexit and that even more of a horror story.
    The first thing I done was to cut out fast food chains. But I have relapse ever so often. And halal and kosher is also pointless in my book and causes needless suffering for our eating pleasure. Our insatiable appetite for cheap meat needs to end.
    Overall our percentage of meat in our diet needs be slashed. Not only for our healthy but the welfare of the planet and the animals that we choose to eat.

  • You can look for the CWF Good Chicken award too:

    https://www.compassioninfoodbusiness.com/awards/good-chicken-award/

    In the case of chicken I'd consider looking at mail order / online specialist suppliers, there are a few around eg https://www.higherhacknell.co.uk

  • Go trap rabbits or raise your own animals to kill. Only legit way now in my mind(as someone who used to eat all the cheap crappy meat)

  • This is a huge area of interest for me and I’m also becoming less and less comfortable with the provenance and quantity of meat we eat, mostly in cities.
    It seems most roads in London have a number of “chicken shops” and it’s obviously completely unsustainable and excessive.

    I’ve started buying game meat using a mail order company based in Suffolk recently and generally just trying to reduce other meat intake from supermarkets, in which case the organic free range stuff is the only option. But generally it’s about reduction.

    The game meat thing is good. Bit expensive but totally great and you’re eating something that 1. Hasn’t been farmed and 2. Hasn’t even seen an abattoir.

    Game birds are good and there’s way more options than just chicken and beef gets replaced with deer.
    Deer is by far my favourite...

    50% of my intake is also now vegan, using that weird Huel stuff for lunches at work and post exercise as a stand-in for whey products.

  • Of course it’s not sustainable for everyone to be eating wild meat, either, but it does seem more ethical as deer populations are controlled anyway so we might as well eat ‘em.

  • Farmer's Markets are good. Loads in London. All over. Open Saturdays and Sundays Generally
    I use Stoke Newington, Notting Hill, Islington, Queens Park and Duke's Meadow.
    Often see the same farms at different ones. Occasionally by a yellow corn fed organic chicken and liver

  • Hugh Fernly-whatsit has a good book on meat. In it he advocates free range chicken be bought at supermarkets as this is the best way to shift the industry over from intensive farming to free range. That said, he does claim a few of the 'free range' labels are a bit misleading and not very free-range. IIRC, I think he recommends the soil association's free-range/organic chicken as the best for the bird's welfare.

  • The various standards are a real mess, especially given the huge amount of imported meat. And standards only give provision for welfare, they don't guarantee it due to the inconsistency in animal husbandry on UK farms.

    Unhelpfully, the UK standards aren't on a neat spectrum from poor to good either. Some are better on the amount of time animals spend outdoors, for example, others are better on tail docking/beak trimming, and so on.

    Most people would be shocked at what can be allowed under seemingly well-respected standards - 14 chickens per square metre under RSPCA Freedom Food...

    Red Tractor are cunts and have been prosecuted for misleading advertising. Their label guarantees food was produced in the UK and met legal requirements and nothing more.

    Compassion in World Farming is a good place for information.

  • I moved in with my veggie partner last year and was worried about what the impact would be. She works a 5 minute walk from our house and works 9-5, I work a 40 minute ride from home and work 8.30-5.30. Because she's normally home at least an hour before me, she does most of the cooking mon-fri, so it's all veggie.

    It means that during the week I eat meat in a maximum of 3 meals, I've lost weight, saved a ton of money and it's meant that the meat I buy is of a much higher quality (because I don't need to buy in bulk). If anybody is thinking of going semi-veggie, my wallet, my receding belly, and my sense of moral superiority over the common man would thoroughly recommend it.

    On the same subject, anybody checked out the things being done by Impossible Foods https://www.impossiblefoods.com/ and Beyond Meat - http://beyondmeat.com ? Veggie food that looks, tastes, and feels exactly like meat but without the killing that goes with it. I want to test it out, but as of yet I am yet to find a UK supplier.

  • As everyone has said, eat less and better. Last weekend I picked up a 1/4 of hogget from the couple who raised it on land I regularly walk past. I know those sheep have a happy life and loads of space (can't say how their final moments were but I know the owners care massively about their welfare so as nice as can be expected, I guess). It was even supplied in biodegradable wrapping.

    Buy organic, free-range from a local butcher if possible; that way, you're supporting a local business as well as buying happy meat.

    Learning to cook and enjoy vegetarian frees you from that 'meat is the centrepiece of a meal' mentality.

  • I spoke to an academic recently who told me that dairy is worse for the environment (presumably in terms of damage per calorie) than chicken according to some research from his group - can have a look for a paper if anyone's interested. But if you're going to cut something out, it should be beef and dairy as far as possible. Chicken is relatively low impact (though of course animal welfare is a separate issue).

    I'm practically vegan now, but it's pretty easy for me since I never really liked meat that much and giving up dairy wasn't too difficult. (Milk in tea is the one thing that is really hard. I just drink espresso or black coffee instead.) I'd say more than half of my colleagues are vegetarian or vegan. When 60-year-old academics (notoriously resistant to change) are changing their diets I think it says a hell of a lot about the impact on the environment that meat has. (I work in an earth sciences department.)

  • And if you eat dairy, you should be eating rose veal too

  • recent chicken business

    ?

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Responsible meat-eating

Posted by Avatar for AlexD @AlexD

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