Meat industry roasts BBC for ‘fake news’ we eat less turkey

Forget turkey and pigs in blankets. This year the supermarkets are awash with meat-free alternatives. But are any of them edible, asks our restaurant critic

MEAT industry chiefs have accused the BBC of including vegan propaganda in a short film – including a ‘baseless’ claim that turkey consumption has fallen.

The Association of Independent Meat Suppliers (AIMS) has complained to the broadcasting regulator Ofcom about the film, which depicts cartoon turkeys in Tshirts bearing the slogan ‘I love vegans’.

The #XmasLife film, fronted by chat show host Graham Norton, also shows animated turkeys cheering when it is announced that ‘less of us have been gobbled this year’. But in a letter to BBC chief Lord Hall, AIMS chairman John Thorley wrote: ‘It is completely baseless for the BBC to be making a reported claim that less turkeys have been gobbled this year.’

Citing figures from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Office for National Statistics, he said 14.8 million turkeys were slaughtered in 2018, up 3.5 per cent on the previous year. Figures for 2019 have yet to be compiled.

The minute-long film is shown on TV and online. Mr Thorley, whose organisation represents 250 abattoirs and meat firms, said: ‘The BBC has a duty to be unbiased and the use of the #veganxmas to promote vegan messages fails to be impartial.’

AIMS spokesman Tony Goodger added the association was not opposed to veganism, but ‘was very concerned about the disproportionate amount of broadcast and media time devoted to pro-vegan stories’.

The BBC said the ‘playful’ turkeys were in keeping with the spirit of the film, rather than an endorsement of a vegan lifestyle.

Anyone for a vegan Christmas dinner? Pages 40-41

STUFF turkey. Banish those bangers. And bid farewell to the Yuletide ham. Because this is the year, they say, that vegan goes mainstream. Will people really go the whole, um, hog and ban meat, dairy and fish from the Christmas table? To judge from the rows of supermarket chiller shelves packed with vegan offerings, the answer must be yes, for some of us at least.

It’s true that the horrors of intensive farming are a blight. Factory-farmed pigs and chickens live short, miserable lives in abject squalor. Profit, rather than welfare, is the main priority and the longterm cost of cheap meat is horribly expensive, both to our health and the good of the planet.

So if you do eat meat, buy from your butcher, buy British and buy the best you can afford.

As I’ve argued before in The Mail on Sunday, sustainably farmed beef and lamb can actually help the environment. Grassland absorbs carbon dioxide, reducing the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere. And two-thirds of the UK is still made up of grassland.

The idea that ‘plant-based’ is always healthier is not entirely true either. Some of the vegan meat ‘alternatives’

– a nefarious cocktail of resolutely unnatural starches, gums and additives – are every bit as processed as cheap ham or salami, while the production of many of these plant fats is just as environmentally dodgy as those vast and undoubtedly ruinous American cattle lots.

Balance, for me, is everything. And we should certainly be eating more fruit, vegetables, pulses and nuts. A ripe tomato salad lavished with good olive oil is every bit as thrilling as a fat sirloin steak. Pasta with garlic and chili, Indian daal, Japanese nasu dengaku (grilled aubergine), silken fresh tofu, fresh fried falafel stuffed into a warm pitta… the list of wonderful foods that also happen to be vegan goes on and on.

Of course, the retail giants have embraced this new trend – they always do – and have come up with a vast range of Christmas ‘vegan alternatives’ because even the most carnivorously minded may have to provide a dish or two for their vegan guest. It is Christmas, after all, and plain unbuttered sprouts are just plain unfair.

So to save you from the agony, I’ve taken one for the team and tested these new vegan ranges for myself. As ever, there’s the good, the bad and the plain ugly. And then there’s Tofurky. If you see this abomination on the festive table, run for your life.

There’s the good, the bad, the plain ugly. Then there’s Tofurky