Western Daily Press (Saturday)
Eat a little less of it but ensure it’s top quality
One of the fiercest defenders of the good name of British food, MP for Bridgwater and West Somerset Ian Liddell-Grainger tells Environment Secretary George Eustice he is rapidly tiring of the repeated demonising of meat and meat products
DEAR George, Or perhaps that should be oh dear, George, given that I have just read yet another attack on the good name of British meat. To the effect that ingestion of too much of it in processed form raises the risk of heart disease.
The latest dismal prediction to follow in a long line of scientific pronouncements about the risks to the health and wellbeing we all run from following a meat-based diet.
It doesn’t stack up. Most of the human race has been eating meat for many millennia and if all the ills that are now being linked to the habit were genuine threats we should have eaten ourselves out of existence well before now, leaving the planet inhabited by vegetarians and vegans – and what a jolly place it would be then.
No, the real problem lies with the way meat is industrially processed and generally mucked around with these days. Take pork products. In times past when the family pig was killed the meat trimmings were turned into sausages and consumed pretty damn quick before they could go off. Ham and bacon was simply brined then some of it was hung up in the chimney to smoke.
These days commercially based sausages are stuffed with anything that can be pulverised – and that throws the net fairly wide – plus a healthy dollop of preservatives.
Commercial hams and bacon undergo accelerated, artificial ‘curing’ and may even be injected with a touch of smoke flavouring to add a little authenticity.
Essentially the food industry has put us all on a chemical-rich diet and it’s there, George, that I suggest the problem lies. We do need to change people’s eating habits and at a time when we are overhauling the entire food and farming sector there is no more opportune time to start. But there is absolutely no reason to persuade people to give up meat, just eat a little less of it – and make sure it’s top quality.
And that will involve them making a trip to an independent butcher. More than 10,000 of those have been swept off the high street in the last few decades thanks to ruthless undercutting by supermarkets, the very places most likely to be selling
highly processed meat products. But the revival has got under way. New butchers are opening, more farmers are selling direct to the public at markets and there is a slow but measurable shift away from the multiples and back through the doors of the independents.
We could be encouraging this; we should be encouraging it. The public has a right of access to wholesome food and particularly to naturally raised and prepared meat products.
Rather than sitting back while scientists trot out ever more dire predictions about the consequences of eating processed meat, we should be pointing the way for consumers to switch to a healthier diet featuring modest amounts of meat which can be eaten without fear of ending up on a life-support machine, in a wheelchair or on the operating table.
Food for thought?