Western Morning News (Saturday)
Think before you sound off on food
Food writer Martin Hesp is fed up with food fascists telling him what to eat
WHAT’S your beef? Someone asked me the question the other day, and I told them…
“Basically, my beef is that I’m fed up with people telling me I shouldn’t eat beef. They don’t seem to realise: there is meat produced in an eco-friendly way that is good for them and for the planet –and there is meat that really does harm the environment and the humans who consume it.”
So my beef is all about lazy, illthought-out concepts. The social phenomenon that sees certain points of view being adopted as fact, without question or even the slightest degree of interrogation, is a dangerous one.
All too often the media creates a zeitgeist which fails to analyse what is, and isn’t, true. One example concerns food…
A couple of incidents caused me to think about this on a single day recently. It began in the morning when I heard a BBC Radio Four presenter introduce an item by saying… “There are things we can all do which we know can help in the fight against climate change - like eating less red meat…” There it was in a single statement. Bang! Without actually staying as much, the presenter declared: “All red meat is bad for the planet – we know that to be a fact. So we’ll take that as read.”
Later that day I hot-smoked a free-range organic chicken in a kamado-charcoal oven - and was so pleased with the result I put images of the golden-brown bird on my social media accounts.
I wish I hadn’t. Several people saw fit to publicly lecture me about the “disastrous wrongs” of meateating, insisting I take up a “plantbased-diet” instead. Soon, other people were agreeing and my lovely smoked chicken found itself flying through more flack than was put up above London during the Blitz.
I didn’t react because you never should on social media unless you want a hiding to nothing. But I did feel enraged. We should make informed decisions about what we consume. It is through carefully considered choice that we can ultimately help save the planet. Foodfads come and go; all too often, firmly held dietary beliefs adopted by millions end up in the bin. We should always analyse and ask questions before leaping aboard trendy new bandwagons.
So how dare someone comment publicly on what I choose to include in my diet? If a vegan published a photo of some industrially-made soya-based product from god-knows-where – one that was far more injurious to the environment than a local free-range organic chicken – I would not feel it my place to publicly lecture them on dietary choices. It’d be rude and bullying. But, beyond that, I’d want to be certain of the facts…
My chicken incurred zero food miles. It had been raised organically mostly outdoors with the use of no antibiotics or industrially produced feedstuff. If people bemoan the fact that a creature lost its life to feed humankind, that’s one thing. But even then all you can really say is: “My choice is to refuse to eat what was once a living creature.” Declaring: “I don’t like it – therefore you shouldn’t either,” smacks of a kind of foodie-fascism.
Above and beyond that, I do not welcome arguments about saving the planet from vegans who are happy to consume products such as “nut-milks” that come from thousands of miles away and require massive amounts of energy to produce. It’s increasingly claimed that plant-based diets are the only way forward, but the people who say it seem to totally ignore the fact that often vast quantities of soya and the like comes from areas that until recently played host to rain-forest.
Which brings me back to my beef… Yes, there is beef raised indoors on soya-based feeds which are imported from such places. But it’s not the beef I eat. My beef comes from animals grazed on complex grass-leys outdoors. The kind of beef for which our island nation has become famous and which for centuries has been produced right here in South West England.
This meat is now being recognised by the Good Beef Index, launched in Devon this month. The scheme tells the story of such meat - and the Devon farmer behind the idea says: “Produced responsibly, beef is good for us and good for the planet. Our new system will differentiate between so-called good beef and bad beef.”
David Andrews continues: “Farmers who rely on eco-friendly grazing practices are producing some of the best beef in the world, which is often raised outdoors on regenerative grazing.
This is good for the environment - and yet we so often hear that all red meat is bad for nature and bad for us.
Added to that, the farmers who produce this good beef are paid the same price as a male dairy calf that’s been fattened on soya protein which can be imported from anywhere in the world.
“It’s time consumer knew the truth about a fabulous food which is produced in an environmentally friendly way on their doorstep.”
I agree, and am glad producers of good meat are fighting back. Let’s hope their voices are heard as loud and as clear as those who like to shoot down hot-smoked chickens.
Monday: Judi Spiers finds she needs her memory jogging, with a Post It note...