Where can I buy safer, healthier, more sustainable meat?
|
Version 0 of 1. The message to eat less meat is coming through loud and clear. Too much meat is not good for our health, its production is a major contributor to global warming, and feeding grains to animals exacerbates world hunger. And there’s even less to like with supermarket price-war driven promises of ever cheaper food that squeezes farmers and farm animals alike. The horsemeat scandal of last year and recent exposure of campylobacter contamination of mass chicken production are symptoms of this race to the bottom. Bestselling book Farmageddon has done much to expose the true cost of cheap meat. So it comes as no surprise that for the meat we do eat, there’s a growing demand for better quality meat. Despite rising food prices, Eating Better’s YouGov survey last year found that around half of people would be willing to pay more for better meat if it was tastier, healthier, produced to higher animal welfare standards or supported local farmers. This “less and better meat” message is also endorsed by campaigner and chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall: “I’ve always said we should be eating less meat, of higher quality, and the highest possible welfare standards ... It’s right for our health, right for the planet and only fair to the millions of farm animals we raise for food.” Supermarket v butcher The real winners of the horsemeat scandal are local independent butchers. For many years supermarkets have dominated the food retail sector, and in the last 20 years the number of butchers in the UK has shrunk to less than a third. But now many more of us want to know where our meat comes from, and are rejecting the plastic wrapped, uniformity of mass market meat retailing. Morrisons was one of the few big UK supermarket chains to escape the horsemeat scandal unscathed, which it put down to having its own meat and butchery supply chain. Smaller upmarket retailers such as Waitrose pride themselves on longstanding relationships with British farmers committed to investing in sustainable farming. But the scale and standardisation required means that the major retailers cannot match the local distinctiveness, or choice of cuts offered by a good local butcher. And while butchers have been moving upmarket in the range and quality of what they supply, prices are typically no more expensive than supermarkets. Butchers can also help you choose cheaper and less popular cuts of meat that are often unavailable in supermarkets but can be cooked slowly to prepare flavoursome and affordable meals. Look out for “matured” beef (often promoted as 21 or 28 days matured) which has been hung to naturally tenderise meat and give it a richer flavour, or traditional or rare breeds suited to local conditions, slower growing and better taste. Going local Buying direct from the farm or a farmers’ market is a guarantee of short supply chains and cutting out the middle-men helps keeps costs down. Local Foods can tell you which farmers’ markets or farm shops are in your area. The Well Hung Meat Company supplies regular meat boxes or one-off orders (they deliver nationally) from local farms in Devon. Green Pasture Farms supplies meat from a collection of farms in North Lancashire that prides itself in being ethical, ecological and economical. In Brighton & Hove, Sheep Share provides residents with meat from sheep that graze the South Downs around the city, helping conserve the distinctive wildlife and landscape. Decoding the buzzwords Organic: Still the creme de la creme of high environmental and animal welfare standards. Organic standards are defined by law, and farmers and processors must be certified by an approved organisation – the Soil Association is most well known. Organic farms don’t use chemical fertilisers or pesticides and the routine use of antibiotics is not permitted. Organic systems also provide high levels of animal welfare where the animals can go outside for part, or all, of their lives. Free-range: Chickens and pigs that can go outside for at least part of their lives. A varied environment allows them to be more active and exhibit more of their natural behaviours compared to intensively produced chicken and pigs. Free-range chicken typically contains less fat than intensively reared chicken, as well as being tastier. Pasture/grass-fed: The new words for the traditional practice of grazing cattle and sheep on pasture as opposed to the more intensive practice of fattening them on grains indoors or in CAFOs (concentrated animal feed operations – largely found in the US). Keeping livestock on semi-natural habitats such as plant and wildlife-rich meadows and pastures can be an important conservation tool for maintaining British landscapes. Pasture-reared beef has been found to contain less fat and has a higher proportion of healthy omega-3 fatty acids compared with intensively reared beef. Outdoor bred/reared: Refers mainly to pigs born in systems with outdoor space, then brought indoors for fattening after weaning (outdoor bred) or spend around half their life outdoors (outdoor reared). Freedom Foods: the RSPCA’s higher animal welfare standards and labeling scheme that includes beef, chicken, pork and turkey. Freedom Foods allows free-range, organic, indoor and outdoor farms to join its scheme as long as the RSPCA’s welfare standards can be met. Sainsbury’s sells more Freedom Food labeled products than any other supermarket. Farm assured/Red Tractor: provides traceability back to the farm. Inspection standards include food safety and hygiene and basic rather than higher animal welfare standards. Sue Dibb is coordinator of the Eating Better alliance. For a useful guide to choosing higher animal welfare foods, go to Compassion in World Farming. Interested in finding out more about how you can live better? Take a look at this month’s Live Better challenge here. The Live Better Challenge is funded by Unilever; its focus is sustainable living. All content is editorially independent except for pieces labelled advertisement feature. Find out more here. |