Eat well

There is currently a huge debate about the quality of life of chickens and the availability of cheap food. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Jamie Oliver have thrown their arguments into the ring. I have not watched either’s programme but I believe that we should be aware of what happens to the animals that we eat. I know that in order to be eaten an animal has to die. It is not rocket science. A fact of life is death.

I have never killed an animal for food. I did run over a squirrel quite by accident which upset us both, mainly because the death was totally unnecessary and, according to my wife Trish, totally avoidable.

Much earlier, Tom, my then father-in-law, used to shoot regularly at the farm owned by his cousin Jim. The twelve bore gun was packed in the boot of the car and we would drive of to the farm near Settle.

He and Jim, booted up and carrying broken guns under their arms with flat caps on their heads, would head up the hill behind the farmhouse. I would walk with them to act as beater if needed as directed by Jim. Essentially, Jim did the beating for he knew his land and where the hares would tend to hang out. Tom would be stationed at the tree, and, on this occasion, had me standing near but not too near so as not to impede the shooting if it should happen.

There was a shout from Jim from somewhere to our left. He’d sprung a hare from its form and it was now sprinting down the field. Tom flashed the gun to his shoulder, took quick aim and fired. The hare, struck by the pellets in full stride, simply began tumbling head over heels and then stopped abruptly. One cartridge, one dead hare. The hare was carried to the house after a further beating came to nought.

My children, then aged four and six, bloodied their hands helping their grandad skin and joint the hare, making it ready for the pot. It was delicious. There were no qualms or displeasure that we were eating a once living creature. If you like to eat meat, then you have to kill, be witness to the kill or have a distant acknowledgement of the kill.

The sterilised packaging of the supermarket meat further distances the eater from the killing. In my past, meat was bought from a butcher, who displayed in his shop carcasses both whole and part and birds still with heads and feet and whole rabbit complete with ears and feet still in fur. There was no doubt that what you were buying was once living. Now the supermarket chicken has most of its identity cut or tucked away and is solely a pale lump on a plastic tray.

What Hugh and Jamie are doing is partly to remind us of the origin of the meat we eat. And like the hare, meat should come from an animal that should have had a life that was free and natural.

Space is obviously limited and to provide the demand for meat there has to some way that maximises the space available. The product may cost more if more care is to be lavished on our meat providers, but there is the always the vegetarian option. I suppose the only way to ensure an animal has a good life is to stop eating them. Never mind the baby cuddly fluffs called animals that give reason for many to become vegetarian. Vegetarianism and veganism I applaud. I doubt the “Ooh, aren’t they lovely, I couldn’t eat them” argument. If we insist then we must accept meat protein production is land demanding and greenhouse gas producing. That is the good enough reason to become vegetarian. Or let’s simply eat less meat and then only eat that meat whose processing has considered the living creature has had some quality in its life, however short.

Free range is phrase that too is free ranging. Once on a walk, my friend pointed out some long low sheds on a field below where we were walking. He asked us to describe what we could see in the field. Having answered his request he then asked if we could see any hens. There was not one. My friend explained that the hens that lived in the huts laid eggs that were sold labelled as free range. He had never seen a hen at all making free range of its environment. Apparently, free range simply means access to the open land via a small opening in one of the shed walls. That the hens remain within is there choice but they do not fit with what I would call free range. It's a bit like hearing from someone who had had a holiday in Turkey (no animal link intended) but had only experienced that country from within the bounds of the all inclusive hotel complex. There are humans who are quite happy to accept a battery package when on holiday.

Once I looked after a few hens for a friend. The hens were kept in a run in the garden about 30 feet long by 4 feet. A small hut at one end of the run sheltered them but they were free to range. I have seen organic hens making use of free space. They looked happy and fit. They were not quite fully organic, but the pecking and swallowing of a thick creamy coloured slug by one of the hens almost put me off eggs forever. I have always enjoyed eggs and these, my payment for being guardian, were delicious.

Overheard. “I don’t think I could eat anything that was covered in fur.” To which I offered, “So no Kiwi fruit and peaches then.”