Will You Pay For Higher Standards In Food Production?

[Tokis-Phoenix]

"Tesco shareholders have not backed proposals to improve welfare standards for chickens championed by TV cook Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.

The chef wanted investors to adopt new standards for rearing birds, but the plan got fewer than 10% of votes at its annual general meeting in Solihull.

Mr Fearnley-Whittingstall and other chefs have highlighted what they say are appalling conditions in some farms";

<a href="http/news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7476829.stm" target="_blank">http/news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7476829.stm</a>



I find it hypicritical of so many people now days, that while on the one hand when you ask them if they are against animal cruelty, they chant "of course i'm against animal cruelty!"- but then you see them walk into a McDonalds fast food takeaway and order a big greasy battery farmed bucket of animal meat for their family. This is highly hypocritical IMHO- battery farming (and various other intensive methods of farming) is very cruel and does not even meet RSPCA standards.
IMHO If you are truly against animal cruelty, then you should be against cruel methods of farming animals like battery farming and buying such farming products.

Some people say that the reason why they eat/buy battery farmed food (knowing how cruel it is) is because they can't afford free range. But i see this as no decent reason at all- if meat is too expensive for some people, why not just eat it a couple of times a week instead of every night?
I strongly disagree with the mindset that its ok to eat battery farmed food if you are poor, because its this way of thinking that has led to some of the cruelest methods of farming animals in history, by putting greed/desire and expense before morals/ethics.
There is a BBC debate on this matter right now ( <a href="http/newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jsp...&#paginator" target="_blank">http/newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jsp...&#paginator</a> ), and i agree with all of the most recommended comments right now, for example;

"A medium, free-range chicken costs about £7. With a few seasonal veg this is enough for a family roast, stir fry the next day and soup the next...with no waste. A bucket of greasy, factory chicken with chips costs £10.

What parents would possibly choose the latter to feed their kids?"

"It costs about an extra 10p/kg to provide a basic level of welfare for factory chickens.

Given the alarming levels of obesity and the shameless amount of food waste in this country, I don't believe that anyone in this county 'can't afford' to pay the few extra pence."

"BSE, how soon we forgot"

"its absolutely disgraceful that a company making the profits the size of Tesco is not prepared to enforce good basic animal husbandry and take the hit and is also sending out messages that it is ok to treat animals badly for profit.

shame on them and shame on people who eat meat without caring about its provenence - if you can't afford it do what i do and don't eat it - you still have a choice."

<a href="http/newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jsp...&#paginator" target="_blank">http/newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jsp...&#paginator</a>



Reasons why you shouldn't eat battery farmed chicken;

1. Morality/Ethics- Battery farming chickens have a very poor quality of life, akin to a goldfish living in a bowl (except much worse).

2. Nutrition- Battery farmed chicken meat is less nutritious (for example, because battery farmed chickens do not see sunlight, they tend to lack in vitamin D, which causes many health problems to the bird etc) than free range chicken meat, the meat is also fattier (because the animals cannot exercise properly). Free range chicken meat is literally healthier to eat for people.

3. Bird flu/killer virus's- the stressful, over-crowded and often very dirty conditions of battery farms create the ideal conditions for killer virus's like bird flu to manifest itself and run rampant; bird flu itself is thought to have originated in back-street poorly kept intensive chicken farms in Asia. Its not the first time that a killer virus has arisen out of profit run poor animal husbandry- anyone remember the BSC crisis?

4. Environment- Battery farms are less environmentally friendly to run than free range ones, for example the birds are far more dependent on their artificial feed, the barns need to be heated and lighted, dowsed in chemicals to keep them clean etc- this is all draining on the environment and fuel reserves.

5. Obesity, society- It is now a strongly recognized fact that low prices (obtained by intensive farming methods like battery farming) for animal products has helped drive our countries obesity crisis. Eating cheap fatty intensive farmed meat all the time will certainly make the average person overweight- as a species, we are not designed to thrive off consuming animal products every day with our average modern low-energy consumption lifestyles. The over-accessibility of cheap intensively farmed animal products is strongly contributing to the destruction of our nations health of all generations.

There are probably numerous more reasons why you shouldn't eat battery farmed chicken, however these are the main ones i can think of for now from the top of my head.

I have always been willing to pay more for better farmed animal products, i am strongly against battery farming from moral/ethical, environmental, social and health perspectives etc. The sooner this form of farming is made illegal (which i really hope it will be some day), the better- banning such farming methods will improve the health of the nation and give us a better moral/ethical high ground and make us more civilized as a nation/society.
I am very willing to debate with anyone who eats battery farmed products or similar products, since i have personally not seen one decent reason for eating such products and keep my mind open to the possibility of there being any. I have nothing against the killing and eating of animals, my main and only concerns are focused on how the animals are raised and how they are killed.

What are your feelings on Tesco's recent decision on these matters and the subject of battery/intensive farming in general? Have you been converted to free range foods, or do you still eat battery farmed products? How much does the way of how your food is farmed concern you and do you think it is important that we should all know these things in accurate detail etc?

 

[afireinside]

When you say the method they are raised/ killed... that kind of reminds me of kosher food. Honestly, if the world took advice from the jewish people and ate kosher food (for the most part), the food would be healthier and the animals would be raised/ killed properly.

I have no problem about going into KFC or McDonalds (something to that effect) and eating. I mean, there's not much to do once the animal is dead.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

When you say the method they are raised/ killed... that kind of reminds me of kosher food. Honestly, if the world took advice from the jewish people and ate kosher food (for the most part), the food would be healthier and the animals would be raised/ killed properly.

Not necessarily. How much do you really know about Kosher food and Shechita?

The way Jews kill their food is purely religious and tradition bound, it was not brought about for the sake of the welfare of the animals, but because of Jewish religious views.

The prohibition of stunning and the humane attitude towards the slaughtered animal expressed in shechita law limits the extent to which Jewish slaughterhouses can industrialize their procedures. The most industrialized attempt at a kosher slaughterhouse, Agriprocessors of Postville, Iowa, became the center of controversy in 2004, after People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals released gruesome undercover video of cattle struggling to their feet with their tracheas and esophagi ripped out after shechita. Some of the cattle actually got up and stood for a minute or so after being dumped from the rotating pen.

So to say that if we all ate Kosher, the farming world would be free of animal cruelty, is not necessarily true (and not only that, but there are numerous animals that would be completely excluded from the diet, like pork etc). Nor is anyone suggesting this for this to be the case- people are simply campaigning for better farm animal welfare standards at a small extra cost (because the living conditions of some of these farms animals right now is full-on cruelty).

I have no problem about going into KFC or McDonalds (something to that effect) and eating. I mean, there's not much to do once the animal is dead.

Actually there is. By buying a product, you are funding it and thus supporting it- so by buying battery farmed food instead of free range, you are giving money to the people that run the battery farms and encourage them to do it more, while making it harder for the free range farms to do business because of increased competition of battery farms etc.

Would you buy food from a fast food company that kicked a dog every time you bought one of its burgers or meat nuggets etc? No? Then why do you buy battery farmed food knowing that the fast food company buys (and thus supports) animals farmed in a cruel manner??

How would you feel if you knew someone who kept a cat in a small cage indoors, forcing the cat to sleep in its waste covered cage and having barely enough room to turn around or stretch its legs, never seeing real sunlight in its entire short miserable life? Why do you turn a blind eye to the farmer who does the same, except to chickens? And when i talk of cages and barely being able to move around, this is no exaggeration;

The fact that even the RSPCA (nor any other morally/ethically conscious anti-animal cruelty charities/companies etc) does not approve of these farms, does this not concern you in the slightest?

Edit: something for thought;

A 20inch by 18inch cage for 5 chickens. Now even if we are assuming the cage is 18inches high, if this was an aquarium it would hold about 25gallons. Lets say the average chicken grows to 10-12inches long and weighs 2-3kg and we have 5 such chickens in the cage, thats 10-15kg or 50-60inches of chicken in a 25gallon tank less than 2ft long- if we were talking about fish here, you would be shocked and horrified if someone had 5 10-12inch long Oscars or pleco's in a 25gallon tank yes?

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Some more battery farm pictures for thought;

All this, to make this;

Mmm....Scrummy, who knew that such sick and cruelly mistreated animals could taste so good when pumped full of water, flavorings and then covered in cheap dyed crumbs and deep fried in animal fat?

There are hundreds of pictures of battery farms on the internet if you open your eyes and look for them- i have not even posted the worst ones here, but i think the pictures that i have posted should have gotten the point through. If i can make any battery chicken/egg consumers here think twice about what exactly they are buying and supporting with their cash, and then make the morally/ethically correct choice not to buy such products, then i will feel very happy.
Before i really knew what battery farming was like, i used to go down to Mcdonalds to eat and i also bought battery farmed products in general quite regularly. But i now no longer live in ignorance about such issues, and as soon as i realized the real cruelty involved in these farming methods, i completely stopped buying such products. Yes Mcdonalds and KFC meals taste nice enough, but they're really not that great- they're over-priced, poor quality, cruelly farmed and fattening food products- there are so many much nicer tasting things out there to eat, its really no sacrifice to stop eating such products for moral/ethical reasons.

I think certainly if anyone see's these battery farm pictures and feels no compassion whatsoever for the poor chickens, they have to be some of the most cold hearted people which totally have their ethics/morals all wrong. Not just that, but in an age where the environment is suffering and fuel prices are constantly going up, we need stop practicing these farming methods because they are very energy consuming and bad for the environment.

 

[afireinside]

EDIT: Oh, nevermind. I wasn't thinking straight about the animals. Sorry about that.

 

[geo7x]

Yet another thing that proves that Tescos shows no conideration towards general welfare.

We don't have much money to spend on fancy food, but that's why my parents don't buy meat very often and buy it when it's on offer etc. They wouldn't go and buy battery products. It's simple logic to buy less if it costs more, there shouldn't really be much excuse, meat isn't an every day requirement, I'm vege and I'm still alive. I'm not saying people should stop eating meat but if it costs too much you're not going to die over a few days without chicken drumsticks! People should go free range and eat less if they have to.

Buy it when it's on offer because it goes past it's sell by date soon, that's what we do.

edit: Whilst the overall cost of keeping free range chickens is more, there is still alot of cost and work involved in battery farms that wouldn't be needed as much (if at all) in free range. They have to build the buildings and most of them are heated to make the chickens grow faster (costs in heating), they also are lit (costs in lighting) and also money has to (although, often not done sufficiently) be put in to cleaning the buildings and the chickens have to be treated for all sorts of diseases that spread incredibly fast in such a warm, moist, dirty environment. As well as for welfare reasons I would rather fund free range farming where they are healthier than pay for a chicken that has needed all sorts of disease treatments, not very appetising.

 

[tattoo]

im not saying battery farming is right
but i think the main reason for battery farms is for egg production
and not to make the chickens grow faster for food consumption
chickens are called Broilers which are used for food consumption and are culled around 7 weeks of age. battery hens live for 12 to 18 months before they are slaughtered for pet food, even pies for us.
id just like to point out that im not saying either is right.

 

[afireinside]

EDIT: NVM

 

[Arfie]

Will I pay more? Yes in fact I do buy free range quite a lot, many times directly from the farms especially eggs.

Will I still eat KFC/McD's? Yep I like them from time to time and will have one if I fancy one. To be fair most run of the mill restaurants are serving mass produced cheap meat/poultry etc it's not just the big multinationals.

Should we all avoid things like mass produced mayonaisse, pasta, cakes etc as they're made with battery farmed eggs?

While we're on it, what about fish? Anyone eat cod at the chippy? was it farmed or wild caught? wild caught stocks are seriously threatened due to overfishing, ever looked at the alternatives like pollack or asked your chippy to stock them?

I eat the best I can, but if it gets too dear for me, then I would rather eat lower quality meat than no meat at all and yes I can live with it.

Arfie

 

[Miss Wiggle]

it's not always a case of being prepared to pay for it, but of it being accessible and easy

we buy all our meat for home cooking from a local butchers, everything is free range the meat is great quality and cheaper than the supermarkets battery produced ranges.... why on earth would you not want to do that?! but in areas of the country where there isn't much meat farming these places aren't always available.

the thing i have difficulty with is if i'm not gonna cook for the evening, i travel a lot for work, i'm often either in a hotel room somewhere i don't know or i'm doing a 16hr day with 8 hrs of that stuck on a train. in those situations you've often got no choice weather what you buy is free range or not, it's all well and good saying if you can't get free range meat then have the vegetarian option, fine but for standard sandwiches on the train your veggie option is basically cheese and salad and i really can't stomach cheese. If you're gonna get involved in it as well the dairy industry has strong links to the battery farming industries, it's why a lot of people go vegan, they say involving yourself with the dairy industry is just supporting battery farming anyway. Likewise sometimes when I get home after a really long day the last thing I wanna do is cook so I'll get a takeaway, i've not yet found a takeaway around here selling good quality free range food.

So yeah, I don't mind paying for good quality stuff, I'm not super rich or anything but the cost of a few quid extra on my food shopping is fine, I try for my main home cooked meals to go for good quality free range meat, but because of my lifestyle I can't always do that, does that make me a hypocrite too? Should I give up a fantastic career that I love and have worked hard for because it has a small impact on my morals..... not likley in my book.

we can't all do everything 100% of the time.

 

[geo7x]

The "It's in mayonnaise etc" argument is a good one however it would be wrong for someone to have the attitude "It's in mayo so I'll buy these battery eggs anyway".

It's just about reducing demand for it, there is no way one person or even a whole group of people can make a difference and we won't be able to immediately make a difference about battery products being in mayo and cakes etc, but taking money out of their pockets is the only way to have any hope of changing anything.

It's also not much excuse to say "it's in kfc", because, yeah maybe it's not so obvious in cakes or anything else, but kfc blatantly uses battery products.

It's mainly about stopping buying things that you know are battery products, obviously not everyone can do everything, but it's about doing what you can. If people go and buy ordinary "mayonnaise" then no ones going to see what people's opinions are but if next to the ordinary mayo there is mayo advertised as having free range eggs in it and it is obvious to shop keepers that free range is popular then they know that this could bring more money in and that they are not making as much money in the regular product.

At the end of the day people have got to face up to where it came from and ask themselves if they really want to support that. It's just ignorance, it's obvious that people can't face up to it because otherwise these so called "animal lovers" who go all soppy when they see a lamb in the field would probably be vege. For the rest of the population I can't believe that many people would carry on buying tesco value eggs if they stopped ignoring where they came from. I have no issue with people eating meat but if I see those packs of "tesco value sausages" on the tv adverts or when I go past McDs and see people eating burgers in there I can't believe that people can be so ignorant.

I'm sorry but with alot of people it is ignorance as even if for some reason they didn't know that the popcorn chicken came from a battery farm (I'm not sure alot of kids even realise it comes from a chicken) then why don't they show any interest in where the food comes from?

 

[Esfa]

Luckily for me, I live in farmerland (Wiltshire). There's 100s of farm shops to choose from, so we always eat free-range foods.

We're actually thinking of getting our own chooks for eggs

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Will I pay more? Yes in fact I do buy free range quite a lot, many times directly from the farms especially eggs.

Will I still eat KFC/McD's? Yep I like them from time to time and will have one if I fancy one. To be fair most run of the mill restaurants are serving mass produced cheap meat/poultry etc it's not just the big multinationals.

Its good that you do buy free range chicken products, however its still hypocritical that you know full well that KFC and McD blatantly use and strongly rely upon battery and other intensively farmed animal products, yet you still occasionally buy their products. IMHO, hopefully one day soon you will take the step to stop visiting these blatant users of intensively farmed products (is there anything at all that these places sell that doesn't contain such products?), and will start to make your own burgars and deep fried chicken, except using animal products which you know are free range, and which i am sure will taste much better (IMHO home cooked stuff almost always tastes better than whatever you buy pre-made in a supermarket or takeaway etc). .

I agree that a large portion of run of the mill restaurants are serving battery farmed foods, however i think its still important to keep an eye out for any dishes which are labeled as free range- ive noticed more and more now days more cafe's/takeaways/restaurants are selling dishes which are labeled as free-range, and i think its important to seek out places which do this and to buy their dishes and so support the good work they're doing .

Should we all avoid things like mass produced mayonaisse, pasta, cakes etc as they're made with battery farmed eggs?

While we're on it, what about fish? Anyone eat cod at the chippy? was it farmed or wild caught? wild caught stocks are seriously threatened due to overfishing, ever looked at the alternatives like pollack or asked your chippy to stock them?

I eat the best I can, but if it gets too dear for me, then I would rather eat lower quality meat than no meat at all and yes I can live with it.

Arfie

The way i see it, anything that contains eggs or cheap meat and isn't labeled as free range, is probably not free range. This has been a big test for me personally in my effort to lead a battery-free diet/lifestyle- i do not want to support battery farming in any way or form etc. But i have got around this issue by cooking what i want to eat from scratch using ingredients i know i can trust.
And you know what? Cooking my own food from raw ingredients rather than buying pre-made foods, has had so many positive consequences in so many areas. Home cooking has;
a. It has saved me money, big time. In the last 5 days i have only spent £37's on food (i cook for me and my partner), however i have cooked carrot and oregano soup, mushroom and tomato sauce gnocchi, sweetcorn and cheese filo parcels/pastries, ceasar salad, vegetable soup, vegetable stir-fry, fruit smoothies, bread fried in olive oil with tomato salsa on top and more. And i still have plenty of the original raw ingredients left like carrots, potato's, eggs and flour etc to do more with !
b. Home cooked food tastes better. Much better.
c. Better for diet- by cooking your own food from scratch, you can keep a much closer eye on your diet and control your diet better. Cooking your own foods from scratch means that you can easily get red of stuff like all those hydrogenated vegetable oils, E numbers, high salt contents, flavorings, anti-mold/stale chemicals, preservatives, colorings etc.
d. Get more in touch with food- not only does home cooking improve your knowledge of recipe's and skill of cooking, but you'll also find that any boredom you have about eating or deciding what to eat will go away and that you'll become more passionate and happy about food in general .


So basically it is actually very possible and achievable to cut out a lot of foods which contain battery farmed products by simply making your own food.


And with the fish farming thing, although our sea's are being massively over-fished, marine fish farming is actually worse than catching wild fish, for these reasons below and more;

a. Marine farmed fish are not bred, so to obtain the fish in the first place for the fish farm, juvenile fish have to be taken from the wild. There juvenile fish are simply fattened up for consumption in the "farms", so for a start by eating marine farmed fish you are not actually saving ones in the wild.
b. Marine fish farms use gigantic nets on the coastline to house the fish. The overcrowding of the nets causes parasites to spread like wildfire between the fish and these are almost impossible to treat. These parasites then go and infect the wild fish and kill them off too- one of the biggest threats to wild Canadian Salmon is not fishing but fish farming because of this.
c. When any farmed fish die in the nets, they become entangled in them and this attracts predators like sharks, turtles, dolphins etc. These predators then become entangled in the nets themselves, die slowly and painfully, and then their carcasses attract more opportunists which then also get trapped in the nets etc.

So basically fish farming is not good at all, and so from this perspective you should have any issues buying wild caught fish over farmed fish. However some methods of catching fish are certainly worse than others- its not catching fish from the wild that is so bad, its trawling. Trawler nets are colossal and trap everything in their path, right from the corals at the bottom of the sea bed (the huge 5 tonne weights attached to the trawling nets rip up or crush any coral reefs in their path), to the fish in the sea as well as any other animals like crabs, dolphins, sharks, turtles etc- and lot of what is caught in the nets is thrown back into the sea anyway, however due to the long sorting times and immense stress animals caught in these nets suffer, by the time they are thrown back in the sea they are usually dead, dying or injured anyway and become little more than seagull food.
But now days you will often find that supermarkets are selling alternative caught fish at their counters, like line-caught fish, so it is now easy enough for people to buy non-trawler caught fish.

The worlds oceans are in a very bad way right now. Some shark species populations have declined as much as 99% over the last 2 centuries, and some even 80% over the last decade. Between a third and a quarter of the worlds wildlife has been lost since 1970 ( http/news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7403989.stm ) etc- if things continue like they currently are, they will be virtually nothing left to fish in the sea's in 50years time ( http/news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6108414.stm ).
Pretty much all fish in the middle or top of the food chain are suffering badly right now and are heading in a straight and continuous path closer to extinction unless we make vast changes to the way we eat, shop and obtain foods right now. Personally if i were you, i would avoid eating fish in the mid to upper path of the marine food chain and only eat fish and other sea food from the bottom of the food chain, because although these types of fish and critters are starting to suffer, they aren't the worst affected right now. You might not bother too much about these things right now, but when fish like Cod goes extinct (which it probably will do with the way things are currently going), do you really what to say "Yes i knew it was being massively over-fished but i ate it anyway because i was hungry and didn't care too much about the fishes plight, and now i've played my knowing part in helping drive it towards extinction"?

We live in an age where we are becoming more and more conscious about what we eat- and we should be conscious about what exactly eating, and making conscious informed and ethical/moral decisions about what we eat, because nature is catching up with us now and we can no longer turn a blind eye to the consequences of our actions when it comes to the feeding of ourselves and populations. We have a choice over everything we put into our mouths, so we should make the right choice wherever possible. Don't you agree ?

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

it's not always a case of being prepared to pay for it, but of it being accessible and easy

we buy all our meat for home cooking from a local butchers, everything is free range the meat is great quality and cheaper than the supermarkets battery produced ranges.... why on earth would you not want to do that?! but in areas of the country where there isn't much meat farming these places aren't always available.

the thing i have difficulty with is if i'm not gonna cook for the evening, i travel a lot for work, i'm often either in a hotel room somewhere i don't know or i'm doing a 16hr day with 8 hrs of that stuck on a train. in those situations you've often got no choice weather what you buy is free range or not, it's all well and good saying if you can't get free range meat then have the vegetarian option, fine but for standard sandwiches on the train your veggie option is basically cheese and salad and i really can't stomach cheese. If you're gonna get involved in it as well the dairy industry has strong links to the battery farming industries, it's why a lot of people go vegan, they say involving yourself with the dairy industry is just supporting battery farming anyway. Likewise sometimes when I get home after a really long day the last thing I wanna do is cook so I'll get a takeaway, i've not yet found a takeaway around here selling good quality free range food.

So yeah, I don't mind paying for good quality stuff, I'm not super rich or anything but the cost of a few quid extra on my food shopping is fine, I try for my main home cooked meals to go for good quality free range meat, but because of my lifestyle I can't always do that, does that make me a hypocrite too? Should I give up a fantastic career that I love and have worked hard for because it has a small impact on my morals..... not likley in my book.

we can't all do everything 100% of the time.

Of course there are some of us which are not always able to eat what we want to eat even if we would be willing to pay for it if it were an option. But the point is to make the right choice wherever you can- you might not be able to to always go for the option you want (like in the train example), but wherever you can opt for the right option, thats the important thing, and it doesn't make you a hypocrite .

 

[Arfie]

Its good that you do buy free range chicken products, however its still hypocritical that you know full well that KFC and McD blatantly use and strongly rely upon battery and other intensively farmed animal products, yet you still occasionally buy their products

Not hypocritical at all. I buy free range (eggs in particular) because I like the taste, same as McD and KFC etc. I'm in now way dictating that everyone else should stop eating them there for not being hypocritical at all.

IMHO, hopefully one day soon you will take the step to stop visiting these blatant users of intensively farmed products (is there anything at all that these places sell that doesn't contain such products?), and will start to make your own burgars and deep fried chicken, except using animal products which you know are free range, and which i am sure will taste much better (IMHO home cooked stuff almost always tastes better than whatever you buy pre-made in a supermarket or takeaway etc). .

Don't hold your beath waiting for me to stop I like the taste of them and will continue eating them if and when I want to. Now if they start using free range ingredients I will be happy about that, but it is not and will never be the deciding factor in my choice of what to eat.

And you know what? Cooking my own food from raw ingredients rather than buying pre-made foods, has had so many positive consequences in so many areas. Home cooking has;
a. It has saved me money, big time. In the last 5 days i have only spent £37's on food (i cook for me and my partner), however i have cooked carrot and oregano soup, mushroom and tomato sauce gnocchi, sweetcorn and cheese filo parcels/pastries, ceasar salad, vegetable soup, vegetable stir-fry, fruit smoothies, bread fried in olive oil with tomato salsa on top and more. And i still have plenty of the original raw ingredients left like carrots, potato's, eggs and flour etc to do more with !

No offense, but that looks like £37 worth of composting material to me If I was really hungry I might eat one or two of those meals, but they are not what I like.

b. Home cooked food tastes better. Much better.

Not mine I don't like cooking in the slightest, if I had the cash I would eat out every night.

We have a choice over everything we put into our mouths, so we should make the right choice wherever possible. Don't you agree ?

Partially, but the "right choice" for you may not be the same choice for everyone else.

If you are happy to put all that time and effort into researching all your ingredients and their ecological impact and paying the higher price for them or restricting your diet, then good for you. I am not and I can live with that.

Arfie