The end of easy meat?
Contributed by VeggieGirl
Would you consider eating less meat for the greater global good? And
if you did, what would you miss most?
...
"Unfortunately," reads a notice on the National Vegetarian Society's
website, "we have now run out of all National Vegetarian Week
promotional materials." If there has been a rush on such veggie
propaganda this year, it's no surprise.
According to the last Food Standards Agency Consumer Attitudes survey,
vegetarians still only constitute a tiny minority of Britons. Just 2%
of respondents described themselves as vegetarian, with a further 5%
declaring themselves "partly" vegetarian. Whatever that means.
However, this National Vegetarian Week (May 19 - 26), there's every
reason for Britain's veggies to feel buoyant.
They may never have come close to winning the moral argument, but,
now, they may not need to. For years, there has been a steady flow of
bad meat-related news. Take your pick from BSE; the links between red
meat and bowel cancer; the role meat production plays in contributing
to greenhouse gasses globally (18% of the total); the treatment of
animals in industrial farming. Throw in a new key ingredient - soaring
meat prices - and it's not alarmist to suggest that, certainly among
informed western consumers, meat is heading toward a perfect storm of
problems which may, if not instantly, then certainly over the next
decade or so, radically alter the way we perceive it.
...
The question is: do you care? Would you be willing to eat less meat
for the greater global good? Do you relish the fresh eating
experiences that this new cauliflower-shaped world may have to offer?
Or is a world without T-bone too much to contemplate?
Indeed, if the age of cheap, freely available meat has passed, what
are we going to miss most? Is it the sausages, the bacon or the
spiritually uplifting simplicity of a good burger?
--
read full article:
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/food/2008/05/vegetarianism.html
Approved by andyba on June 30,2008 | 07:38:23
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