Response to Simon Heffer (Telegraph Octover 2009)

If Simon Heffer is unconvinced by the man made global warming argument for eating less beef then perhaps he would consider instead the facts of our rapidly growing global population, world water shortages and a finite amount of land to be sufficient reasons for at least moderating his meat intake rather than inciting us all to indulge. These facts alone are very real threats to world food security. Also adding to the pressure is the large number of people in countries such as China trying to move up the food chain, increasing demand for more grain intensive livestock products. Animal production does not make the most effective use of our land and water supplies, with grain-fed cattle requiring approximately 7kg of grain to produce a 1kg gain in live weight (compared to around 2kg in poultry) and 15 cubic metres of water per kg compared to around 3 cubic metres per kg for grain type crops. If some of the land used to produce meat for us greedy, overweight Westerners was used for crops instead, more people could get fed and if we also ate less of the meat produced ourselves, this would mean more to go around and help people become better nourished in the developing world.

Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute suggests in his book ‘Plan B 4.0: Mobilising to save Civilisation’ that ‘Those of us with diets heavy in fat-rich livestock products can do both ourselves and civilisation a favour by moving down the food chain’. Thus we don’t necessarily all have to go as far as become vegan to affect a noticeable change, but we can make a real difference by committing to a reduction in the amount of grain fed meat we eat (which we already know is too much per head to be healthy). When we do eat meat, we should resist the temptation to over do it (no more over sized steaks!), watch the waste and make sure it is from a home grown extensively reared animal and grass fed if that is what nature intended. Making these less selfish, more sustainable choices would help us move towards a more level pegging on the food chain across the globe. The NHS would also benefit and if Simon Heffer is wrong about the whole man made global warming thing (although of course we’d all love him to be right), then thankfully less harm will have been done. One thing is for certain. This is about humanity and civilisation and nothing to do with any international anti-capitalist conspiracy theory, whatever that may be.

Lester Brown

Attended an incredibly thought provoking lecture at Compassion in World Farming by Lester R Brown on Thursday.

You can listen to it here: http://www.ciwf.org.uk/news/factory_farming/lecture_2009_lester_brown.aspx

Grab a coffee, take time out and listen..... Really interested in what anyone thinks.

Why cook at All?

We had a great plug last week when BBC3 in its series on teaching people to cook featured a family in Putney who relied on takeaway food. Click here to watch the programmeAmongst the junk they also ate SCOFF and our plug was great(Delivery man, box, daughter when told of SCOFF was eaten rather than cooking replying 'Yum - is there any for me?', great shot of rare breed sausages, mash and veg after 32 minutes). The only issue I had with the programme was with the observations it made. It claimed that the family paid £7.95 per serve for lasagne from SCOFF (it does), but could make it for £1.50 per serve. In actual fact our serve at sales price £7.95 costs considerably more to make than £1.50 in raw ingredients alone (and serves a little more than 1 portion they were cooking in its place. In order for us to provide this we:
source beef from cattle grass fed on a farm in Devon we know (they used cheap supermarket beef in the programme)
buy organic milk, british cheese and butter for our sauce
use organic tomatoes in our ragu base
cook and deliver this to order within 45 minutes of the order being received
deliver the meal hot in 45 minutes
So - we saved Anton going to the farmers market where he would have paid £2 for the single serve of beef, £2 for the other ingredients, 1.5 hours of his time (about £9 on minimum wage), delivery cost - about £2.95 (the cheapest you can get anything delivered in London). So the comparative cost is more like £15.95, not £1.50. (Oh - and the government charges us VAT on takeaway food, but not on groceries or ready meals. In fact, after taking VAT off the price we charge we are considerably cheaper than Anton can make (if you factor in his time and convenience).
There is a price for convenience, and I'm delighted that families such as Anton's are buying great food from us. The real story from the night was that the most important thing they found was eating together was a pleasure, rather than individually. As a thank you for being such a loyal customer (and the plug we didn't know about) Anton's family wins a family meal for 4 (feeds 4 - 5), which features a main meal, vegetables or salad, organic ice cream for pudding, all for £25. Why bother to cook when you can outsource your food preparation with such great provennace for such a good price and sit around the table together to eat it!