slowmotion
Active Member
I can't honestly say that that important issue has kept me awake at night, sweating.
Meat is (climate) Murder....
- Thread starter Fab Foodie
- Start date
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I can't honestly say that that important issue has kept me awake at night, sweating.
OP
OP
Fab Foodie
Guru
I think the question to ask is whether the planet can afford cheap meat?
Undercover moderator….we know what you are.
mudsticks
Squire
Try the cost of housing first.
Hundreds and hundreds of thousands of pounds
Now that's bonkers expensive for what is basically a few, often not very well constructed walls and roof around some restricted airspace..
Yes I know it's capitalism, and what 'the market' says it's worth
Why is it 'obsessive' or 'middle class*' to care about eating well, we are literally made from our food, growing kids especially.
And how it's grown either enhances or degrades the rest of our world, air soil, water, landscape.
*The idea that people being able to access good food is either 'middle class' or an 'obsession' is a big part of the problem.
A bit like the attitude that good education is an elitist waste of time for the 'lower orders'
That attitude plays right into the hands of laisse faire politicians who will say that government has no obligation to see that things are structured so that it's population has available to them enough food of good quality.
As if poor diets, and low grade food are something that we should happily accept as 'normal' for a large proportion of our population.
The fact that people can't afford decent food is not because food is 'too expensive'.
Fwiw chicken itself used to be seen as a luxury food, until intensive factory farming methods were brought in to change that, any decent person seeing how 'cheap' chicken is raised would be horrified, would probably never touch it again..
Try raising one in even basically acceptable conditions, add on the cost of your time, then come back to me and start blethering about 'Puccini'.
The price of our food has gone down relative to just about everything else over the last few decades, mainly because the cost of producing it has been externalised onto polluting the environment, poor animal welfare, lowered incomes for workers and producers in the food industry , and ultimately poor human health.
tl,dr.
Why don't some people have enough money for, or access to, good food for themselves and their kids?
It's political, it's not because of the 'high price' of decent food.
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fozy tornip
fozympotent
mudsticks
Squire
Are they of the 'happy herring' JRM stocks tho.??
ps red lentils for export are often - (but not always) - grown on the land of folks in countries who don't have enough food for themselves.
They don't do so well in the UK - I did try ..
A better example would be a kilo of UK grown field beans, or dried peas 👍🏼
fozy tornip
fozympotent
I can't honestly say that dried peas have kept me awake at night, sweating. In case anyone's interested.
mudsticks
Squire
No me neither.
Whereas, an enormous plateful of beef bourguignon, followed by a decent platter of cheeses, washed down with rather more red wine than is strictly advisable -
- has been known so to do.. 😳
AuroraSaab
Legendary Member
I think there's some truth in this. I think you can eat healthily and cheaply by cooking from scratch but you can't include a lot of fresh, good quality meat.
Some of the criticism of Jack Monroe has been that it's a bit of a middle class view of being skint. Sandpaper the edges of your tuna tin to make a pastry cutter because if you're frugal and just planned a bit more you really can eat well for 50p a meal. If you're really skint an 80p crap quality frozen pizza or 5 donuts for 50p is a treat you can afford when you can't afford to go anywhere or do anything. Eating a bowl of lentils doesn't hit the spot in the same way.
mudsticks
Squire
And anyway, who can afford sandpaper nowadays??🙄
I just use an upturned glass of appropriate size, if I ever get round to doing anything as fiddly as making little pies, or making biscuits..
Agree re the cheap and easy treat.
AuroraSaab
Legendary Member
I know. I use it all the time and you can usually only buy it in packs of 5 for £3 plus. Really skint people aren't making pastry from scratch. They are buying 10 tarts for 50p at Heron Frozen Foods because crappy food is cheap and often really scrummy.
I'm all for frugality. I'm tighter than 2 coats of paint. The issue though is why some people only have £20 to spend on food in the first place, not really how to make that £20 go further. We are 'make do and mend'- ing like there's a flipping war on.
I do think we need to move towards eating less meat. How do you move to high quality meat for everyone without making it a luxury only those with money can afford, like lamb has become? I wondered what meat consumption in the 1950/60's was like compared to now but couldn't find the stats. I feel like we ate smaller meat portions when I was young but maybe not.
I'm all for frugality. I'm tighter than 2 coats of paint. The issue though is why some people only have £20 to spend on food in the first place, not really how to make that £20 go further. We are 'make do and mend'- ing like there's a flipping war on.
I do think we need to move towards eating less meat. How do you move to high quality meat for everyone without making it a luxury only those with money can afford, like lamb has become? I wondered what meat consumption in the 1950/60's was like compared to now but couldn't find the stats. I feel like we ate smaller meat portions when I was young but maybe not.
mudsticks
Squire
Well yes, that's what I was saying in my longer piece.
It's not that food prices have gone up.
In real terms they're come down, been depressed for many years, hence farmers, growers, and foodworkers getting very little return for their work.
Many foodworkers are also using food banks.
The reasons people can't cook and eat well are not to do with the price of food
It's to do with the cost of everything else - particularly over-capitalised housing.
There are many many ways we could be getting better 'good' food availablity across the board, particularly into schools and hospitals, and areas of deprivation.
.
But those methods not popular with governments who espouse letting 'the market' take care of everything.
The market has clearly failed badly in this area.
AuroraSaab
Legendary Member
Yes, food is/was really cheap compared to when I was young. People baked out of necessity because it was cheaper now buying cakes is cheap and baking cakes is a hobby.
Letting the housing market get totally out of hand is a failing of successive governments over the last 40 years and the cause of so many other issues.
Letting the housing market get totally out of hand is a failing of successive governments over the last 40 years and the cause of so many other issues.
BoldonLad
Old man on a bike. Not a member of a clique.
- Location
- South Tyneside
If “over capitalized housing” is a particular problem, does that imply that “good food” is more prevelant in areas of cheap housing?
mudsticks
Squire
Not usually, as those in cheaper and or less desirable housing areas will probably be on proportionately even lower incomes, and have even less disposable income after bills are paid.
Areas of deprivation tend also to have even less access to fresh food on their doorsteps.
ie Waitrose doesn't set up shop where the local population are on very low incomes.
If they have a local shop at all it will be more likely selling what sells - hyper processed , cheap foods.
There are a number of schemes running that are getting fresh and better food into areas where the majority of the population is on low incomes, but provision is patchy and reliant on the energy goodwill and often unpaid labour of a few concerned local citizens .
I'm sure you know all this stuff really anyway.
I feel like I've written this hundreds of times before.
