meeting pigs eating meat

How I Decided Whether to Eat Meat – Part 3: Meeting Theresa and When Animals Die

Gavin Wren Food Opinion Pieces, Writing

Entering Andy’s farm, there was a garden centre feeling to it. Not a kitsch, OAP populated tea room, but an absence of the sprawling, muddy, farmyard surrounded by barns stacked with hay and tractors. The driveway was lined on both sides with potted plants of all sizes, from waist-high saplings through to towering specimens, as if we were entering a nursery for rare and exotic plants, before the driveway finally opened out, with the requisite hay-filled barns loomed into view.

Andy is an avid horticulturalist, growing various unusual bamboos on his labyrinthine farm, which has been developed from bare fields and a caravan into a rural idyl with a farmhouse over the last twenty-odd years. There’s also a plethora of unusual looking chickens, geese, sheep, cows and the reason for our visit – rare breed pigs. Specifically, the three sisters, a black-haired, enthusiastic and talkative trio who…

Tamworth black pig

How I Decided Whether to Eat Meat – Part 1: Spiking Vegetarians

Gavin Wren Food Opinion Pieces, Writing

Meat has received a lot of criticism recently, yet, in itself, it’s done nothing wrong. What has served up a big heap of wrong is society’s relationship with meat and the food industry’s pursuit of it, on a global level.

This is the first of a six-part story of meat and how I decided whether to continue eating it.

Spiking Vegetarians

My childhood diet was firmly in the meat ’n’ two veg category. Cooking was the sole responsibility of my mother, who, despite adventurous tendencies, relied on the formulaic meat plus carbs and veg principle. Grilled chicken breasts, sausages, a piece of fish or pork chops, surrounded by vegetables and spuds, or a good smattering of spag bol made with beef mince and slippery pasta.
Birthdays gave the birthdee free-reign over dinner, choosing whatever delicious morsels their stomach craved and my favourite treat was a meat fondue. A…

Should I eat meat?

Should I Eat Meat?

Gavin Wren Food Education, Food Opinion Pieces, Writing

Background. I’m having an existential crisis. The foundations of my culinary world are being rocked to their core, because asked myself the question “should I eat meat?”. The best way to describe my diet is flexitarian. I eat everything, however almost every meal I prepare at home is vegetarian, I rarely ever cook meat and buy fish once a week. If I try new recipes from cookbooks or blogs, they are almost exclusively vegetarian and …