How I Decided Whether to Eat Meat Part 6: Eat Whatever the Hell You Want

Gavin Wren Food Opinion Pieces, Writing

The majority of the UK population don’t care where their meat comes from, as long as it’s cheap. The average UK shopper buys food based on price, not quality. Many of you probably understand the issues around meat, therefore I’m preaching to the converted and these very words are lost in the foodie bubble of “we need to do this” and “we must to do that”. Blah blah, bloody blah.

Is my exploration of meat, of being an ‘ethical carnivore’ little more than a bourgeouis hobbyist interest for the middle classes?

Louise Gray’s book of the same name took a far greater leap into this world than I have been able to, a fascinating and beautifully written journey, yet, as with my own investigations, it leaves me wondering on a larger scale, how does any of this change the society we live in?

It adds to the conversation of woke…

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…

butternut squash black background

‘The Main Ingredient’ and Culinary Prejudices

Gavin Wren Food Education, Food Opinion Pieces, Writing

Forgive me father. It’s confessional corner again, time to lay bare yet another one of my peculiar little nuances regarding food. This time it’s a distinctly partial perspective of mine, a way of approaching food which has taken years to become apparent, and taken quite some time to ultimately dispel. It affected how I planned meals, how I chose recipes and how I did my shopping. This particularly peculiar perception worked to furnish me with …