Vegetarian Britain?

 As anyone reading my blog will quickly realise, I eat meat.  I don't think anybody could be unaware that there has been some discussion about the environmental impact of meat production recently, with many arguing that we could feed many more people if only everyone were to become vegetarian.  This is an interesting argument, which I think is based on the issue that we currently grow a lot of food that could be eaten by humans and then feed it to animals.  In my opinion, in this case the point is a valid one, this is an extremely wasteful practice.  However, I would argue that if we used more traditional farming methods, where cattle are left out to graze in fields and hence eat grass all day, then the problem is significantly reduced.  After all, a cow eating grass is doing something truly amazing - converting grass, which humans can't eat, into meat and dairy products, which humans can.  This, of course, applies to livestock other than cows as well.

 The other side to this argument is one of sustainability and environmental impact.  How much of our countryside would have to be ploughed up to grow crops if everyone in the UK were to become vegetarian?  Since the original EatingBritish project, I have often wondered if it would even be possible to be a vegetarian and eat only food produced in Britain.  I think it would be very difficult, if not impossible, because as far as I am aware we simply can't grow the right kind of crops here.  So, if we were all to go vegetarian, it would surely mean that we would have to import an even greater proportion of our food.  Would that be sustainable?  The recent dry weather and wild fires in Russia have prompted them to ban exports of wheat, which of course has already pushed up wheat prices around the world.  I see this as being the problem of relying too heavily on food imports, if something happens to the supply chain, if you can't produce enough food yourself, you've got serious problems.

 I have found it very difficult to reliably find grass fed meat in the shops, otherwise I would choose this option all the time.

Winter foods

I haven't posted for a while - sorry! :-) But, things have been fairly busy. Despite this, I haven't been neglecting my Eating British project. Last week passed smoothly and there are still plenty of British vegetables for sale in my local supermarket - even tomatoes! I do wonder how much longer this will last though, so far my predictions of things getting more difficult haven't come true.

I think there will be a change, but by switching to more traditionally 'winter' meals I should be able to accommodate this. So, I shall be buying more parsnips, turnips, carrots and that kind of thing from now on. This is a different style of cooking to what I am used to, but I made a lamb casserole last week and it was really good, so that's encouraging! Although my knowledge of history is weak at the best of times, I'm fairly confident that in the past people would have been used to changing their diet between the seasons, where as today we tend to eat what ever we want, whenever we want it. I think that the important question to ask is whether this modern lifestyle is really sustainable in the long term?

Curiously, I was talking to someone last weekend and I got to telling him about this project. He thought it was very interesting and wished me luck, but he said that whilst he thought it would relatively possible for me, as one person, to do this, he didn't think it would be sustainable for all 60 million people living in the UK. I wonder if this is really true? I shall have to do some more homework on this one, but it's a big question and I wonder if anyone really knows the answer. I suppose that this was very effectively tested during the second world war when rationing was introduced because we were unable to import as much food as we needed. The fact that people had to really 'go without' during those times suggests to me that the answer was certainly no then. But, will it have changed now? Have modern methods of agriculture made food production more efficient, implying that we would be able to cope better now?

The tomato chutney that I made a little while ago has been fixed, I think. I re-boiled it once I had the time, without the lid on the saucepan, and it thickened up nicely. So that's good.