Morals About Meat

                                         A Spanish butcher cutting some meat for me

Readers will know that the subject of eating meat is one I have explored regularly on this blog. As a former vegetarian, I have issues with our relationship with meat and the fact that far too many people in Britain choose to ignore the uncomfortable aspects of eating animals.

Butcher shops as we knew them, with carcasses hanging in the Windows and the smell of blood pervading the air, are no longer prevalent, people no longer want to see the dead animal that their cut of meat is coming from. Rather, we want meat that has been processed, reformulated and reshaped so it's unrecognisable.

With this out of sight, out of mind mentality, we can close the door on the horrors of animals being intensively battery farmed in disturbing conditions and pumped full of antibiotics, because of the confined, diseased conditions they are living in.

What sticks in my craw is the fact that we British keep pets and wouldn't dream of subjecting our dogs or cats to the levels of inhumanity shown to cows, pigs, chickens and lambs. All species of animals have emotions, a dogs fear is no greater than a cows!

In rural Spain and other Mediterranean countries, there is an understanding that some animals are for food, however, the concept of humane regarding the animals they are going to eat is similar to that applied to their pets. The honesty about the animals they are eating can be seen in most Spanish butcher shops.

                                       Pigs trotters are still commonly eaten in Spain

                    Chickens that aren't pumped full of water, additives and preservatives

There has always been fierce debate over the origins of humans eating meat. Evidence suggests that the earliest signs of meat-eating, some 2.5 million years ago, was in the form of raw meat. Use of fire for cooking came much later, about 800,000 years ago.

Extensive studies have demonstrated that it would have been biologically implausible for humans to evolve such a large brain on a raw, vegan diet. Humans have exceptionally large, neuron-rich brains compared with (for example) gorillas, who are three times as massive as humans, yet have smaller brains with one-third the neurons. Why? The answer, it seems, is the gorillas' raw, vegan diet, devoid of animal protein.

The subject of eating meat will always be divisive but one thing's for sure, when we eat intensively farmed animals, however scrupulously the conditions that the drugged, overstressed animals are reared in are concealed, there is still complicity. We have the power to choose and we can stop supporting the big corporations who have no regard for animal welfare. Yes, free-range and organic is more costly, however, if like me you choose to eat meat, find a decent butcher and ask him where the animal comes from, how it was treated, what it was fed on, and quite frankly don't see it as your god-given right to eat meat everyday! Do as previous generations did and have it three-four times a week at most.

Brisket of beef (free-range) is a cheaper cut of meat which requires slow cooking, the result should be meat which melts in the mouth. These types of cheaper cuts are less popular nowadays which hi lights our relationship with meat and our lack of understanding about how to cook it. These cuts of meat can be stretched over a couple of nights dinners when combined with lots of lovely vegetables and gravy and bolstered up with dumplings or Yorkshire puddings.

Rolled brisket with red wine
Recipe

1.2kg rolled beef brisket
3 tablespoons sunflower oil
250ml red wine
125ml water
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

Heat oil in a heavy based pan until very hot
Sear meat on all sides

Place meat in slow cooker
Pour red wine, Worcestershire sauce and water into the hot frying pan and simmer for a couple of minutes, scraping up all the browned bits stuck at the bottom of the pan
Pour wine mixture into the slow cooker and set temperature to low. Cook for 6-8 hours
You can add chopped carrots, onions and garlic to cook with the beef as it will infuse the vegetables with delicious flavours
Remove beef and cover with foil for 20 minutes
Pour liquid from the slow cooker into a saucepan and bring to a simmer, dissolve 4 tablespoons of cornflour in 80ml of cold water and slowly pour into the simmering liquid, stirring until thickened
Remove string from meat and it will fall apart

Serve with the vegetables, mashed potatoes and gravy

'We think of dogs as being more like people than pigs; but pigs are highly intelligent animals and if we kept pigs as pets and reared dogs for food, we would reverse our order of preference. Are we turning persons into bacon?'

- Peter Singer

Love Donna xxxxxxx