Adventures with an organic veg box!

So my first Abel&Cole organic box arrived today. It arrived just as I was leaving for work but i didn't have time to do anything with it. Even though I had looked at what was on the list I was still excited to see what had come.

I feel really good about this new lifestyle change. I hope I can keep up with all the cooking that it demands. I love the fact we are no longer buying eggs or milk from the supermarket, and hopefully the bread will be nice and will freeze well so we can buy bread from them too. I am considering giving up eggs and milk entirely, especially after reading this article which admittedly is about slaughterhouses, but the poor cows and chickens do all end up somewhere, not to mention the majority of the male offspring. I originally became vegetarian because of video footage showing (not quite as bad as) this sort of thing. I just don't want to be responsible for that sort of treatment to animals. Anyway, that is totally another post!

So, I got home and we have carrots, leaks leeks (that was a total typo, there are no leaks, that I know of, although apparently in glasgow many people's pipes are busting with all this freezing weather), potatoes, onions (although I kind of think maybe they came from somewhere else as they are not on the receipt, but they certainly weren't there when I left the house this morning!), fennel, ramiro pepper, cherry tomatoes, oranges, kiwis and bananas. I am a bit slow on the uptake and was really surprised to see the mud still on my vegies!! lol!

I am going to make leek and fennel risotto. What does fennel even taste like anyway? I have no idea whether I will even like this food, but how do you know if you don't try? I can always tell them I don't like it and then they won't send it.

Then as i was sat pondering what to do with the vegies there was a sharp knock at the door and there stood our local greengrocer, the one we used to get our veg from, but now we have a veg box...

Seems Mr Brown Eyes has bought up pretty much their entire shop! They sell lots of on-the-way-out-of-date food from health food shops, organic shizzle for dead cheap, most of our kitchen looks like a Holland & Barrett stock room at the best of times. I have no idea where this new stuff will go, it won't fit in the kitchen. I wonder what it even is!

Anyway, often to find out whether I like fennel!

Factory Farmed Organic chickens?

This would seem to follow naturally on from yesterday's "Chicken or Egg" post. And it does. Mr Brown Eyes and I were talking about whether one needs to own their own chickens in order for them to live in good conditions, or whether we can just pay someone else to do that for us, such as in the case of buying organic eggs.

We used to buy all our eggs free-range until I found out that free-range eggs are fairly routinely de-beaked, because of the unnaturally (if a chicken is at all natural) large flock sizes they live in. Since then we buy free range from a local farmer who does not debeak, or organic if we are elsewhere.

Mr Brown Eyes was saying that industry standard may even move towards organic, that actually there is nothing inherently wrong with large companies and even maybe monsanto (or someone equivalent in size and stature) could farm organic eggs. The thing is that I do not trust large capitalist organisations. They wait for us not to be watching, and then they cut a corner. When that has gone unnoticed they cut another one.

I also felt that I probably couldn't pay anyone to keep chickens as well as I would keep them if I had just 2 in my garden. I presumed an organic (the highest standard of animal welfare) chicken would not have as much space as they would if I just kept 2 in my garden. Or maybe some might, but certainly it would not be assured to be the case. I went using my friend "google" to try to find how much space they would have.

Before finding the answer I got distracted by the very thing that was my initial concerns - big companies not only being outside the law but actually writing the laws themselves (just wait til I get round to writing my GM post!).

I have just been reading an article in times online, admittedly dated in 2007 but nonetheless, stating that organic chickens are typically bred in windowless sheds, given vaccines and fed chemically treated food. Some even have their beaks "trimmed". Hmmm. Apparently this is allowed because of pressure from supermarkets which has resulted in the standards being changed to suit the big companies. I don't much like the fact I live in a country where rules are not made by politicians for people, but are made for profit for companies.

These chickens can be kept in conditions with 14 birds per square metre, they would definitely be better off as 2 in my garden. They are moved to more "organic" conditions as we know them only once they are economically viable.

The Soil Association seems to have the best welfare conditions, so i am going to beware anything organic that is not SA, which only accounts for 30% of organic eggs apparently.

I think I may actually adopt some ex-battery hens:
http://www.bhwt.org.uk/adopt_some_hens.php

I think there was more of a point to this post when I started writing, but I seem to have totally lost the thread!

Chicken or Egg? Or Cat?

I have been vegetarian for over 13 years, getting towards half of my life. For the past year or so I have been considering taking this to the natural conclusion of veganism. Last year I gave up cows milk (although somehow it crept back in, I think it might go out again this year). I only eat organic dairy when I eat dairy.

My eggs come from a local farmer, who doesn't use organic feed but does meet all the welfare requirements for organic, so I am happy with that. I couldn't see the problem with eggs on a small scale... the hen lays the egg whatever, in fact I do believe, but this could be myth, that they lay more the happier they are, so there is motivation to keep the hen on your side! The eggs they ave laid are not fertilised and so were never going to be chicks. Obviously in large scale farming them some chicks are hatched in order to get new hens and the cocks are killed. There are also welfare issues in standard farming, and even in free-range farming colonies are often too big and hens are de-beaked. (If you don;t know about de-beaking you should google this).

I started thinking I would like my own chickens. They are funny anyway, I quite like to watch chickens. Plus if I kept them myself I could ensure good diet, good conditions and love. Plus I would get eggs and could eat them guilt-free.

Then yesterday I was reading about how tiring it is for hens to lay eggs, and how really if their egg is not fertilised they like to eat it themselves in order to regain some of the lost nutrients. So, even if i kept my own hens maybe i still shouldn't eat the eggs? Maybe I could collect a couple of the eggs and let them have the rest? Would that be a compromise?

Then what about the cat I want to get? Pet owning was discussed in a previous entry. I could hardly have a cat and chickens, that wouldn't be very fair on either of them.

I just watched a video of a man who keeps chickens because he doesn't want a pet like a cat or a dog that just eats food and gives nothing back. Maybe I should get a chicken or 2 instead? I would have to construct somewhere safe so the foxes don't get them though...

Turkelicious... Or, On being vegetarian

The other day I heard a group of people bemoaning their Christmas poultry. Turkeys, they say, are dry. They would rather not eat them, but that is what they are given. They talk about how they leave them on the plate, or how they endure them with no satisfaction. Yet still they eat them.

As they are defiling the bird does the thought never cross their mind that before being on their plate causing such offence and displeasure it was actually a living, breathing creature? I shouldn't think the turkey much wants to be eaten, never mind being eaten by people who actually don't even like it.

I found the whole conversation offensive. I have actually been vegetarian for 13 years now (with a brief period of pescetarianism, which has long since passed, save for a very short fish eating holiday whilst in Japan, it didn't make me feel big or clever, and was only ever a foray). A few years ago I started to only eat organic dairy and eggs (except for some local eggs from a local farmer who only keeps a small colony and doesn't debeak - so essentially organic except for the feed, organic in terms of welfare) due to living conditions. The deal breaker with the eggs was when i found out that free range egg-laying chickens are frequently debeaked.

About 18 months ago though a realisation, that I think I had been suppressing, came to the forefront of my mind like a thunder clap, and it's hung around like a bad smell since, if it's OK to mix metaphors like minestrone soup. I realised that my whole moral position was invalid.

I became vegetarian after learning about the conditions in which meat animals are kept and killed. Not so much that they are actually killed, more the way in which they were. With time I felt less strongly about this, and more about the health benefits of limiting (to zero in this case) meat intake and increasing plant based foods. Now my position is a mixture of both of those and also more strongly the eco argument. I think it would be fair to say I was an environmental vegetarian.

I haven't actually read that article but in short I believe it is very inefficient in terms of food, water and fuel to eat a meat based diet. I also believe the meat industry to be more polluting, and in some cases toxic. I understand there is a book I need to read called The Vegetarian Myth which deals with whether this is actually the case. At this stage I will state that I have always said that if we were to go back to traditional farming methods and crop rotations and as such we needed animals for manure that I would not really know where I stood. Although I don't see why we would need to eat the animals until they died of natural causes anyway, and at that point there wouldn't be enough for everyone to eat... Anyway, I digress.

So, environmental vegetarian, yes? Yep. Except that then, as I was saying before, I realised my entire moral view fell down. What about the food, water, fuel and pollution associated with the egg and dairy industry? What about the young cockerels and the young calves condemned to death by those same industries? Wasn't I just supporting those? Oh dear. So I toyed with becoming vegan, and this is where I think the morality lies. It's just such a lifestyle change that I don't think I can be bothered. What a weak argument. It guilts me to think that thought let alone say it out loud or blog about it!

I decided to become a "social vegetarian", that is akin to a social smoker where one is a non-smoker except in social situations. I would be a non-vegetarian except in social situations (people's houses, restaurants etc). I would not want to use the word vegan and water down the tremendous will power and effort put in by people who do eliminate ALL animals products from their lives. I did very well for about 7 months - I did still eat eggs, but stopped drinking cows milk, only rarely ate cheese, bought soya alternatives etc. I don't eat a dairy marg anyway. I don't really know what happened with all that. I think I will start it up again. In fact I see a challenge coming on - vegan for a week, how do I do? Then I can try a month etc.

I was having a conversation with a fellow vegetarian last night, I was saying I should grow some backbone and give up eggs and dairy, and he was agreeing, saying he was from a hindu family and that he believed the hindu diet to be the most moral. Then some other people joined in, a couple, where one would like to be vegetarian and one wouldn't, and the one that would feels she can't because of the one that won't. Then someone else joined in saying, "There is no such thing as vegetarian anyway, only carnivores and vegans".

What a crock of shit. What am I then? A carnivore? Hrmmm. I mean, I know she is making my argument (with a thai chicken curry on her plate, mind), but I do believe that anything you do is better than doing nothing.

Of course even what seems to be such a simple line of reasoning such as this does throw open conundrums... Packing, storage and transportation of vegan products may be less energy efficient for starters.

Soya has its own anti-arguments, but there are other alternatives to soya. Not Tiger White though, my god, that substance sounds like the answer, but tastes like the devil! I am a firm believer that you can make yourself like anything if you just keep eating it. Anything except Tiger White.