Читать книгу The Savvy Shopper - Rose Prince - Страница 12

Animal welfare and disease should be grouped together because the latter is often a consequence of low standards in the former. Good animal welfare practice should include:

• Natural feed with a low protein content for slow growth, plus plenty of forage.

• Room to move – what is known in the business as low stocking density.

• Free access to outdoors in daylight.

• Good deep bedding, preferably straw.

• Access to plenty of water.

• Natural lighting.

• Freedom to behave naturally.

• No long road journeys.

• Low stress at slaughter, a rest beforehand and low noise levels.

The majority of farm animals never know a stress-free existence like this. As you will find out in this book, pig and poultry farms are especially intensive. With low stress, the incidence of disease is minimal. Viruses and bacteria spread in intensive rearing systems, and trucking livestock around the country does not help – as proven by the 2001 foot and mouth epidemic.

Eating meat is a big deal, and much respect is due to an animal that has been reared for food. With the emphasis on plentiful and cheap – a mantra followed in food supply for the last 50 years – the welfare of animals has somehow become unimportant to those who eat them. We have picked up some nasty habits: eating only the fillets and prime cuts as if the rest of the animal did not exist; eating a burger or chicken breast a day for just a few pennies; but, worst of all, a lack of curiosity. No one asks, so nothing changes.

Over the last decade, much time has been invested in debating how a fox should be killed, yet the majority of chickens we eat eke out their wretched existence in a broiler house, in conditions that should shame meat eaters. And animal welfare is a problem for vegetarians, too. Milk and egg production still see some of the cruellest practice in the food business. Dairy cows can spend their entire lives being unable to graze, going through lactation after lactation with all the inherent health problems that such a system can create.

Just a few questions when shopping for meat will make an enormous difference. There is much that shoppers can and should ask butchers and retailers before they buy. That is how free-range eggs found their way into supermarkets.

Finally it is worth bearing in mind that British animal welfare standards, while not good enough in the intensive farming sector, are still a vast improvement on welfare standards in Europe and elsewhere.