I am a great fan of the whole ethical eating thing, don’t get me wrong, but as with many people find it hard to follow their diet plan, I find it hard to live up to my own food shopping expectations.
I really want that warm fuzzy feeling that we all know we get from buying products direct from the farmer, and seeing the grass from which our meat has fed. Its just, is it really viable? I for one do not have a car to get to many farm shops, nor the money to pay for the higher priced produce on a regular basis (however worthwhile it is). Seeing as the local butchers’ is shut after I finish work, my current lifestyle means that I am often left with no other option but to hope that the free range chicken is actually as such, and didn’t get muddled up with the battery farmed alternative which I am well aware are processed within the same factory walls.
However I would like to point out that fair-trade produce is something which I have grown to value. It supports farmers in developing communities and product lines are ever expanding – in recent years supermarkets have been good (whether to line their pockets or not is irrelevant) in increasing fourfold the fair trade products they stock. I just wonder, maybe such a scheme should be rolled out for farmers in the UK which isn’t solely on an organic basis.
Until the time when I am able to live with a limitless budget, I will continue to support fair-trade as a basis of my ethical eating ‘ethos’
Nevertheless I did make an amazing (other people’s words, not mine) free range victoria sponge* last week using a River Cottage recipe (I’m starting to love this man nearly as much as dear Nigel) – 7 eggs produced great results from the chickens in the back garden (they are still young and their eggs are a little tiny). Yum. I finish a year work placement next week – think it will be a lemon curd variety as my leaving cake to those who I have worked with 😉 I have to make sure I am missed eh?
*How to make friends…
Cake, how I love thee. Nearly as much as cheese. And Spag Bol (tsk tsk I am well aware no such thing actually exists in Italy but it is still top of my list).
I think I will sign off now before I start disintegrating this post into a meaningless ramble..…
(This isn’t my cake, mine was yummier…)
The Turnip Hat 