About Organic Meat, or How I Changed My Tune!
by Ysanne Spevack
I eat meat.
That was a big statement. Many of my friends and colleagues will be completely shocked, as will some members of my family. But I’ll say it again, because it is the truth. I eat meat. Organic meat, about once a fortnight. I have been vegetarian or vegan for the best part of twenty years. I was a vegan throughout the period when I traveled extensively around the world. Despite the extreme difficulties of finding anything at all to eat that wasn’t beef in Columbia, I remained a vegan. Even though I would have loved to have tried authentic Japanese sushi whilst living in Tokyo, I stayed true to my beliefs and refrained from all fish.
So you can see why it’s such a big deal to now come out in print as a meat eater. I’m coming out today because I am not the only one. I know lots of people that were strict vegetarians throughout the eighties and most of the nineties, but who are indulging in organic meat in the 21st century. I originally stopped eating meat for a combination of reasons. I basically could not rationalise killing animals to make my dinner, and I was also concerned about the healthiness of eating red meat. As time went on, I learned more facts which confirmed my belief that vegetarianism is the way. Facts about food production in relation to world hunger. The figures that dictate that if we all became vegetarian and grew grains and beans on the land reserved for meat production, that we could easily feed more people than the amount now living on the planet. It was information such as this combined with my original emotional response to the idea of killing animals that maintained my vegetarian stance for such a long time.
I went further and became vegan as more facts came my way. The realisation that the milk industry works hand in hand with the meat industry. The truth about leather not just being a waste product from the beef industry, but being an important economic factor which supports the meat market. And the fact that I was simply feeling so much better for my vegetarianism, and enjoying trying out all those new recipes.
But as time has marched on, my response to these truths has changed. My objection to intensively reared meat does not seem to follow through to organically reared meat. Which may seem like a contradiction, but does make some sense to me. During my years as a vegan or vegetarian, I did not always balance my diet as well as I should. Every smart vegetarian knows that you need to consciously cook in order to obtain a balanced quotient of quality proteins. It’s simply no good just to cut out the meat without replacing the lost nutrients. As well-intentioned as I was, by the end of the nineties I was beginning to feel a bit undernourished. I wasn’t too thin, and I wasn’t particularly anaemic, but I began to listen to my body when I started to salivate at the thought of a nice piece of chicken or some freshly fried fish.
I don’t want to eat non-organic meat. It is poisonous, because it contains the residues of a daily dose of antibiotics and growth hormones fed to distressed animals living in barbaric conditions. I don’t want to eat non-organic dairy products, because the toxic residues from intensively farmed dairy cows are stored in fats, particularly cream. I will always be disgusted about the uncivilised and inhumane way in which battery farmed poultry are mistreated throughout their artificially short and horrible lives. But I have grown to feel comfortable with the thought of truly free-range chickens eating appropriate food in a suitable farmyard with the grim reality of ending up as my dinner. I still have trouble reconciling the thought of drinking the milk of a much larger beast than myself with more than one stomach and hooves. Especially as I am over the age of toddling by a long shot. But I somehow can’t resist some expertly crafted cheeses, and blissfully gobble them up whilst trying not to think of where they came from.
My friend Annabel Kapp has started to eat organic chicken again over the last year. Annabel is a busy artist based in Greenwich, London, and she is expecting her first child. Annabel was vegetarian for about 18 years. She eats chicken about once every fortnight now, but will only eat organic poultry. Annabel’s current diet change began for the same reason as my return to eating meat. She was feeling weak and tired, and intuitively knew that eating animal protein would be good for her. However, Annabel’s thoughts were confirmed by reading a pamphlet by Dr Alex Forbes called The British Diet. In his controversial book, Dr Forbes recounts his past experiences in Greece. He was a strict vegan for many years before travelling to Greece for a holiday. He decided to eat some of the free-range and non-certified but organic meat during his stay, and also enjoyed his holiday by swimming. On his return to the UK, Alex resumed his vegan diet, but continued swimming regularly. He discovered that he was much weaker, and had lost the strength and stamina that he had enjoyed whilst eating meat in Greece. Dr Forbes concluded that people who grow up in Western societies with a standard diet do not process vegetable protein as effectively as those who are raised with a vegetarian diet.
This conclusion shifted Annabel’s thinking on the physical impact to her body of vegetarianism. She deci