Just as the sun has started shining  and The Man from Salford is happily throwing igniting fluid all over the barbecue, (FSC charcoal, he chirps, better than burning kerosene on the Rayburn), I suggest we might stop to consider our level of meat consumption.  He is not amused, but world hunger is hardly a laughing matter.

Last week aid charities claimed to have given out record levels of food aid this year, although did point out that in part this may be because they are becoming more effective at meeting need.  Nevertheless, despite evidence to the contrary on our supermarket shelves, there is a global food shortage. 

There are a number of reasons for this shortage.  Rising world population is certainly a huge issue.  The burning of food for bio-fuel has restricted availability and pushed prices way beyond the means of many of the world’s poor.  At local levels food production is halted or disturbed by shifting and unpredictable climate events.  A year ago Dr Rajendra Pachauri suggested we should all consider being vegetarian for one day of the week in order to protect the environment. 

Environmental solutions at a global level do not always translate well on a local basis however.  Yes meat production does contribute to 18% of the worlds greenhouse gas emmissions.  This is not just because of bovine flatulence.  Huge swathes of rainforest are lost either to  provide grazing for cattle or to produce soy feed for that cattle.  This type of farming is not sustainable and does no favours to the world’s poor.  Yet the beef cattle pictured above can hardly be held responsible for destruction of rainforests.  

These cows are our local cows.  Willow and I were on one of our wild flower hunts when I took this picture.  I liked their reflection in the canal.  There was a group of fourteen in this field including calves and a bull.   It is hardly a scene of intensive or aggressive agriculture.  When Goldilocks first started to talk she pointed to a field of cows not unlike these, giggled and said, ‘Look, they’re eating the floor!’      

Eating the floor around here means pasture.  The land is not suitable for large scale arable cultivation, or at least not without resorting to unsustainable methods.  Much of Britain consists of this type of pasture land.  Livestock graze on grass, the grass (all being well) is cut during the summer months to provide winter feed.  The soil in this kind of pasture stores carbon safely away.  The pasture is rich in nitrogen fixing clovers and can be sustained without resorting to energy intensive fertilisers.  A Turkish lentil farmer would think I was bonkers (and our local farmers would agree with him) for importing lentils to eat when we have such a rich source of high quality protein on our doorstep.

Nevertheless, meat from pasture could only sustain somewhere in between a third to two thirds of Britain’s current meat and dairy consumption.  This means our over indulgence in these food products is still almost certainly contributing to environmental degradation and world hunger.  

I found a George Monbiot article from a couple of years ago, (failed to bookmark for reference and now can’t find it again!) that suggested a weekly allowance of 420g of meat per person per week would constitute a sustainable portion.  It doesn’t sound too bad, especially if like me you like mixing it all up with pulses and veg anyway.  I can make a rasher of bacon go a long way!  But I think it’s hard to insist people self ration in this way and can’t help feeling there’s something slightly misanthropic about it.  Eating with your friends and family is, after all, a celebration of life.

I would rather people made a positive choice to engage with good wholesome vegetarian foods, as Dr Pachauri suggested, at least one or two days of the week.  That’s why I’ve chosen as my book of the month Rose Elliot’s Vegetarian Supercook. My friend Sylvie from Toulouse bought me a Rose Elliot vegetarian cookbook twenty years ago, it’s now out of print so I couldn’t make that my book of the month.  This is the inscription that Sylvie wrote:

I give you this book, which should be useful to cook a happier food…It is so important to have a Happy Stomach!

I really wish it was possible for everyone in the world to have a happy stomach.  If you are interested in issues of world hunger and climate change  and would like to take positive action why not visit  Oxfam’s Here and Now initiative?