Everyday stuff ......

Have just sorted the rubbish out for bin day tomorrow. Recycle paper in the blue bin, cooked food waste in the food bin, uncooked food in the composter, green garden rubbish in the big green bag and the rest in the 'normal' bin. It just goes to show how organised we humans can be when we need to. The cost of dumping in land fill was the deciding factor which galvanized local authorities to take action. COST always seems to be the deal breaker. The world is run on economic principals. We measure success in GDP, what we produce at what cost but never factor in the most significant costs, those of the environment, wildlife, families and personal wellbeing ........ without these it is all a false economy at the end of the day.

When it comes to bringing about change we have our greatest power as consumers, not as democratic voters. If we stop buying then they stop producing, a simple and powerful partnership. Against battery farm hens? Then stop buying mayonnaise and Kentucky fried chicken. If enough of us did, then it would stop overnight! But we have been seduced by CONVENIENCE and COST. I was sitting at my brother's dining table a few weeks ago. We had just finished lunch. My brother, his wife, one of his grown up sons and I were discussing their cat. Evidently it had been left pregnant at the vets. Two of the kittens were still born and two survived. The cat (barely more than a kitten herself) was neutered and found a good home. Without exception, every adult round the table expressed sympathy and concern for the trauma suffered by the cat. But just minutes earlier there had been no concern shown for the poor chicken eaten on the plates. Economy is B I G at my brother's house so I doubt very much that the poor thing had ever seen the light of day, or found room to stretch it's wings as it stumbled about on it's unnaturally meaty legs. So chickens don't suffer? How do we change the views of others when it is CONVENIENT and COST effective for them to maintain them? We all work on the principal of 'payoff' don't we, the 'what's in it for me?' theory. We are also too far removed from the issue. We don't go and select our chicken from the factory farm, pick it out from a tangle of wings and claws looking for the one with the least deformities. We get it ready wrapped in Tesco, buy one get one free.

So am I a vegetarian you are asking? Well no. We are meant to be meat eaters and my vegetarian phase left me feeling tired and lethargic. So after much deliberation I have decided to eat only organic meat, so that I know that it is not a 'fast growth' breed, stuffed with antibiotics and kept cheek by jowl with other 'produce'. I cycled all the way over to Teddington to find an organic butchers, (most are free range but not organic) ..... then discovered I could order organic meat online from Able and Cole or is it Cole and Able? So now all the meat in the house is organic. The next step is to tell other people that I do not eat meat unless it is organic but have yet to find the nerve......... so next time big brother.