Whilst procrastinating at work today, I came across this article on the Beeb's website. Apparently, "...22% of 1,073 adults questioned did not know bacon and sausages originate from farms". Well, call me stupid, but where the hell else would they come from?!
Is this one of those statistics where that 22% answered "from a butchers", but they just fiddled it to make them look stupid? Or are there really people out there who don't know where meat products come from?
I grew up in rural Suffolk, where we would "honk to the piggies" as we went past a field of them wallowing in the mud (a practise, only started after my mum accidentaly pressed the horn as we were going past some once) and where my little brother's first commonly used phrase was "tractor smell" for something resembling silage. My friends live on farms (both arable and livestock), I could tell you what is growing in a field by looking at it, and we buy our veg from a roadside stall. So I guess I could be biased on this subject of people knowing where their food comes from. But it does seem just a leetle ridiculous that parents, let alone their children, can't tell the difference between a cow and a horse ("Some parents see our piebald ponies, which are black and white, and think they're cows"), or that kids don't realise that the ham they are eating actually comes from something that was once alive and had to be killed so they could eat it ("Someone made a remark about the ham coming from pigs, and that horrified the children as they hadn't made the connection.").
Can you guess I'm a vegetarian?

What do you think? Are there really people ignorant as this? How can the problem be solved, or is it even a problem?

I can't believe that people really are that ignorant, and I suspect that the questions they asked and answers they received were made to exagerrate the findings. Of course, maybe people are that dumb, and we just happen to be a group of superintelligent people who know that food is grown and raised.

I agree with Dave here, I think the survey was probably set out to find people are ignorant. I was also suspicious of the first bit of the article where it says "many of us are unaware that our food is actually grown, bred or created on a British farm." A British farm. Now, I know bacon comes from pigs, but is what I'm eating from Britain? I have no idea, and I wouldn't expect most people to either. That may have contributed to the figures that the survey got.

On a similar note, I've long been of the mind that meat shouldn't be labeled pork or beef or mutton, but pig, cow and sheep. It might help in people realising what they're eating. And before you ask, no I'm not vegetarian, I fully support the eating of animals, but I think if people don't know that it's a pig they're eating, as that survey suggests, then maybe they should be told.

During the Second World War, when all the children were evacuated from London to the countryside, a lot of them were in shock at some very basic things.

One of them was that the milkman didn't make milk, cows did.

The easier something becomes, the more people take it for granted. It is easy to go down to the shops and buy a whole host of items. Exotics meats, fruits, vegetables, you name it. But hold up an avocado and ask what country you can find them naturally growing and most people would be stumped. Mexico and Central America, if you are wondering.

And frankly it is the same for other things. How many people here can describe exactly how electricity works even though they use it almost constantly? Most people can't even bake bread, but that's been the most staple foodstuff for most of the world for thousands and thousands of years.

Because people don't have to know, they don't make an effort to know. It may seem like a sad thing, but ask yourself this question. How much more information do people these days have to retain rather than in previous times? So much is going on in the world, there's so much to learn, and there have been so many discoveries, that it's only natural that we would prioritise what exactly we stuff our grey cells with.

I'm hopeless at explaining the rules of football even though it's almost like a religion in this country, but I can name the capitals of almost every country in the world.

Oh, and I had to look up where avocado's come from.

Don't forget the United States! We haves em here in California.

Honestly, I'm not really sure it's a problem. Although I am rather suspicous of people not knowing that bacon comes from a pig.



Is that really important though? I mean, I tend to think of my food as food. It doesn't bother me to think that I'm handling animal muscle when I'm cooking or anything, but honestly, if I had some mysteriously named meat, aside from concerns about whether it's ok to eat, I'm not sure I really care about what animal it came from.

Also, I think giving meats different names helps for selling them. I mean, would you prefer some bacon and eggs, or would you rather have some chicken ova with sliced pig-butt? And would people really want to buy haggis if it was called stomach filled with lungs-and-other-parts-of-sheep-you-didn't-know-were-edible?

As for making people realise what they're eating, could the same effect not be gained by simply adding a note on the packaging somewhere?

I think he meant where they grow naturally (ie: where they originated...at least that's what he said in his post). There are pretty much all kinds of produce in California (because they like to drive down the prices of produce and put smaller, local farmers out of business in other states). Doesn't mean that stuff is native to the area.

*ahem*. Sorry. I'm from Oregon, being bitter towards California is pretty much my job. I'll spare you the rant about tomato farmers in Appalachia, though.

I grew up in rural areas too, so the idea that people wouldn't understand where their food comes from kind of baffles me. But I was surrounded by people who farmed all the time, so of course I'd know. I'd like to think it wouldn't be any different if I grew up in a city...except maybe then I wouldn't know how to grow produce and can it myself. And I might not know that people still did that kind of stuff in rural areas instead of just going to the supermarket all the time. But not knowing that bacon comes from pigs and pigs are raised on farms? I would really like to think that many adults wouldn't be that stupid.

*raises hand* And 90% of our clients actually.

Working in the industry for over six years - I get sacked otherwise.

*sorry - spamminty spambasket*

Oooh! That sounds like fun! Lets give all food their true names! And not in some weird magic True Name way.

Honey becomes bees vomit.
Milk becomes bovine mammary secretions.
Cheese becomes bovine mammary secretions, covered in slowly fermenting lactic acid bacteria!
Bread becomes wheat covered in farting germs.
Meat becomes slowly decomposing animal carcass.
Pepperami is pig arse-sphincter.
Marmite becomes abattoir slurry.

The list goes on and on...

Educate your child TODAY!



That's quite impressive. I was referring to subatomic particles, electromagnetic fields, and the fundamental interaction between them in quantum mechanics.

Mmmhmm. It's breakfast time, and I'm going to go eat some heated wheat-'n'-farting-germs-based product, with some fermenting lactic acid bacteria covered bovine mammary secretions. And I'm going to enjoy it.

Seriously though, I wouldn't be bothered if that's how things were labeled. I know what they're made from, so why does changing the name make a difference? I've made haggis, from various sheep organs, and it didn't bother me at all when I ate it. If it disgusts you to eat a pig's anal-sphincter then don't eat it. More pig-arse for the rest of us.

Veal becomes tortured baby cows (does anyone else remember that South Park episode?).

That's Bovril you're thinking of right there, Marmite was originally the poor mans Bovril and was used as a stock enhancer in early vegetarian dishes in the Edwardian era. (Thank you very much BBC4.)

Anyway, I think marmite's made from the leftovers of beer production.

No Marmite comes from the devil's backside! It's evil, I tell you, eeeeeevvviiilllll

I agree to an extent. I mean, I wouldn't bother me at all thinking if I was eating a stick of pig-arse sphincter, in fact, I'd probably find it funny. But I'm reasonably certain I've met people who become slightly put off their food when they are reminded that it was once an animal. This isn't to say that they don't know that they're eating product of pig, but just that they'd rather think of it as food, instead of living creature. Why should these people be put off eating pepperami, just because it disgusts them to eat pig-arse sphincter?

Haggis would be properly labeled if the forums gave a shot at cannibalism!

I wouldn´t mind real names. But hey, I do look at a live cow and salivate. And I am not exaggerating. Kidney pies, blood sausages, brains, you name it, if it's animal protein, I am in.

Black pudding still wins the 'most repulsive sounding foodstuff' competition for me. It tastes nice though! In many parts of the world it's common for tribes to drink blood or eat blood-based products, which puts the British fussiness into context. We are spoilt by choice, and because of this we are very wasteful. How much of the pig actually gets eaten?

I've never been fully vegetarian: I've eaten a largely vegetarian diet for quite a few years at various points because of people I've been with, but I've never chosen to deliberately not eat meat. Just from feeling how my body reacts to food, I know that chicken and fish contains stuff that my body really likes getting, and that's a sense that I don't get as much from vegetables. Perhaps that's because I eat vegetables all the time, whereas meat isn't so common.

The trouble is, the older I get, the more concern I'm feeling for the conditions in which the animals have lived. Fish isn't so bad, because mostly they are caught in the wild (although I don't have cod because of the rapidly dwindling amounts of them left), but chicken is a more difficult issue. How do I know where it's come from? What standard of treatment is okay enough? Barn hens are definitely better off than battery hens, but it's still not a great life. I just don't know, but my body craves chicken if I haven't had it for a while. Maybe this could be overcome with a very well balanced diet of vegetables, but I do also really like chicken when I have it. Another omnivore wouldn't mind eating me, so why should this vague sentience mean that I will act otherwise?

Unfortunately, Mata, unless a fish is line-caught, there will be a big impact to the surrounding environment because of the methods they choose to fish with (trawling, big nets etc etc) so farm bred fish are actually better for other marine life than sea-caught.

I remember when I first went vegetarian. I got very very ill for months on end and after a lot of tests it was revealed that I was intolerant to pesticides and insecticides and that eating meat and fish somehow allowed me to tolerate the chemicals. So I went on a fully organic diet. I felt incredible, I lost weight and gained energy and generally felt wonderful... although it could have been because of the fact that in 97/98, there were no affordable Organic crisps and refined sugary foods, and the chocolate I did have was a rare treat. I still maintain, though, that meat makes me feel groggy and lethargic (although I haven't eaten it for quite a few years). Thing is, I also feel groggy and lethargic after eating wheat, dairy and concentrated juices but that is a whole different story about which there is a new thread in the pipelines.

As with cravings- the other day, I craved mussels inna jar. Now, I know that I would be physically sick if I was to eat any (I once ate a vegetable spring roll that contained shrimp and without knowing the shrimp was there, I was sick) but I sat and thought about what it would be about the mussels that I would want. In the end, I ate a lot of mushrooms and marmite (not together) and that satisfied the craving.

I mostly eat line-caught tuna, so there are worse things that I could be eating I also eat mackerel, and I'm not too sure of the source for that. I think the salmon is farmed and I eat the offcuts anyway, so it's usually stuff that would otherwise be thrown away by the industry (although it's still very tasty, it just doesn't have that sliced salmon presentation).

I know what you mean about feeling groggy after eating meat, although I really only get that with red meat, beef in particular. It usually seems to weigh heavily in my stomach afterwards, although it probably isn't helped that I usually only have beef as part of a large meal with alcohol, so I'd probably feel stuffed and tired afterwards anyway! I don't think I ever get cravings for beef, mostly it's chicken or oily fish like mackerel. About once every couple of months I seem to need lamb, but I think that's because I have a fairly low-fat diet and lamb is quite fatty.