This is apparently a controversial video – a Dad (controversial!) cooking (controversial!) his daughter a vegetarian meal because that’s what she wants (controversial!).
The NFU issued a statement – click here – where it expresses its ‘significant concerns’ and its worries about the ‘distress caused to British farmers’.
I’ve felt for a long time that the last thing that British farmers need is the NFU, and that the NFU is essentially a destructive influence on UK life. There really is no other industry that has a cosier relationship with governments, of all parties, than the NFU (heaven only knows why Labour is so in the thrall of agri-business) nor one that apparently gets away with slagging off its customers so much.
The NFU objects to an advertisement for vegetarian sausages? Blimey.
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As I understand it less than 50% of farmers are members of this awful organisation. They appear on the face of it not to like wildlife, biodiversity targets and improvements of status on farmland in particular, they are probably climate crisis deniers, dislike intensely vegetarians and veganism, quite possibly those of us trying to reduce our meat intake but want government subsidies without strings. to me they are about as popular, necessary and honest as the Moorland Association.
Totally agree Mark, the NFU is a constant drain and drag on anything that does not fit with their interests. Their members are mainly the large farming combines and big business, intent on making as much money as possible and have no concern about nature conservation and other practices that they regard as not in their commercial interest.
Of course they always come up with the plea that “we have to produce the food”. However I regard this as mostly as smoke screen for their opposition to adopting much more sympathetic farming methods. Farms do not have to be a ” total green desert” in order to produce food Take the RSPBs Hope Farm in Cambridge as a very good example, a profitable farm with wildlife everywhere.
No, the NFU pursues ite own self interests, and not those of the wider countryside in the slightest.
I’m not a vegetarian but what are the NFU thinking here. Are not some of their members vegetable growers? We all need to cut down on meat consumption, even the government agree with that. For health and climate change reasons. Well done to Tesco and shame to the NFU.
The avocado and quinoa growers of East Anglia should be outraged
Ethical Consumer did a report on the NFU back in 2017 “Understanding the NFU an English Agribusiness Lobby Group” accessable at https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/sites/default/files/inline-files/nfu%20an%20english%20agribusiness%20lobby%20group.pdf
Basically saying that it is not national, it is not for most farmers and is not a union.
The Nature Friendly Farming Network is doing excellent work promoting farming with wildlife inmind, and has said that they need to exist because the NFU really dont address that side of farming. Anyone, farmer or otherwise, can sign up to become a newsletter-receiving member and follow their discussions and activities on facebook. And they go to Parliament and defra a lot to talk sensibly abotu farming
Thanks for the info Louise, I’ll sign up for that. Some of our Transition group like to attend the Real Farming Conference held, I believe, at the same time as the NFU’s.
Ah yes, the NFU, that renowned guardian of children’s health.
Tesco have hit the advertising nail on the head here. Regardless of the (rather compelling in my view) case for less meat consumption, most parents recognise the scenario of an increasingly informed child seeking a solution.
When I did the same 35 years ago my Mum said OK, and simply fed me on everything but the meat, no replacement. I returned to meat quite quickly…
What increasingly shocks me is that so much of the conservation movement seems to accept the NFU view of the world – their aggression in suppressing disagreement combined with the general ignorance of agriculture has worked for for too long. But it is not just NFU – mote subtly, but with equal determination, the food industry is shaping what we eat – always looking for higher mark up, longer shelf life, adding sugsr and salt – and regardless of fine words, in reality violently resisting change behind the scenes.
And reliant on selling cheaply produced starch for its profits so that the high mark-up is disguised by low price at the tills
The objectional bit of the advert – for me – is the child saying “I don’t want to eat animals anymore”. It’s an ad selling that point of view as much as it’s selling vegetarian sausages. If that’s what Tesco want to do, that’s up to them but all consumption has consequences. I support my local butcher – we still have two in the High Street; it’s not yet all estate agents and tattoo parlours. Moderation in all things. As a consultant doctor said to me a few years ago, we are designed to be omnivores. He recommended eating a good quality mixed diet and not too much of any one thing. But then good advice is seldom taken.
I am not sure why you find this objectionable. Tesco can hardly be said to be launching an attack on the meat industry and if you wish to buy meat-based sausages from them I am pretty sure they will be happy to sell them to you.
A large part of Tesco’s marketing efforts have been used to promote meat in the past and I would be very surprised if this does not continue to be the case in the future but should this mean that they cannot recognise the needs and wants of other parts of their customer base?
Tesco and the other supermarket chains are all about making profit not bringing about social change (other than changing how we shop) and if you eat they want to sell you your food. Providing organic, vegetarian, kosher, ‘free-from’, etc, ranges alongside the standard lines means they don’t have to risk losing customers with some specific food requirement but who are otherwise happy buying most of the other general product lines.
I daresay that many meat producing farmers find the advert irritating (well, tough!) but I sincerely doubt the ‘significant distress’ claimed by the NFU.
PS a quick google search reveals that the ‘love stories’ advertising campaign this advert forms a part of includes “Birdie’s ‘Everybody welcome’ jerk chicken”‘ , “Lucy’s ‘Dad’s Favourite’ pesto pork” and “Dan and Liam’s ‘Made for you’ lasagne” so I’d say the NFU’s statement amounts to an ill justified tantrum.
Meat is going out of fashion and Tesco do a great job of giving alternatives.
Jonathan – I’m afraid I didn’t bother to read the NFU press release; I just watched the ad.
I agree with much of what you say. My point is that the same marketing clout for the sausages could have been achieved by the child saying “can we eat vegetarian tonight?” Sweet child saying “I don’t want to eat animals anymore” seems to me to be a piece of gratuitous vegan PR.
I hold no brief for the NFU but there are lots of responsible livestock farmers out there. If your business is struggling, being told “well, tough!” doesn’t help anyone.
Bob, I made no comment on whether there are responsible livestock farmers. I am well aware that some of these businesses may be struggling and I sympathise with their plight but the solution does not lie in stopping Tesco from plugging its vegetarian product range. As I pointed out, Tesco is clearly still heavily committed to selling and promoting meat and meat-based products so I think it is indeed “tough” if some farmers don’t like one particular advert.
Jonathan – I’ve now read the NFU press release and it seems very reasonable to me. I probably wouldn’t have used the word “distress” but on the other hand if you are a farmer producing meat and you may be about to go out of business I can quite see that you would be distressed when you saw this ad on TV. And I think the point the NFU make about children’s diets is very valid and important. I’m more than happy for Tesco to promote vegetarian food as long as they don’t rubbish meat when they do it; when they promote meat they don’t rubbish vegetables do they.
“As a consultant doctor said to me a few years ago, we are designed to be omnivores.“
Did he really, though?
Veg – Yes.
1) I don’t believe for one second that he randomly came out with that.
2) Even if he did, it’s a false statement.
Creating stories to back your point up reeks of desperation.
Veg – accusing me of being a liar reeks of desperation. He made the point quite naturally in our discussion of food allergies, which is what I was seeing him about.
designed? have evolved, surely…
Will – Yes. I wasn’t writing a scientific paper (or a biblical text!)
And because of one child the entire family is expected to make veggie meals too, instead of one pot for the veggie kid and a regular normal meal for everybody else. That is a nasty piece of subliminal evangelising that I do not like either.
Just re-reading the thread and had to challenge the assertion that meat is regular/normal and non-meat isn’t. Non-meat is now mainstream and normal too, whether you (or meat farmers) like it or not.
And the reality of family life is a parent making one pot wonders for all, not bespoking meals.
Your doctor was either ill-informed or simply lying. We aren’t “designed” to be anything. To suggest otherwise is a blatant teleological argument.
Coop – Bollocks.
“Bollocks”. The response of one with no intelligent argument whatsoever. Perhaps a rabid creationist?
To be fair to Bob he was making a point about the kind of diet that is healthy for us not about how the birds and the beasts came to exist. ‘Designed for’ is often used as an imprecise, vernacular way to describe biological functions (‘the eagles talon is designed for gripping its prey’ ) without necessarily being intended to imply anything about the speaker’s views on evolution vs creation or ID. I have no idea what Bob’s views are on the origins of life on earth but I think that on the strength of what he has written it is a bit harsh to accuse him of being a rabid creationist.
Irrespective of what those views may be, the fact that we were omnivores in our evolutionary past does not necessarily mean that we cannot obtain a healthy balance of nutrients from a vegetarian or vegan diet.
Thanks Jonathan. I am in fact a rabid evolutionist!
When I worked with a Wildlife Trust many years ago we were trying to organise a joint event with NFU (forget why now). We needed a venue. The regional NFU director sat in the WT office and asked us about the farmers we knew and we rattled off a list of neighbours, graziers, and tenants. His embarrassment grew and grew as he was on the phone to his office going down the list. Not one was an NFU member. In the end he got a former member to rejoin for free so he could say that the event was on a members’ farm.
NFU represents most large farming businesses, including most estates and large family owned farms, , but not all of them. I’d be confident they represent a distinct minority of small farmers and an even smaller minority of environmentally minded farmers. While they certainly represent only a minority of farmers, well under 50%, they probably do, however, represent a majority of the money in farming. Go figure as the Americans say.
And on a different point; next time a farmer, esp an NFU rep, talks about food security, ask them why food security always comes up in the context of environmental measures but never horsiculture, golf courses, biofuels, pheasant shooting (50m pheasant poults eat an awful lot of grain and soya) , or any other competing land use. The answer of course is because these other activities make money, which is much more important that food production but less so than wildlife apparently.
Spot bloody on JBC!!! Mark Cocker has said pheasant and partridge raised for shooting in this country use up 236,000 tonnes of cereal per year, about a million acres are put by for people who like horses, and then there’s the masses of close mowed grass in more urban areas that provides neither proper wildlife habitat, any meaningful contribution to recreational needs and absolutely nothing re growing food. I believe we could grow more food if there was a shift from growing wheat to more potato instead. The list of possibilities goes on and on and I would also include more foreign aid for family planning services in poorer countries where even the people who already want to keep a lid on family sizes often can’t do so because of lack of access to contraception. If we are really talking about global/domestic food security then that is a relevant issue too. If we actually get into a state where we need to keep the piss poor farming of sodden, cold uplands just to keep ourselves fed then that would mean a nightmare scenario of a world where we are very close to famine and there’s dam little space left for wildlife. That’s what we should be fighting to avoid with every shred of our being yet the NFU is dressing it up as the reality right now and thereby a marketing opportunity to keep the money rolling in – while of course better quality farmland is sold off to developers. One local farmer did so and with the proceeds bought himself a helicopter complete with hanger. The NFU is detestable, but it also irks me that it’s still the loudest voice for the farming community, which is hardly a great advert for it – where’s the alternative if it’s supposedly not that representative of their attitudes?
Prompted by this I bought some vegetarian sausages for the first time today (from my local shop).
Lyn – I’ll be interested in how you find them. they are very variable, I fine – rather like ‘real’ sausages. There are all four combinations of looking/not looking and tasting/not tasting like meat. Some of the best ones neither look like meat nor taste like meat, IMHO.
Rather dry, I should have tried Tesco Dad’s recipe rather than classic sausage and mash. I think the aim was a meat substitute rather than being proud of its veg origins. 3 stars maximum.
Waitrose have started doing some halfway house sausages that combine meat and veg. These might be the transitional solution for those of us who love meat but know we should be eating more veg.
But isn’t that the mistake, pyschologicly telling yourself a veggie sausage should smell and taste like a meat sausage? One needs to treat it as a totally different item of food with its own features! I did the same changing from dairy milk to soya milk. At first thinking it’s not milk! But I now accept it’s a different sort of drink/ milk that I have with my porridge!
Oat or almond milk our favourites. Great on muesli and OK in coffee. Yet to try it on porridge, mornings not cold enough yet!
Well I think that farmers will produce on their land what is wanted by whoever pays for it whether that is to eat or the land used for recreation or whatever.
Do not expect something for nothing,that does not happen in anything else so why should it be farming that does.
Part of the problem is and I fall into the following category that we now live in a different culture to when lots of farmers started and animals then were used without thought to whether they had any rights.
Now there is strong thoughts that animals should not be eaten.
The problems I see are that large areas of grassland have little use for anything except grazing.
As well as meat there is the problem of milk and cheese which I would think most people would have problem finding alternatives.
I dislike the advert, mostly on the grounds that a single family turning veggie means the rest of the family has to be dragged along with them. Dad should have cooked a separate meal for the veggie kid, and a normal dinner for the rest of the family. That is my only gripe about it. Be veggie if you want, but don’t drag anyone else into it.
Yet you automatically consider a meat based meal “normal”.
The fact that you think a vegetarian meal isn’t ‘normal’ is a sad indictment.
Some of the responses to Bob W were a bit trigger happy IMO. He made his point politely and met with a rather mixed bag of responses. Personally I’d have said, ‘Seriously? It’s just an advert, one of many in a series based on mimicking ‘real life’ scenarios, and this scenario would resonate with many. Tesco are reflecting the world not leading an agenda.’ Even if we didn’t agree nothing in his opinion or tone warranted getting snappy. Try not to fall off the moral high ground eh?
Yep “Bollocks”. Really polite.
You laid into him on a tangential point he had already addressed, frankly you rather brought that on yourself. Self-righteousness doesn’t make it not true. Don’t undermine your argument with unpleasantness is all.
Let’s get a few things straight, Ian.
1. The point isn’t “tangential” at all. The same teleology is often central to the argument trotted out by those wishing to promote their own lifestyle choices as “normal”.
2. At no time did I “lay into” anyone other than the doctor in question who’s flawed argument is cited; one who should know better.
3. At the time I composed my response, others were obviously doing the same, and simply beat me to the click.
4. If simply pointing out scientific fact is “self righteous” and “unpleasant”, then I’m proud that I’m not on my own on these pages.