Sick of Nasty Meat

Calling for better quality meat for our children, patients and the elderly 

 Better vs. cheap-and-nasty meat 

The Government spends more than £150 million of taxpayers’ money every year on cheap-and-nasty meat served in schools, hospitals and care homes. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

Eating less - but better quality - meat wouldn’t cost any more, and would be:

• Better for our health – eating meat and meat products in the quantities we do increases our risk of chronic diseases, like heart disease and bowel cancer.
• Better for our jobs – buying good quality meat creates more jobs for farmers e.g. UK organic farms provide two-and-a-half times as many full-time equivalent jobs as non-organic farms.
• Better for our world – cheap meat production pollutes our air and water, destroys rainforest, damages our wildlife and is a major contributor to global warming.
• Better for our animals – cheap meat production is often unkind to animals which suffer cruel farming practices in cramped spaces.
• Better for our tastebuds – cheap-and-nasty meat is so unappetising that caterers have to throw large quantities into the waste bin.

Do you want your children and your relatives in hospital and care homes to be served less - but better quality - meat? Then sign the Sick of Nasty Meat petition now >>

 Still need convincing? 

Eating lots of cheap-and-nasty meat is...

• often bad for our health. Government advisers recommend that adults consume on average no more than 70g of red meat (such as beef, pork or lamb) a day in order to cut the risk of developing bowel cancer (1).
  World Cancer Research Fund advises we avoid all processed meats (including hot dogs, some sausages, hamburgers and minced meats) which have been preserved with salt or chemical additives (2).
• produced to no or low animal welfare standards e.g. factory farmed chickens are kept in cramped sheds and are forced to gain weight so rapidly that they often can’t stand on their own legs (3).
• produced with the routine use of antibiotics, which is contributing to the worrying rise of antibiotic resistance in people (4).
• unappetising and sometimes even inedible. Recent data shows that one in every ten meals served in UK hospitals are thrown in the waste bin (5).

Eating less but better quality meat is…

• a great way to reward British farmers for producing meat to higher standards. Buying better British meat also invests money in creating fulfilling jobs and supporting linked industries such as local butchers (6).
• produced to high animal welfare standards e.g. free range chicken reared outdoors.
• from animals which have been reared on natural, locally grown and environmentally-friendly feed e.g. cows and sheep like to eat grass and, natural foragers like pigs, enjoy eating natural food like plants.
• a pleasure to eat. School and hospital caterers that serve less – but better quality – meat report that pupils and patients enjoy their meals more and are rarely aware of the change in quantity.

1. The Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN) advises that people should reduce their red meat consumption to 70g a day. The average total red meat consumption for men is around 88 grams per day (from The National Diet & Nutrition Survey: adults aged 19 to 64 years, 2000-2001). (more)
2. Red and processed meat: finding the balance for cancer prevention, World Cancer Research Fund. (more)
3. Farm animal welfare, Compassion In World Farming. (more)
4. Case study of a health crisis: How human health is under threat from over-use of antibiotics in intensive livestock farming, November 2011, Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics. (more)
5. ‘Protected mealtimes failing as nine million hospital meals go uneaten’, Ssentif Intelligence press release, 10 October 2011. (more)
6. University of Essex, ‘The Employment Benefits of Organic Farming’, 2006 (more); also SAFE Alliance, ‘Double Yield: Jobs and sustainable food production’, 1997 (more)