“I used to like eating meat, but these days I find I eat it less and less. I've even toyed with the idea of becoming vegetarian and, to be frank, it would seem like not too much of a sacrifice, when I look at what is meant to pass for meat in the supermarket, to say nothing about all the horrors we've all had to endure, from BSE to Foot and Mouth disease and the dreadful consequences of the using of antibiotics in livestock farming.”
I wonder what other nasty surprises lie in wait for us - and what the heck has happened to farming anyway?
Never mind the rest of the world, I thought Britain really knew where its blessings lay, with its temperate climate, its fertile lands and what a precious responsibility we entrusted to the custodian of all this, the farmer.
Even if I didn't care about such matters as the health and vitality of soil micro-organisms, plants and all the associated birds and insects, nor the health and souls of our food animals, why is meat generally so plain and tasteless? Often tough and bland, it seems the only guarantee is that of indigestion later. Eggs have become weak and anaemic; bacon is dry and flavourless with the texture of cardboard. Strange, too, how the wrappings and packaging seem to grow in quality and design, with titles like “ farm fresh”, “ free range” “ English farmhouse” and best of all, “ traditionally reared ”! All of them utterly meaningless. HELP”!
If these sentiments find a certain resonance with you, then join the throng!
In the last forty years or so, food production has steadily been hi- jacked in the name of big business, bringing with it an inexorable decline in true quality, both nutritive and aesthetic.
When farming is subject to the same disciplines as say, the car industry, with an absurd desire for efficiency and profit growth, with the monopolistic values of the supermarket in the driving seat, then all we can expect is what we have: more and more chemicals being used on the land, treating the soil only as a medium for artificial inputs to try to push more from nature than she can give, poorer value feedstuffs being fed to livestock.
Greater numbers of animals being crammed into too little space requiring more pharmaceutical and veterinary inputs to try to alleviate diseases whose very origins lie in the stress they have to endure and the intrinsic poverty of the food that they are offered. Even choosing to ignore the moral issues, are we really to expect to be properly nourished, to gain a true vitality for ourselves and for our children from products so derived?
Then there is the unforgivable and truly shameful destruction of the country's network of local and small abattoirs; don't be kidded that Brussels is to blame, for although it's true that rafts of regulations issue from there, it is solely the supermarkets that are responsible for this - because it is most efficient for distribution purposes to have animals sent to one huge, dedicated slaughterhouse, no matter how far from an animal's last home. With the loss of so many butchers from our high streets who's to challenge them?
At no time is the animal put first; all systems devised for profit and profit alone. Large numbers of animals have first to be transported, which in itself is very stressful for them, then they are herded through the slaughterhouse process at a speed which adds to the stress. The labels on supermarket meat tell you nothing of this, the colourful wrappings and little green tractors on the front are meant to beguile us into thoughts of Farmer Giles and his gentle ways, his flower- rich meadows and the wonderful food he grows for our children and us. Truth is, Farmer Giles has long since been consigned to the history books as far as the big retailers are concerned!
Looking in Tesco recently, we were amazed to find that the packs of organic beef on the shelf were "produce of Australia"! How organic and how sustainable can that be? Ships and aeroplanes burning fossil fuels to bring meat from the other side of the world to a country whose conditions are perfect for the gentle rearing of livestock, if we only chose to do it that way.
It is a strange irony that in these days of our much-vaunted prosperity, the eating quality of so much of our food, particularly meat, is generally nothing like so good as that which our forbears knew ¬- imagine then, just how much the nutritional value has depreciated too.
PIONEERING GREATER RESPECT FOR TRUE NUTRITION:
MEAT OF THE SUREST PROVENANCE;
OF THE PUREST ETHICS;
OF PEERLESS EATING QUALITY.
BIO-DYNAMIC FARMING, as practiced here at Foxholes Farm, is conspicuously different to other organic systems. Bio-dynamic farmers recognize that, when crops are harvested from the land, or grazed by livestock, it is not only their substance that is removed but also the forces and vitality which make them worth eating. To give back this vitality, to regenerate those same forces, we use special therapeutic preparations for the soil, the plants and also for the compost and manure. The “food chain” as we have come to know it no longer serves as a ladder of vitality: Bio-dynamic methods build the rungs of this ladder in a meaningful and truly sustainable way.
HERITAGE PRIME, a label that guarantees you a proper understanding of traceability, the finest eating quality derived in the purest way; meat produced from animals born and reared to bio-dynamic standards; without the use of even the merest agri-chemical or pharmaceutical inputs.
Basically, our animals don't do drugs! Homoeopathic remedies are used both for prevention and treatment of rare illness. This means that the mothers and fathers in our herds of cattle and pigs and our flock of sheep have built up a great resilience and an enviable resistance to disease, passing this on to their offspring. We believe strongly that this element is a further strengthening of the rungs on the ladder of vitality.
Beyond all of this, there comes the matter of eating quality; we offer unparalleled flavour succulence and aroma, consistently. This farm's highly specialised feeding regimes and maturation process are unique and the virtuous result is a credit to our Tamworth pigs, Aberdeen Angus and Shorthorn cattle and our Portland sheep.
The making of exceptional meat begins with the breed- and Britain is blessed with the finest of native breeds. However, this is just the beginning. Slow development, respectful husbandry that befits the nobility of our livestock, giving them freedom to browse as well as to graze and the finest quality finishing diet all play their part.
At the end, patient handling at slaughter, followed by several weeks' skillful hanging at the right temperature all play a part in a process of which we should be proud.
Ian and Denise Bell have succeeded in bringing all these aspects into play - and more.
This is indeed Britain's HERITAGE at its PRIME !
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