Meat.......are you dying to afford it?

We are eating too much red meat and increasing our risk of colorectal cancers!

Last week I read this headline and for anyone who had absolutely no dietary or nutritional education, and many people don't, it was a pretty scary statement guaranteed to strike fear into the heart of any serious meat lover!

The national media frenzy that followed the release of this latest bit of health information from the World Health Organization did little to calm the panic!

Few bother to go beyond the sensationalist headlines and do some in depth research for themselves so may have decided to forgo not only red meat but meat altogether, when really the truth of the matter is far from this type of statement!

People do eat eat far too much meat......but more to the point they eat far too much of the processed kind! and when I say 'too much' I don't mean that they are sitting down and pigging out and over-indulging on it day after day....... they are eating it in normal amounts as part of their everyday diets.

But look at it like this, if you have a family or even just yourself to feed, and you only have a certain portion of your income set aside with which to do that, then when you head to the supermarket is it any wonder that you go straight to the product that will give you the best value for your money?

For example.......if you want to buy some ham for sandwiches to take to work or to send with the kids to school, you will buy the packet with the most amount of ham for the cheapest price....it's only common financial sense after all......and who can blame you......you are certainly not going to spend up to 3 times more for maybe only a couple slices of ham just because they are dry cured in a traditional manner, maple glazed and hand carved!  And as long as you can buy a packet of 12 processed beef burgers for less than the price of a kilo of lean minced beef it doesn't take a rocket scientist or even a minimal amount of education to figure out what your decision will be!



Sadly the statistics tell us that a diet high in these types of processed meats usually goes hand in hand with a diet low in fruit, vegetables and fibre, therefore increasing our risk yet again of bowel cancers.
But when it comes down to choice in these matters, leaving nutritional education aside, what choice do we have if all that we can afford is that which is processed to within an inch of its life!

We all need food, none of us can live without it, next to air and water it is the necessity of life, but what and how we eat also seem to be the new indicators of our 'class' in this modern society.

Such a short time as fifty or so years ago, the freshest and least unadulterated foods were the preserve of the poor or lowly working classes. Even in the poorest of houses you were guaranteed to find a completely home cooked meal on the table.
Bread was baked from scratch using unbleached flours high in fibre, butter was real actual butter and not the hydrogenated fat and sugar filled margarine kind, cheese was real cheese possibly even made by some farmers wife in her dairy and sold at market, potatoes were served daily and fresh vegetables, albeit carrots, turnips, cabbage and onions, were the mainstay of every meal where they would be heaped onto plates along with very small amounts of meat, usually of the pig or sheep variety and always the cheapest cuts......a neck end of mutton, a pigs head, a calves foot, a pigs trotter, an old hen beyond its laying days and only any good for the boiling pot, or even those tougher cuts of beef that needed long slow cooking such as silver side......'processing' was more along the lines of 'preserving'. Salting, pickling, drying, smoking or placing in brine, the pieces of meat that would tide the family over during the long winter......many of the so called 'better' cuts of beef were beyond the everyday financial reach of many a families budget.

The wealthier members of the population were more able to afford those tender pieces of meat that required less cooking.... the veal and venison haunches, the sirloin roasts, the fillet or T-bone steaks, and because they were able to pay staff, their food tended to be more 'processed'.
Processing again was the opposite to what it is today......it mean't that meat was maybe minced with other items like mushrooms or cooked kidneys, maybe mixed with rice or passed through a few other processes before being served in a raised pie, as a pate or terrine, as a proper sausage with herbs and other things added such as lobster, before being served in rich cream and wine filled sauces.

Today these food roles seem to be reversed. It seems to be the norm that the more 'processing' a food has gone through in a factory the cheaper it is for the consumer and the higher the profits for the manufacturer....but not necessarily the farmer!

Pork, usually less than the cost of beef, is still seen more as a special occasion meat as people for some reason seem to be of the opinion that it is a difficult thing to cook! but that's beside the point, most pork products available in the supermarket, and I'm not just talking about your bacon rashers, I'm talking whole joints such as shoulder and loin, are reasonably cheap......why?.... because they are usually injected with water.....did you know that?...... but why is that?......why to help bulk it out of course...... thereby reducing the visible cost for the buyer while increasing profits!.......for the processor, and yet again.... not the farmer!
You will have to look far to find an untouched piece of pork these days, but thank goodness the slow food movement are making great strides in bringing back real slow reared meats.......but you will pay for it.......all because it is more natural and less detrimental to your health!
Sadly you never see a pigs head on sale anywhere here in Ireland, I did however see one hanging in a butcher shop in France earlier this year!

Today's 'sheep' is now usually lamb, the price of which has soared making it almost as expensive as beef fillet per kilo, depending on where you buy it! Lamb is now beyond the everyday budget of most people and is another that is reserved for maybe a special Sunday luncheon or Easter treat..... mutton is impossible to get!....if you know where I can get some.....please tell me!

Now those with less disposable income to spend on food who would have traditionally enjoyed the simplest, yet healthiest of meals, have completely swapped food roles and now lean more towards convenience foods, that is to say, foods that we consider as unhealthy options, such as the processed beef burger that comes ready cooked and vacuum packed with a bun so all you have to do is fling it in the microwave, the sausage roll even the actual sausage itself! the once delicious rasher of bacon, the 'blood' pudding, the cooked ham, the breast of chicken, the simple loaf of bread, our little treat of a piece of cake, all are now processed to 'death' with a cocktail of additives, preservatives, hidden sugars and who knows what else that could increase your risk of actual death! and in a most painful manner!

Those fortunate people who we considered to be 'well off' financially were the first to really catch on to the 'convenience food' fad in the seventies and eighties. Back then convenience meals were very expensive and a preserve of the wealthy.
Now those who have more income at their disposal are willing to spend a greater portion of that income on natural unprocessed foods, largely shunning the 'convenience' route, and are more likely to follow the 'fresh is best' approach. It is in their homes that you will see the high quality, unadulterated pieces of meat and fish, and higher proportions of fresh fruit and vegetables served up.

How this switch in food attitudes came about is anyone's guess, whether it is through a lack of basic nutritional education in the home or in school or caused by financial constraints, either way it is leading to a severe decline in the health of the less 'well off'' members of our society.

Those so called 'convenience foods' such as the frozen TV dinners, or any mass produced, bastardized frozen or complete 'ready' meal where all you need is a microwave, a deep fat fryer, or a few minutes in the oven and dinner is served, seem to have taken over as the main source of nutrition among those with lower income levels.......the proof of this is not only in the rising popularity of supermarkets specializing in frozen foods frequented by certain sections of the populous, but in the location of these types of stores!

In larger cities and towns the location of these stores are a good indicator of the spending power of the population living in the vicinity, and it is a sad fact that certain stores will only appear in certain areas!...... Am I being snobbish or displaying a certain classism when I say this? definitely not, I'm just pointing out what I see every day, the cold hard facts cannot lie......decent food has become a class issue and one only has to look at the price of cookery books in my local book store to see who can afford to eat what and what those with a certain income level expect to eat!

I have always believed that the more natural and less processed the food, the cheaper it should be......it sounds logical, after all the less effort that has gone into producing it the more reasonable the price should be, but not so........I believe that if you want to eat a product that calls itself a certain thing, e.g. chicken breast meat, when in actual fact it has only 46% actual natural meat and umpteen additives and fillers that you know are not good for your health, then by God you should pay for it!
If however you should want to eat e.g. a piece of pork that has nothing added to it, especially when you know that eating that piece of meat will be much healthier and nutritious and have less impact on your health, then it should be cheaper than buying a piece of processed pork.......there should be a financial incentive to buying more natural foods.......in an ideal world that is...... sadly not in this one where the corporate bottom line is all that matters or so it seems!

And what of the WHO, the World Health Organization who released this shocking but not surprising bit of information? What is their role in this?

According to the WHO website their role is to 'direct and co-ordinate international health within the United Nations system'....their main areas of work are 'Health Systems' and 'promoting health through the course of life'..... in other words they tell us the bad news and how our countries should deal with it.

Yet our governments, who claim to be working under the United Nations system, seem quite happy to ignore their valuable advice and continue to allow global corporations to drag us further and further away from what we know as natural food, yet all the while complaining of the ever increasing demands on the health care system and the lack of funding that will be available to meet our healthcare needs in the future.

If our governments continue to allow corporations to adulterate our food with high levels of salts, fats, sugars, additives and fillers and then sell it at such low costs that it is an obvious choice for those on low incomes then what else can they expect to come of this?

So what should you do?  Definitely eat less meat.....less processed meat that is!

'Meat as a treat' I think is the way to go.......there are so many other protein rich foods available such as good cheese, eggs, pulses, nuts and soy proteins, that replacing those regularly eaten 'processed' meats is relatively easy, it just takes a little ingenuity, but I don't believe in saying 'Oh I can never eat meat again'.
If you are a meat lover then simply change the way you eat your meat.....

• Go for the natural product........search out that artisan producer of slow reared pork or that organic Dexter beef, buy the organic, free range chicken raised on a small holding, try that 99% meat pork sausage, hand made in the traditional style by your local butcher.....you know, the one you said paying 8 euros a kilo for was daylight robbery! Yes you may only be able to afford to eat that item once a week but won't it be worth looking forward too? 
• Cook all your meat yourself! Yes, including your ham! It is such an easy thing to buy a nice phosphate free piece of gammon and cook it yourself....don't most of us do it every Christmas? so why no do it at other times of the year....cook it yourself and slice it down for sandwiches or salads. 
• Don't overcook or burn your meat, charred meat has cancerous possibilities......slow gentle cooking is healthiest!
• Change the oil in your deep fat fryer after every use!!!!.....too expensive? then get rid of the fryer!
• Limit your intake to 100 g of red meat twice a week maximum, it does not sound like an awful lot but better to eat a small amount of something natural rather than a kilo of crap!
• Serve lots of vegetables with either potatoes or high fibre natural breads you have baked yourself when eating meat, you'll fill up on the veggies and not notice how little actual meat you have on your plate!
• Bulk your meat dishes out with other things....add lots of veggies to a stew or casserole, add stuffing your meat......try my Stuffed Pork Pockets for a tasty, healthy meal or make a meatloaf....you can use pork, beef, lamb , turkey or chicken, bulking it out with breadcrumbs, oatmeal, rice or minced vegetables.

Buying a better product even if you have to ration yourself is more satisfying and you know it will go a long way to helping you stay healthy!