Panorama (A cow's life)

[Marianne Marlow]

I became vegetarian when I was 13 after seeing a documentary on animal slaughter, it horrified me.

My parents just thought I was being fussy and awkward and it was a phase, but I have stuck to my guns for 33 years so far.

Thanks criswell, it's nice to know that the Calves can be happy away from their mothers when treated humanely.

[Marianne Marlow]

No replies yet from Starbucks, Pret and Costa, but I did find this on the Pret website

"Organic Coffee

Our coffee is 100% organic and always arabica. Our teas, milks and milk alternatives are organic too. We have long-standing relationships with our farmers and take time to train up each and every one of our brilliant Baristas. It's just much better this way."

[criswell]

I'd wanted to be a vegetarian for a while and what caused me to finally make the decision was visiting a farm on holiday and spending time with some piglets. They were so gorgeous and playful and wonderful that the thought that they were going to be eaten one day was awful. My mum was really good about it and liked to make new recipes for me. As I was 17 I was already cooking my own meals when my mum was at work. The only negative response I had was from my aunt who was sure it was just a fad. That made me all the more determined to stick with it.

[tweetiepiesmom]

For those who enjoy reading. I just finished a book that I highly recommend: "The Way We Eat Now: How the Food Revolution Has Transformed Our Lives, Our Bodies, and Our World" by Bee Wilson. I've read a couple of her other books and they are well researched and written. She starts in the time after WWII talking about farming changes and what resulted. Basically she says because of the food shortages during WWII, the first world governments decided they would make sure there was enough food so that no one would go hungry. Farming practices were put in place that sacrificed quality for quantity. She says people are eating too much meat, sugar and oil - I believe that!

As many of you have said, we can change this by eating much less or no meat and buying organic whenever possible. Ground roots movements take time to effect change but it does happen.

[willowsmum]

I've been veggie since I was 18 and we raised my son as veggie from birth. I did feel I had to justify that choice to a lot of people including the health visitor who monitors all the new mums but he was a healthy baby and is now a big strapping lad so I think it was a good choice. He's never had and therefore never missed meat but he has the option to try it if he wants. I'm lucky that I can cook one meal for the whole family while my veggie sister has to cook separate meals for herself and her meat eating family which isn't much fun. When I visit her it's the smell of the cooking meat that I find the most difficult.

[jellybean]

Do you eat fish, eggs, willowsmum.

The whole vegetarian, vegan, thing confuses me.

I'd love to give it a try, but my OH definitely wouldn't.

What would be a typical days food menu in a vegetarian house?

[willowsmum]

jellybean no, as vegetarians we don't eat any meat or fish so essentially no animals but we do eat everything else including eggs and dairy. Vegans don't eat any animals or animal products so no meat, fish, eggs, milk, cheese, butter, honey etc and don't use animal products either so no leather bags/shoes etc.

I would have said that 10 years ago you had to be very focussed on your diet and where you sourced clothes etc if you were a vegan but I think it's a lot easier now as the supermarkets are full of meat alternatives and everyone is a lot more aware of veganism.

A typical days food in our house is probably not that different to most other households to be honest. I've been veggie for so long that I never really learnt to cook meat or fish and I don't tend to go out of the way to use meat substitutes. Breakfast might be porridge made with milk or toast or cereal. Lunch could be soup, cheese/egg/salad rolls, fruit and yoghurt or, more than likely in this house, some sort of leftovers which need using up! Tea might be pasta with a tomato, lentil and blue cheese sauce, mixed bean chilli and rice, potato and chick pea curry, lentil daal, cheese and onion pasties or quiche with veg, jackets and beans, frittata, falafel and wraps, bean moussaka, macaroni cheese, pizza etc plus all the usual cakes, brownies, chocolates, crisps and other good stuff!

It doesn't sound like the healthiest diet now that I write it out but I try to make sure we get a good range of dairy and pulses to cover the protein needs and a variety of fruit and veg. The chocolate isn't really a required food group but I think it helps my mental health I tend to cook big batches of pasta sauce/curry/chilli etc at a time and freeze portions for future use as I find that saves time in the long run. I'm lucky that my family will eat pretty much anything put in front of them though

Does that help at all JB? I'm so used to cooking and eating without meat/fish that it's hard to imagine what I would cook if I had to include them. I think some traditionally meat dishes lend themselves more to being adapted to veggie dishes eg a meat lasagna can be made with quorn mince instead but you could also take it further and make it with lentils or maybe just a vegetable lasagna with no meat substitute at all. But some meat dishes like stews and casseroles are harder to adapt.

And now I'm hungry...again

[willowsmum]

Oops! Just spotted the length of that post, sorry. I do love my food

[jellybean]

Don't apologise willowsmum, I appreciate you taking the time, and I enjoyed reading it.

I think I'd be happy to eat that selection, but I must admit I think I'd miss a roll on square sausage or bacon 😔

Plus my OH would DEFINITELY NOT go vegetarian.
We tend to eat more chicken than red meat, I might buy a vegetarian cook book and try him with a few recipes and see what the reaction is 😂

[willowsmum]

Yes jellybean, I think there's always some things it's hard to replace. We've had the Simon Howie Veggie Square Sausage and the Breakfast Pack from Asda and the square sausage does crisp up nicely but I can't vouch for how meat-like it is. The black pudding wasn't nice though . I found the This Isn't Bacon (I think from Asda or Morrisons) was a good substitute in a roll and also used it snipped through a pasta sauce like a carbonara. It's got a really punchy flavour which I think bacon lovers often miss but the texture is never going to be the same.

Others may have suggestions for veggie recipes to try your hubby with. I was going to suggest adapting something you already cook but then he's more likely to spot the difference so maybe a completely new dish would be best. Then again it takes me a few times with a new recipe to tweak it to our tastes so you might need to 'encourage' him to try it more than once. Maybe online recipes would be better before you splash out on a book (although I do love a nice cookery book!). I'm sure my sister has a couple of dishes that she passed off as meat to her family - I have asked for suggestions so I'll let you know. Good luck!

[willowsmum]

jellybean my sis recommended the Quorn website for recipes but she suggested substituting the Quorn ingredients with Linda McCartney products e.g. chicken pieces as she finds them much more 'meat like'. Apparently there's a brand called 'What The Cluck' that do a lot of chicken alternatives but she hasn't tried them yet.

The only products she's successfully passed off as meat are homemade vegan sausage rolls and the Linda McCartney frozen 'chicken' pies. Obviously her hubby knew straight away that they were veggie (once she had told him the next day ).

Let us know if you have any success!

[jellybean]

Thanks for all the help willowsmum 👍

[willowsmum]

Just spotted Cadbury's advertising a range of vegan plant-based chocolate bars. May need to put these through some fairly rigorous testing

[Marianne Marlow]

I have two responses so far from the coffee places:


Costa:

Dear Marianne

Thank you for contacting Costa Customer Services following BBC1 Panorama - A Cow’s Life: The True Cost of Milk?

Like all viewers of the programme, we were shocked by the footage filmed and extremely disappointed to learn that the footage filmed was from a farm that supplies Freshways with liquid milk.

As a customer of Freshways we have been in contact with them requesting that if Costa is being supplied liquid milk from the farm in question, that farm is immediately removed from the Costa Coffee supply chain. Freshways have also assured us that they are taking appropriate action with the employees featured in the undercover footage.

As the UK’s largest coffee shop business, high animal welfare standards are a priority for Costa Coffee, and we are committed to working with suppliers who can supply us products, including milk, that are sourced sustainably, and high animal welfare standards are maintained. We also work hard to ensure that our products are sourced from suppliers who meet recognised global and/or UK standards, and in the case of liquid milk and cream, that these meet Red Tractor standards. Following Monday’s programme, we have requested a meeting with Red Tractor to discuss their standards and ongoing work they are conducting to ensure they remain fit for purpose.

Whilst we do not believe the footage captured represents the majority of UK dairy farmers, many of whom are working tirelessly to ensure high animal welfare standards, we plan to review our milk supply chain and are seeking assurances from the certification bodies auditing dairy farms’, that they meet our expectations in regard to animal welfare standards.

Kind regards




Aimee


Costa Customer Services




Pret

Hi Marianne,

Thanks for getting in touch.



We are happy to hear that you are interested in our products and in our animal welfare involvement.

Pret was proud to receive a Cage Free Award for our commitment to improving animal welfare, so we use only organic dairy and non-dairy milk, as our coffees and other products.

You can find more information about what Pret do about sustainability and animal welfare on the link below:

www.pret.co.uk/en-GB/sustainability

Please, if there is anything else I can help, let me know.



Best wishes,

Laura

Pret A Manger

Customer Services

[Ira]

I've managed to get OH to eat some vegetarian meals and occasionally manage to sneak in a veggie alternative. Tonight I'm making twice as many taco boats so I can do one with regular mince and one with Quorn mince, and hopefully the Quorn will be acceptable enough to him. I put it in bolognese and he never says anything, so crossing my fingers. I need to suggest that we buy organic milk, because he doesn't like milk alternatives.

My housemate is vegan, or vegetarian at the minimum, I guess veggie would be better because she's somewhat flexible with it depending on if she can find satisfactory alternatives to animal products.

A few years ago, before cutting meat out of a few meals a week caught on with the general populace, I used to joke that I was a part time vegan. Anything that I cooked for myself was vegan (tofu scramble is pretty good), and then I'd eat whatever my Nan gave me because cooking was already stressful enough for her. But a lot of her meals were vegetarian anyway.