I know it's true but despite that it never ceases to amaze me how many people have no idea where their food comes from. The beeb reports that a survey by LEAF (Linking Environment And Farming) "suggests many of us are unaware that much of our food is actually from farms.""22% of 1,073 adults questioned did not know bacon and sausages originate from farms."
"But is the great British public really that ignorant about what life is like down on the farm?"...in a word, yes! A lot of it is pig ignorance - to coin a phrase - but it seems the ignorance isn't confined to chidren and it reminds me of what Homer Simpson said when Lisa was turning vegetarian:
Homer: Are you saying you’re never going to eat any animal again? What about bacon?
Lisa: No.
Homer: Ham?
Lisa: No.
Homer: Pork chops?
Lisa: Dad, those all come from the same animal.
Homer (with sarcasm) : Heh heh heh. Ooh, yeah, right, Lisa. A wonderful, magical animal.
Hehehe...Well I suppose that at least even Homer knew they all came from an animal.
From the LEAF survey: 29% of the adults questioned, including 42% of 16 to 24-year-olds and 33% of those with children, had never visited a farm. Of those, 44% of Scots, 36% of Londoners and 32% of people from Manchester had never set foot in a farmyard. Rural living helps it seems as in the South West 85% of people and 81% of East Anglians had at least visited a farm. There's no excuse really as there are plenty of ways to get 'in the know'; Farms for Schools is a good enough start and there is enough info to keep children safe but of course they get no media help, only the bad news gets big press and many things, i.e. the HSE, ("farmyards are not playgrounds") put teachers off!
4 comments:
I think a real problem is that there is no local connection between food and plate. Even in the Cities, before WW2 you would have at least one milk herd per area, a local baker etc. There are plenty of towns with farms who encourage schools to visit these days.
I know that as a right winger you'd hate the idea, but in France there is legislation that states all supermarkets must buy a high percentage of fresh produce from farms within a 10 mile radius - this does actually encourage food connectivity between consumer and provider.
Those London children evacuated in WW2 though Paul, were just as ignorant as many of the children who live in inner cities today. Mr Mags's Grandmother was evacuated from Bristol to North Wales and it was the first time she had seen sheep and cows and wondered what the heck those starnge looking animals were!
You bring back compulsory domestic science lessons. You tell schools that they must visit working farms as part of the curriculum and you get them looking at farmers markets etc. The problem is that people do not make connections with pretty plastic packages on supermarket shelves and farms and animals.
When daughter was tiny she used to call cows beef, pigs bacon and sheep roast lamb. That was our doing. She loves meat and knows exactly where it comes from.
You're both right of course..."out of sight out of mind"....and I agree it would be easy to correct with only a few lessons.
Bacon is from a pig....repeat after me...
O....btw...Paul...I think those froggies are onto something there..what? ;-)
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