What am I eating?

I am unemployed at the moment so my husband and I try to be as frugal as possible without sacrificing our principles. We refuse to eat meat (or animal products like eggs) that has been raised in the terrible conditions of the intensive farming industry. Now living in Ireland, we have come to understand that the conditions of cows in this country are quite good so we feel fairly comfortable eating beef. Because of our financial condition we have bought packs of frozen beef burgers at Lidl the last two weeks, and we supplement this with fish and vegetarian meals. But yesterday it has come to light that in a lot of the burgers in a variety of Irish supermarkets including Lidl traces of horse and pig have been discovered.

I guess I have been naive to think that it would be safe to eat cheap burgers. Ignoring the warnings about processed meats for the sake of money was downright stupid. Reading this has only strengthened my resolve to increase my vegetarian intake and supplement this with occasional meat and poultry from actually reputable sources like the meat stall at the local market. Learn more here.

Knowing what you eat is important!

Eating Out at Creole

For our 5 year anniversary Mr. Dutchess and I went to a grill place called Creole in our hometown of Galway, Ireland.  We had an absolutely gorgeous meal. But vegetarian it was not and at that time my cruelty free consciousness was not yet spreading as far as eating out. That has changed but I would still really love to go back to this restaurant. So when they put up their specials last night, I left a comment asking about where they source their meat, particularly their chicken and pork as cows and sheep are most often free range in Ireland.

Here’s their reply:

@Linda. Pork from collerans. Chicken usually from the friendly farmer. But he’s off for two weeks. Back to free range then. In six months Dan the chef will hopefully have the first of his own free range saddleback pigs for the restaurant. Lots of bbq pork then. 

I am reasonably impressed by their answer. The Friendly Farmer I know to be reputable and cruelty free in its animal rearing. Shame they’re not looking for free range alternatives while he isn’t working but to be fair, he is not exactly one of many. I am not familiar with Collerans, a quick Google search does not tell me much about their policies on cruelty free meat but they do seem to have a good name around here. The fact that the chef rears his down pigs at least inspires the notion that he is conscious of the issues surrounding meat rearing.

For now I am way too broke to go out to eat anywhere but hopefully by the time the chef’s pigs are all set I will be back in a job.