Elisabeth Luard
What We Eat Is What We Are
Planet Chicken: The Shameful Story of the World's Favourite Bird
By Hattie Ellis
Sceptre 320pp £14.99 order from our bookshop
The English at Table
By Digby Anderson
The Social Affairs Unit 151pp £16.99 order from our bookshop
At first glance one might think that Hattie Ellis, author of this frightening tale of Man’s inhumanity to bird, and Dr Digby Anderson, a fellow with a talent for setting the fox among the chickens, are unlikely barnyard companions. Yet both put broadly the same argument.
At issue is whether we, consumers of horrible food produced in horrible ways, are prepared to change our habits and pay decent money for food which tastes the way it should. The case for chicken at the buy-one-get-one-free level – ‘bogofs’ in supermarket-talk – is that cheap meat is protein for the masses and anyone who argues is a toff with more money than sense.
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