I think you’re right to emphasise that organic ≠ ethical. Some people think they’re doing the ‘right’ thing by only eating organic food, but they’re probably not. Ethically, it’s a bit difficult to pull apart what exactly they are doing.

As for what to eat instead, tricky one. You use the example of chicken…but should we be eating meat, or indeed fish, at all? Lamb is arguably the most ethical meat, because you can raise lambs on land entirely unsuitable for crops…but most other meat subtracts more than its own nutritional value in crop land space. We’re absolutely decimating marine biodiversity through our fish obsession.

There are also very few bits of sound dietary advice to recommend specific combinations of foodstuffs for a happy, healthy population. Beyond ‘get more fresh fruit and veg’, there is almost nothing you can say with certainty. Do we ‘need’ meat? Presumably the nutritionally optimal diet would not be scalable to six billion people, so what compromise do we adopt?

Maybe I should put pen to paper and finish this train of thought on my website…though the bottom line is either ‘we need more studies’, or ’screw it, make environmental destruction costly, and let the market work it out’.

I deliberately left out the “don’t eat this particular food option” mostly because I wanted to stick to the organic vs. conventional polarisation to start with. But you’re right, there are many better uses for land than farming animals at all, nevermind doing it in a way that’s nice to the animals. At least fish don’t cause that problem… Indeed, people who don’t buy chicken at all are better for the environment, but if no-one buys chicken (or eggs) then it doesn’t look good for chickens! Maybe meat should be viewed more as a luxury food, with small farms producing really expensive kinds instead of the mass production we get today. Aside from doing that we’re still going to need dairy farms, though, and egg farms, so it doesn’t solve much of the problem.

Your last paragraph sums it up really. Nicely put. I’d like to hear more of your thoughts on food ethics — do write about it if you find the time.

Apparently chillies flown in from Kenya only generate about 15% more CO2 than growing them here, and you’re helping third world farmers, so it might be in your interest to do that instead.

Regarding the depletion of “natual resources” for hens - is that because free range outdoor hens eat grass but battery hens don’t? What do they mean by “natural resources”?

Did you know that Ecover isn’t organic? Apparently the crops they use to produce the oils for the products are GM. Tsch, eh?

Biodiversity? I tried some red bananas last week. Made a change from Cavendish…

Communist gruel? The Falcon books are set in a world where meat is rare and most of the population live on a type of funghi grown in huge vats. And yes, this predates Quorn.

What did you have for lunch then?

That and sustainable, local food sources. Don’t leave home without one!

If we can grow chillies here, why are we importing them? Shouldn’t third world farmers be growing more fundamental foodstuffs for all those starving people who live near them?

Depletion of natural resources is a pretty vague term that sometimes means simply land that could be used for other things, and sometimes means forests etc. It’s basically a point about land use, I think.

I had… Veg soup with lentils for lunch. From a Heinz tin. I have no idea whether it’s ethical, but it certainly wasn’t organic.

Rory: cool idea for farms, I like it.

Strokey: Maybe you should drink some real beer. I quite liked Stinger, which is made organically with nettles, but I think I may be in a minority.

I don’t have time for a full on rant, but I will say this about chicken:

You expressed the view that free range chicken is better for the environment than organic.

Free range chickens are likely to be raised in a shed with access to a poky little strip of earth. Because chickens have a strong grubbing instinct, they will likely root up any plants growing there, including grass (this is what my dad’s chickens did). This is almost certainly not good from a ‘we like forests’ perspective. Also, although I don’t really expect you to care about this, they will probably not go outside all that much because chickens are, like you, fond of forests. They are related to the Pheasant and directly descended from Junglefowl. Trees are what they like.

Organic standards require 4 square metres of shelter on the outside area per 500 birds. This is most cheaply implemented by having trees. The land is also rotated and rested, so that ground-based vegetation is maintained.

Even if you don’t care about the chickens pecking each other to death or only being kept alive through scary levels of antibiotics, organic chicken is better for the land.

In fact, the free range requirements stipulate that there must be vegetative cover, so I’m not sure where your data is coming from. Chicken Out(A campaign for better welfare for Britain’s Chickens headed up by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall) says:

“For chicken meat to be called ‘free-range’, it must be produced to standards laid down by EU law. The chickens must be provided with access to open-air runs that are mainly covered with vegetation. They have more space to move around than ’standard’ birds and live for at least 56 days.”
and
“All organic chickens are fed on a diet rich in organic cereals, which haven’t been produced using pesticides and which are free of genetically-modified ingredients. They are not given routine doses of antibiotics, and live for at least 81 days.”

I think you’re scaremongering a little here. Most free range farms keep their chickens at a standard well above the minimum requirements, and are not certified organic only because they can’t meet some of the more stringent organic requirements, including that all of the land they are on must be organic and all the feed must be grown without pesticides and without any GM content. You omit points raised in the article about water courses, natural resource depletion, and importantly, the CO2 emissions per bird.

Whilst we can’t even give all humans enough food to survive, let alone have a pain and stress-free existence, and whilst the threat of climate change leaves us trying to do whatever we can to slow it down or alter its course, I’m afraid making chickens lead happy little lives is not high on my list of priorities. It’s just about high enough that I won’t buy intensively farmed chicken or battery eggs.

I think if the free range requirements aren’t enough for you, and you care about the environment too, then you shouldn’t buy chicken at all. Which I’m pretty sure you hardly ever do anyway, Ruth. All I’m saying is that of all the ways of buying chicken, organic is worst for the environment. A completely valid option to saving the environment through your chicken buying habits is to stop buying chicken.

—–A small rant—–
It annoys me that I can say “I buy free range chicken” and have someone say “but think of the chickens!!!”. I buy it *because* I have ethics and I look into things, just the same as most people buying organic (the ones who aren’t blindly jumping on the bandwagon, anyway). Yet I am treated with the same disdain usually reserved for people who buy the cheapest version and don’t care how it became so cheap. Organic to me is unethical, and that’s why I don’t buy it, not because I’ve reached some sort of limit of caring vs. price.
—–rant ends——-