28 October 2010

DO YOU REALLY CARE WHAT YOU EAT?

This morning I attended an RNZ SPCA brunch at the Top of the Town in the Hyatt hotel. (Remember that? The town’s best dinner with a view more years ago than I would care to admit, and now a function room.) The food was wonderful; all made from Blue Tick pork or eggs including the crispy deep fried, Asian-style eggs from Peter Gordon that are pictured here.

A cynical friend of mine had vowed I would be eating pet food, or digging into my pocket for donations to the SPCA. How wrong she was. The occasion was the launch of the SPCA’s Blue Tick campaign. The Blue Tick will be on food we eat that has been humanely raised. Or more bluntly, we’ll be assured that we’re eating the flesh of happy, healthy animals.

To start with the Blue Tick will be found on the packaging of some eggs (including some of Pam’s house brand – Go Foodstuffs!) and pork from Freedom Farms and Harmony. Happy hens and happy pigs. And despite further cynicism from my friend, this is not a fund raiser for the SPCA so they can have more cat hotels and dog runs. It is a self supporting initiative that the lovely folks at the SPCA really care about, and so should we.

I was very recently in Britain and Ireland and was stunned at the concern of the public about what they eat. From the flashest restaurants through to fast food chains, the businesses everywhere proudly state their commitment to sustainability first and foremost, to the provenance of the food they serve and in many cases, seek organic and natural food to serve their customers. The most outstanding of all these was the fast food chain, Prêt á Manger, where posters, napkins, packaging and much more told the story of their commitment to a better earth.

We visited the Eden project in Cornwall and the ingenuity there the commitment to improving or not spoiling our environment was remarkable. Gardens, displays, cafes, art work, and signage reinforced the sustainable earth message.

For too long New Zealanders have coasted along, smugly thinking we have the cleanest greenest place to live on earth. And perhaps we have, but it is high time all Kiwis thought about their food, cared where it has come from, questioned the ethics of growing or raising it and demanded natural, safe product, made in New Zealand if possible. I’ll be buying my food from a farmer who cares or if I have to go to the supermarket, I will be looking for that Blue Tick.