Friday 9 February 2018

Change may not be in the wind

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It’s a bit like the chicken and egg situation. Bill English runs a flawless campaign, wins the election and then husband and wife team Barry Soper and Heather du Plessis-Allen write separate newspaper columns suggesting there is a move within caucus to remove him.

This starts the conversation of course, but it is unlikely that it originated from within ranks the ranks of National.

The same might be said for constant commentary suggesting meat-eating is on the way out and vegans and vegetarians are increasing markedly in number.

I doubt any of these claims are factual. Setting aside the Bill English persiflage, meat sales may be declining slightly in New Zealand, but I suspect this is due more to price than lack of desirability.

Lamb has had the biggest hit with beef close behind. Sales of chicken and pork however are on the increase. The reason for this is that we don’t export chicken or pork so buoyant overseas prices don’t effect the local market.

We also export our lamb and beef to countries with newly-emerging middle classes where meat is a luxury, and is an enticing option from the rice alternative. Meat in these markets may be unaffordable for much of the proletariat, but the population bases are so high that sales volumes are immense.

Western world meat producers needn’t panic however. In a surprising outcome, a study by the American Humane Research Council found that eventually 84% of vegans and vegetarians return to eating meat.


One of the researchers, Professor Hal Herzog, quoted his daughter who was a vegetarian for 18 years, but has gone back to the consumption of flesh. He asked her why she felt compelled to change her veggie ways.

Her logic for turning anti-carnivore when she was 13 was ostensibly because she cared about animals, but in reality she just wanted to be different.

She said her reason for going back to eating meat at age 31 was that she realised she wasn’t enjoying food the way other people did. “Eating was a chore, like folding laundry or paying bills, but even more annoying was that if I didn’t do it I would die. For nearly 18 years I ate grains, produce, legumes and fake meat products like those Morningstar bacon strips that have lower nutritional value than cat food and it seemed like I was always hungry no matter how large my bowl of beans and rice.”

Meat marketer’s world-wide will applaud the sentiment.

There’s another reason, not generally recognised, as to why we might be going off our animal protein and that is the relatively poor quality of New Zealand meat.

The older generation will remember back when they always bought hogget as opposed to lamb. Hogget, (farmers called them two-tooths) is a year older than lamb and was considered more flavoursome; however our sheepmeat is of such poor grade today you only ever see lamb for sale in the supermarkets.

It’s the same story with beef. Rump steak was once the favourite for frying or grilling and restaurants featured it prominently on their menus. With the dairy strain creeping into our beef herds rump is not suitable for frying anymore.

As my father used to say about any meat of poor quality, “It’s that tough you couldn’t get your fork into the gravy.”

So the chickens and the eggs are still surviving, but it might take some lateral thinking to ensure the future of some of their protein associates.

Meanwhile Bill English’s leadership continues to look remarkably stable.

“If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be a vegetarian.” - Paul McCartney

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