Yes, you are what you eat

Times are hard, writes Rural Affairs Editor Nathan Rous. So hard that the burden of increases in council tax, gas, petrol and mortgage repayments mean households up and down the land simply cannot afford to spend more on food.

So why is it then that luxury chocolatier Thorntons can announce a healthy year-on-year increase in sales? Surely if there is no room in the budget for free-range chicken, how come a tray of artery-furring truffles manage to slip into the basket?

You can imagine the scene: 25-stone gluttonous pigs splayed out on the sofa, watching reality TV night after night and popping chocolates in with gusto.

These are the people who think nothing of serving up a microwave meal, or 'cooking' a handsome bounty of frozen nuggets and chips for their unfortunate offspring while picking their way through mounds of chocolate, crisps and fizzy drinks.

They will happily chow down on a chicken which is covered in ammonia-burns from sitting in its own faeces for 24 hours a day, rather than pay more for an animal which has rummaged around the great outdoors.

It is also somewhat ironic that a lot of these 'hard-up' shoppers are keeping tight reins on the food budget but continue to load their shopping into a rather thirsty 4´4.

Yes, money is tight for everyone, but let's not keep trying to convince ourselves of the same lie that our bank balances won't stretch to paying more for the weekly shop.

Food needn't be a class war. True, many people want to make it that way because it allows them to fuel the misapprehension that they are better than everyone else, but if the 'benefit brigade' can spend a fortune on trainers, mobile phones and dangerous dogs then surely they can cough a bit more for high-welfare food.

It goes back to education. Just like long-term unemployed need the confidence and skills to approach each new job, we need to teach those who have the culinary skills of Rick Stein's dead dog, Chalky, how to make a little go a long way.

I spoke to Chris Wesson of Crowsmoor Farm in Aston-on-Clun during Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's Chicken Out campaign last month.

Chris sells a premium chicken which spends as long as 84 days slow-growing in the south Shropshire countryside, and while it sells for a handsome price he gets at least eight meals out of each one; once the main chicken has been devoured he uses the leftover meat to knock up a risotto before using the carcass to make a superb stock for soup.

I know we're not living in post-war Britain but no one wants to pour money down the drain. You wouldn't eat dog chocolate (although some people could clearly get away with it) so why eat the animal equivalent?

Oh, and there is the school of thought that suggests we could all do with eating a little less. Ever tried that? If people want to eat rubbish then they are welcome to it; part of your human rights, or inhuman rights if we consider the poor chicken in all of this.

Just do not parrot out the excuse that price dictates what you eat.