Has Jamie saved your bacon?

Has Jamie saved your bacon?

Well, I couldn't let Jamie's latest programme go by without comment now could I? After all, as a pig keeper myself I feel rather attached to its subject matter. I watched it with my two allotment friends, as we went through the catalogues choosing our seed potatoes and other goodies for the coming allotment year. Apparently unaware of the irony, one of my friends had cooked sausages for us to eat while we watched: sausages of the finest* variety but not free-range by a long shot. Hmmmm.

As always, Jamie (and Hugh too whose chicken programme was excellent) is to be congratulated in using his fame and money not simply to earn himself more of the same but to do some good with it. A number of excellent organisations have been raising the issue of pig welfare and the plight of British farming for some time, but it takes a big-name celebrity to bring it before the mainstream public.

So well done, Jamie. And yet I couldn't help but feel that the message was a bit muddled. One the one hand, yes, let's support British pork because they are at a disadvantage because of their better welfare conditions. And yet, on the other hand, let's also be in no doubt that the much of British pork is raised in conditions that we would still not be happy with if we wanted to see pigs doing what they're supposed to be doing, in the environment they're supposed to be in. And making an enemy out of Dutch Crown may be fair enough, but actually the real baddies in the game (US company Smithfield Foods who are the largest pork producers in the world) went unmentioned.

And of course the supermarkets have a huge responsibility in all of this. Jamie did bring them in, but his position within Sainsburys compromised him and meant that he couldn't deal with any of them too severely. I went into my local Tesco-express to see what they have on their shelves. The majority of their pre-packed bacon is Dutch with some British, but nearly all of their pre-packed ham was simply 'produced in the EU'. To all intents and purposes this is another way of saying, 'produced in Poland by Smithfield Foods'.

Let's hope Jamie does some good. Let's hope labelling gets clearer. Let's hope people actively support British pork producers. Let's hope people begin actually to think about what's behind the food that they're eating. If you're inspired enough you could even think about making your own bacon!

Read Felicity Lawrence's thoughts on the matter here.