8th October 2010
St Anne’s Wells Gardens, Brighton, UK.
Type: Not sure
Henrik: So Beth:
Beth: Hello
Henrik: What were you doing in a tree?
Beth: I don’t know I was going to ask you that question [laughing]
Henrik: Why have you brought me here?
Beth: You brought me here!
Henrik: You brought me here! Don’t turn this around
Beth: Ahhhhhh…I have no idea.
[laughing]
Henrik: What do you want to talk about?
Beth: Hmmm, well! We could talk about … food
Henrik: Food? Food sounds good!
Beth: Ok, lets talk about food
Henrik: Hit me, hit me with something
Beth: Not a branch I assume.
Henrik: Not yet, not yet
Beth: Ok
Henrik: I will give you permission if I am rude or…
Beth: Alright, so I spent a year doing a hundred miles diet, everything I ate came from a hundred miles from where I was… so do you want me to keep talking about it [laughing]
Henrik: Yeah yeah yeah, just talk, sounds interesting… what for a year, wow it sounds more productive than just climbing trees for a year
Beth: Is that what you’re doing?
Henrik: Yeah yeah
Beth: How far into it… oh you started in January?
Henrik: Ahhhh, May 17th
Beth: Ok… I started in May as well!
Henrik: Did you, this was 2009 was it?
Beth: No this is May 2008 and I did it till May 2009
Henrik: Right
Beth: But I started in May because that’s when all the good food starts
Henrik: Right
Beth: Like strawberries and various different types of berries, coz before then there is a period in time called the hungry gap which is when all the food’s growing and everything looks really productive, but it not actually hmmmm, much you can eat yet
Henrik: Right, and how long does the hungry gap last?
Beth: Hmmm… kind of between February and May, so when the winter vegetables start to finish, and before that summer vegetables start
Henrik: Right
Beth: …Is the hungry gap
Henrik: Cool, so what made you do that?
Beth: [laughing] I can’t remember now, but I think I wanted to make a point about environmentalism and bring everyone’s attention to food miles
Henrik: Right, did you write about it or did you know or was it just your friends or… you said bring people’s attention, did you kind of write a thing about it
Beth: Yeah, I wrote an article for Permaculture magazine about it and I was interviewed by various other people, but you know it’s just generally people that I came into contact with
Henrik: Cool, that’s really cool
Beth: In the end, it turned out to be not really to be about that, but because they made me more aware of where things come from and what the bottom line really is in terms of you know, you think that your ipods and your central heated house are things that you should expect but actually you know, there’s people around the world making those things happen for you, or oil is making things happen for you
Henrik: Yeah, nearly everything is made elsewhere isn’t it?
Beth: Yeah, so when you go into the shop and you look at a jar of jam you think about the work that’s gone into that kind of growing and picking the fruits and growing and picking the sugar and maybe creating the fertilizers that made those things grow, making the glass, this that and the other. Its huge when you think about the amount of work that’s gone into making all that
Henrik: Mining, mining the metal that is on the lid
Beth: Yeah, so
Henrik: So it kind of grew for you… It started off as one thing and it, the work – so what this sort of what did you get most out of doing that, well I mean what was the…?
Beth: Hmmm, it felt kind of real, which is a strange thing to say, but it made me feel very healthy, to start off with and I lost lots of weight, but hmm …
Henrik: Because you couldn’t eat so much
Beth: Basically, because I had to carry things around, I had to carry my food around with me quite often and
Henrik: Big sacs of it
Beth: Yeah, but the big sacks became small sacks when I could not be bothered to carry around the big sacs around
Henrik: Oh during the hungry months?
Beth: Yeah and all the time, just because if you go out and you can’t buy something in the shop then you have take everything that you need with you, became a bit tedious
Henrik: Hmm. I have noticed that, when I have traveled a bit you know, lose weight, because you are eating much more hand to mouth and you know you turn up in a place and you just buy whatever is there and you eat it and then you move it, but anyway its probably a little bit different
Beth: Hmmm, hmmm but, yeah suddenly it becomes really seasonal and you are looking forward to the next thing that’s gonna come into season
Henrik: Yeah, oh that’s cool, yeah
Beth: So May has started and its asparagus
Henrik: Right
Beth: And then the next month there were strawberries
Henrik: Right
Beth: And then they kind of come in and go out of season and you kind of, at one point it always seems like there will always be thousands of strawberries, you are never gonna run out of strawberries, it’s all going to be fine and then they start kind of like drying up and shit [laughing]
Henrik: [laughing]. So did you not make stuff and conserve it?
Beth: No, not really, I should have done but I was finding it hmmm time consuming enough to just make the food and ….. And when people say what did you miss the most? I always say convenience, because I didn’t really miss tea or chocolate or whatever that much. But I really missed not having to, yeah I really missed being able to kind of eat something, buy something and eat
Henrik: Right, so you did it for a year and you have gone back to your old bad habits like everyone else, have you?
Beht: I have gone back to hmmm. When I cook at home, I probably cook and using 90% local food but I don’t have strict rules about eating in restaurants and having food at my friend’s houses anymore and I do buy food when I am out so
Henrik: Yeah
Beth: I probably eat quite a lot of non-local food now
Henrik: Hmmm
Beth: When I cook its always, sort of, kind of 90% local food
Henrik: Yeah, I found hmmm, I mean doing a project like that, I don’t know about you, but like you were saying you started to look into more things and it sort of sharpens your whole… When you got a kind of machine to do something or not do something,
Beth: I think restriction makes you creative in the way you think and can open up like, can make you think in a different way than people who aren’t having that experience, maybe
Henrik: Definitely yeah, definitely, I mean, I can be anal but I am not that disciplined, I mean my life is very chaotic, generally, and having this thing to do, its kind of been interesting you know, having a discipline, even though it could seem a bit frivolous, climbing trees, it’s sort of umm….
Beth: Hmm. Have you read that Italo Calvino book?
Henrik: No
Beth: Byron in the Trees
Henrik: No
Beth: It’s about a guy who just decides to live in the trees. So he climbs up into the trees and doesn’t come down for years and years.
Henrik: what does he eat?
Beth: I don’t know
Henrik: Squirrels
Beth: Probably, I haven’t read it but I know about it
Henrik: Hmm sounds good
Beth: Robert McPhalen writes about climbing trees quite a lot
Henrik: Oh does he? In a narrative way or…
Beth: No he wrote a book called “The Wild Places”. I think the beginning of that is about climbing trees
Henrik: Ok, The Wild Places, I have to read it
Beth: Yeah he’s a good writer. It’s a literary occupation climbing trees
Henrik: Is it?
Beth: Yeah
Henrik: It is for me
[laughing]
Henrik: No what else, what other gems have you got hidden. I had no idea you did this food thing
Beth: What other gems
Henrik: Yeah what other mad cap schemes
[laughing]
Beth: I am currently writing a book
Henrik: Are you?
Beth: Yeah
Henrik: What’s that about?
Beth: Well in a theme, along with a 100 miles diet thing… its about localism
Henrik: ok, so you are actually using that experience to sort of .. and what kind of a book is it, is it like a this is what I did, like how you can eat like this or is it philosophy or is it all those things
Beth: One chapter is about what I did and then there are some suggestions about kind of how you, how you can do that but the other chapters are about things like hmm land and local economies and local decision making
Henrik: Wow
Beth: So each chapter follows hmm this kind of story or about an organization or a community
Henrik: Cool, so you are going around meeting people as well
Beth: Will be, so yeah that’s the next project
Henrik: Cool, what kind of hmmm.. is there gonna be pictures in it?
[laughing]
Henrik: I only read books with pictures in [laughing]
Beth: Umm there will be a picture on the front in hope, there might not be I don’t know, or there might be pictures. Probably not though because pictures cost more to put in
Henrik: Yeah this is gonna be a problem with this book
Beth: Right. Some people read books that don’t have pictures in though
Henrik: Yeah yeah , I do as well. I love reading when I get around to it
[laughing]
Henrik: Have you read, there’s a woman who lived on ummm, she lived on a pound a day for a year, in Bristol. I think she had certain kind of things she didn’t include like rent
Beth: That’s cheating then, that’s not living on a pound a day. My friend Mark … lives on nothing
Henrik: Oh yeah Mark [laughing]
Beth: Mark, Well did you have him up on the tree
Henrik: Not yet but I want to
Beth: So to speak
[laughing]
Beth: He will be well of for getting up the tree for you
Henrik: Yeah yeah no definitely want to meet him. I know, I know, but I think that umm, I think what she did was still quite a challenge you know, like ummm she couldn’t have a phone, I don’t think she had an internet or anything like that. But I mean she had heating though the winter and all that sort of thing
Beth: Right, ummm
Henrik: But you know eating and getting about, that was making like quite hard decisions I mean, I think anyway yeah. Mark is probably taking it to another level but, he does a lot of like supermarket kind of runs and all that doesn’t he? Does he?
Beth: He does it for other people mostly… to be honest… I think he lives off his er… weeds
Henrik: Weeds?
[laughing]
Beth: And he used to manage whole food shop and I think he still works there like half a day a week or something like, that so they give him a big bag of oats and stuff that he grows his other food himself and forages quite a lot, but I think he basically lives off food that he is growing
Henrik: Right right . Is he planning to continue that like
Beth: Yeah yeah, he is continuing it
Henrik: So its an ongoing, its not just an year, or two years or…?
Beth: I think he is into his second year
Henrik: Right
Beth: I think his first year was up umm…. In… early this year so he’s done about 1 year and 6 months like that. He’s definitely quite away into his 2nd year, the 2nd year of doing it
Henrik: Yeah people keep telling me I need to meet him
[laughing]
Beth: Yeah he’s great, he’s Irish, crazy
Henrik: So you’re writing a book and you well the only thing I know is those 2 things. So you do permaculture?
Beth: Yes
Henrik: Like how did you get into that, I mean how does someone get into all these things, because I met these people who organized the World Naked Bike Ride in Bristol and they are mad into bikes. They have made like a you know a bike merry-go-round now and they just like ‘bikes will save the world’ kind of thing
Beth: Yeah they might
[Laughing]
Henrik: One part of the puzzle… but umm I asked them how does somebody become… engaged? Like how do you sort of coz it’s quite a radical thing to do, like I am gonna eat something stuff from only a 100 miles radius a year, how does like
Beth: First of all, one has a climate change nervous breakdown
[Laughing]
Henrik: Really
Beth: Well not quite, not really a nervous breakdown,
Henrik: A crisis
Beth: You know that kind of oh shit this could be bad and then you research it and f…k that’s really quite bad and
Henrik: Yeah yeah, what was the trigger for that
Beth: I don’t know, I was just on a holiday with my friend in Greece and then I was like, I used to get kind of anxious about things and then usually I’d read up about them and you know, I have cancer or something like that read up about them and then I definitely don’t have cancer. And then when I got back to Britain, I am gonna read up about climate change and it will be alright. So I came back to Britain and then read all about climate change and then couldn’t get out of bed for 3 days [laughing]
Henrik: Really
Beth: Yeah, then I did some boring stuff like trying to be a teacher which I didn’t continue doing and then about 3 years ago I found out about transition towns
Henrik: Ok
Beth: You had Rob Hopkins up a tree?
Henrik: Yeah last week or a week before or last… that was fun
[laughing]
Beth: Yeah I have kind of transition and I went along to a few meetings and it seemed like a really kind of new way of thinking about things, and also really positive coz and I mean now that I am kind of into it I can see that there are other groups who take a positive kind of approach to stuff, but before then it seemed like the only thing you can do is umm campaign, you know against you know
Henrik: Rather than actually doing something yourself, just getting on with it, not waiting for somebody else to make the ur…
Beth: Yeah so umm I got into that. I run with Cat my housemate I run a thing called Swaparamarama which is a clothing swapping customization event, where everyone brought their clothes along and then we had seamstresses help me them transform the clothes that they all swapped into
Henrik: Cool
Beth: Really cool stuff yeah. But umm yeah I don’t quite know at what point I decided to it. I think I was really into video blogging and I saw this video, of this woman who had done it in America there she done over 250 miles which she did so that she could have the nearest grain mill within her radius
Henrik: Right, its bigger distances over there
Beth: Yeah that’s true. She had 12 trade items that were not from within 250 miles
Henrik: Alright so she allowed herself sort of sugar
Beth: I think she had pectin in there, I don’t know if she had sugar, maybe she had sugar, but she definitely had pectin and various other things
Beth: So you don’t buy it, you think she’s a woos
Beth: That’s cheating
[Laughing]
Beth: No, I have every respect for her she’s very cool she does a program about foraging she’s called Sony Savage, which is very cool and then I thought that’s a cool thing to do and so I did it
Henrik: So you have been brought up a bit of a, I mean your parents are they kind of interested in this kind of thing
Beth: No, they were teachers
Henrik: Right, So they are not lefty
Beth: No they are kind of apolitical really my parents
Henrik: Ok, so what happened then, how did you sss…, what went wrong?
[Laughing]
Beth: I have no idea, I don’t know, I guess its when I really, I don’t know if I was just driven by fear… or something else. One of the things that I liked about transition was that if you get past the ”Oh my God we are going to die, it is going to be really terrible, and why don’t we do something to stop it” kind of feeling, and start doing things that made your life better and made you feel good
Henrik: I tell you what, I have been doing other things, I have been trying to do other project, what triggered it for me was, I have always… like my mum went to Greenham common when I was a kid and she used to drag me out to things like demo’s and things like that, ummm…. and I was quite fired up politically at least verbally for long time… and then I kind of went off it all and I just thought no, and then I saw Al Gore’s film, “The Inconvenient Truth” and that is the one that got me suddenly I was what you said “Oh shit” and ummm… and I had a point…
[Laughing]
Henrik: So yeah there was a sort of progression and I had friends who questioned things as well, you know… so I am wondering about you I suppose you know…
Beth: Ummm
Henrik: In terms of, if you came from fairly apolitical parents you know what
Beth: I was always kind of like active but never really super politicized. I always kind of did things but I kind of never really had an ideology behind them until something worried me so much that I felt I had to do something about it and still feel I have to do something about it. But now I kind of I feel like if we do certain things, if we do certain things, we will have a better life… like she says speaking for everybody [laughing]
Henrik: Right
Beth: Instead of kind of telling people not to do things
Henrik: So just doing… right. So what do you think about this kind of green fascism sort of idea
Beth: [laughing] The environment is the top most value
Henrik: and you just say ‘look you cannot drive a car anymore’, you can only drive it once a week. What do you think of that kind of idea, coz for me that’s… obviously, people need to feel free but at the same time if they don’t seem to give a monkeys…
Beth: Umm, I don’t know how I feel about that. I.. well there are other restrictions people operate under and don’t question and or at least they do question them but they generally abide by them. But I think if you have like a really a restrictive society then, you are gonna cause other problems
Henrik: Like tensions
Beth: Yeah. I don’t think that would ever happen, at the moment, given that the people in power are not really the ones who care about, are not the ones who put the environment at their top most value. But I think it’s about needs. People perceive needs in different ways, don’t they, some people say I need to have a car because I have to pick my children up from school. But its kind of how you think about need. Because I don’t think they really need to pick their children up from the school in a car, they could walk to the school and pick their children up that way or they could cycle and take their kids on the bike as well. So it’s not really a need but its about how kind of super convenient you want to make your life and what do you lose in the process of making it super convenient?
Henrik: I suppose that’s the beauty of just getting on and doing it, is because you can hopefully do it and then people can see, actually that’s the better way, hopefully
Beth: Well, it depends where people’s value are though, I don’t think most people would think that not having a car and cycling all over the place is a better way, because they will say no I need to do this and I need to do that,
Henrik: Which brings us back to green fascism [laughing]
Beth: Yeah. If I was in-charge I’d make everyone live the same way as I do, but I am not [laughing]
Henrik: [laughing] You would be a green fascist.
Beth: Ummm… I don’t know, because that feels like really a top down kind of approach to come from and I don’t really think that way. Which is not necessarily a good thing, like I always think from the bottom up, but there does need to be top down kind of things happening I guess, because people joining together can only do so much. At the moment there are only small groups of these people
Henrik: Hmm I don’t know you know, there are small groups relatively I suppose but it seems to me that wherever I go there seems to be quite a lot of people who want changes. I mean there is lot of people waking to this stuff
Beth: Yeah I was actually surprised, I was working at the energy solutions trade fair the other day which was a trade fair for renewable energy companies and this guy came up to me, and it’s all really big business, it’s all really buy, buy, sell, sell, what have you got that I can buy over hear. And I was working for a charity so I actually had nothing that they could buy [laughing] but… this guy came up to me and said that he had got quite upset over the past year, like he was like a proper like, business man, like straight down the line businessman and he said he got quite upset in the past year about the climate change and what might happen to his kids in the future and so I think that it, it does, it is trickling though, but one thing I am kind of er… I don’t know if people need to be a little bit frightened before they can do anything about it. Because everyone has this message of you know, make it positive, this is gonna happen but here’s what we can do, and I think the people who do the changes most are the ones who are scared. So may be we should actually be like trying to scare the shit out of people.
[Laughing]
Henrik: Well there’s that… Did you see the ad, the Richard Curtis thing?
Beth: The 10.10 thing? No but I heard about it, the review I read about it was that they were really treating people like naughty school children for not joining the 10 10 campaign.
Henrik: yeah, that’s what people are though, aren’t they? We’re all a bit like, my grandmother…
Beth: I haven’t joined the 10 10 campaign
Henrik: You haven’t? Well I don’t think it’s about joining that, its about just taking it seriously and actually trying to reduce your CO2 emissions but Umm… to qualify my comment which is my grandmother said once, that we never grow up, which people have argued it against me but I think that, well I feel like we treat this society like a bit of a playground, and you know we don’t get involved, a lot of people aren’t involved or engaged with politics, and so you could argue that they are just, they are like children really coz they just let mummy and daddy kind of get on with it and just get shuffled around and told what to do,
Beth: It’s not entirely…
Henrik …and then they go into town and play in theme park, theme park pub. I say they… I’m not… I am right in there as well or have been at times
Beth: It’s to do with the modern work ethic. I think that you know… people are expected to work so hard 5 days a week, so when they come home they are obviously knackered and don’t want to do anything, so they buy processed foods so they can stick in the oven and they watch television which is like opening up a channel to adverts and being kind of like brainwashed into buying more stuff which makes them work harder
Henrik: To get those things
Beth: Yeah
Henrik: So you think it’s the work ethic that it all boils down to
Beth: Yeah, well kind of capitalist led work ethic. I’m sounding like an anarchist now
Henrik: [laughing] I have said that word many times and in a negative way over the course of this last 4 months
Beth: [laughing]
Henrik: But Ummm… capitalist led… well… yeah…. I suppose… if people worked in, you know the industrial revolution and all that, I mean it started with like, I don’t know I mean we’ve had oppressed people for years haven’t we, working under lords and whatever
Beth: Yes
Henrik: And then ummm… and I would have thought they worked a hell of a lot harder in those days didn’t they? I don’t know
Beth: It depends on who you talk to. There is an article in Resurgents magazine this month about how medieval peasants actually worked less days than we currently do. This is actually one of the things I am interested in, the ways people use history to justify things, so like medieval peasants will be used by the people from New Economics Foundation who use them to say actually they work less, what do they have to say, we should learn from them. But other people also use them to be kind of ‘a life of toil and drudgery’. So they kind of
Henrik: Right yeah yeah, And now we have got kind of so much comfort and, we got all the stuff that came out the unions and got loads of progress kind of thing and working hours of you know blah blah blah, and workers rights, you know that sort of thing but its all bad, it’s all manure is it?
Beth: Well I think we can mean anything by virtue of being dead, they can’t actually tell what their lives are like [laughing] so people use whichever version of history suits them to make their point. But because we are talking about like progress its hard not talk about the past as well. I am very interested in the ways that people kind of imagine the past. Especially like when I say deep green or dark green versus bright greens kind of a…..
Henrik: Yeah .. I really don’t know what you mean
Beth: [laughing] Ok this guy called Stephen, he writes a blog called World changing and he came up with these shades of green to mean your approach to environmentalism, like the bright greens and like the techno files are the people who think that innovation and new technology is gonna save us
Henrik: Ok so it’s a categorization of how you view the situation and the solutions to it
Beth: So the dark greens are like the people, who like they think that if we went back to medieval period it would be great, those kind of … which probably includes me [laughing]
Henrik: Yeah probably, I have met some of those….oh you are one of those
Beth: Secretly… secretly
Henrik: I suggested building a skyscraper out of wood, would that be ok?
[laughing]
Beth: I don’t think it would be structurally sound
Henrik: .. they weren’t into it.
Beth: Right, they didn’t like it at all
Henrik: No they thought we need to be down, you know you need to be near the earth, but yeah carry on what you were saying was really interesting
Beth: Ummm.. I can’t remember what I was saying
Henrik: You were talking about this guy and the dark greens and the bright greens
Beth: Yeah but I can’t remember why
Oh, yeah the hmm, dark greens being the romantic environmentalists who think that everything was much better in the past and all we have to do is stop this all this silly progress and everything will be ok
Henrik: Right, ok, which I don’t buy into
Beth: I don’t buy into either but also
Henrik: I think its got to be both now because of the numbers of people around
Beth: yeah
Henrik: Because you have to share resources in a corporate way, some of the resources anyway, or maybe not
Beth: Ummm
Henrik: 100 miles [laughing] lets bring it back to 100 miles
Beth: Its an extreme thing to do and I am not suggesting everybody does it but I think it was a good experiment… and but… I think most things or at least a lot of things could be sourced much closer to home which would have the benefit of actually connecting, you will be able to see where your food came from and see how things are made and… Because I think it’s not being able to see those that allows stuff to happen
Henrik: Yeah yeah yeah, but its like war isn’t it. You know you drop bombs from far away or shoot rockets, it’s not the same as sticking a bayonet into someone. So its like you just go home to your wife or husband and like have a nice dinner and not really think about it too much, may be, is that what you are saying? That kind of thing?
Beth: Yeah
Henrik: Yeah well ok, they all took pictures of the factory where it was made or… to sort of bring home, but then we want a nice cozy life don’t we?
Beth: Yes
Henrik: We don’t want to be confronted with things… like those images you see in magazines, you suddenly flip over and it’s the kid with the sort of hair-lip with the cleft palate problem or something you know, its like phoooo… you don’t get those in Closer magazine. I mean people don’t want to see that stuff, I mean it is hard. I suppose we wrap this up. But I mean you look very comfortable laying on that branch
[laughing]
Henrik: I think you struck gold with the branch today
Beth: Well yeah I got here first
Henrik: I have been kind of shuffling around, but ummm… any last thoughts
This has been a long interview, supposed to be in bed by 12, that was an absolutely hopeless idea
Beth: Ummm no I don’t think so, its been a nice tree
Henrik: Cool cool, when’s your book gonna be done
Beth: Not for a long time
Henrik: Not for a long time, well not for a couple of years?
Beth: Umm it would take me probably a year to write the rest of it and so probably come out like a couple of years.
Henrik: Sure sure, well ummm, I will see you again before then I hope
Beth: Cool
Henrik: Nice one thanks very much [laughing]
Beth: Wicked
Henrik: Ok hah…… I don’t know… I feel like saying one more thing or asking one more thing but ummm… I suppose it should be obvious what people could do. What can people do based on from what you have been talking about? I suppose its just being more aware of local like…what’s the most effective way of eating more locally or… in you experience you have done lot of it
Beth: Most effective way of doing it or the most effective way of becoming more aware, or what??
Henrik: Well,,. sourcing and that stuff. Is there a website that will help you
Beth: Not really, Get a veg box is my big tip
Henrik: Ok, get one delivered
Beth: Yeah, then you don’t even have to leave the house, the food comes to you and local health food shops usually have, or quite often have or farm shops as well have kind of cheeses and things like that. And try and ummm .. I think grains are the hardest thing to find like wheat and oats and things like that. So if you can find them then you are very lucky
Henrik: Right ok
Beth: Well yeah, make friends with farmers
[Laughing]
Henrik: Did you do that
Beth: A little bit yes, grow your own, get an allotment
Henrik: Well actually I have to ask what you do during the hungry months
Beth: Ummm… eat cabbage and potato for months and months and months
Henrik: Really, really? Is that what you did?
Beth: Yeah it felt like it was only that. There was other stuff as well but really not that much [laughing] beetroot, pasta
Henrik: Flip and like flavoring as well? Like spices and
Beth: Ummm… I had herbs but no spices
Henrik: Nothing from far away, ummm, interesting but you ate well did you?
Beth: Yeah really well
Henrik: Tasty?
Beth: Sometimes not so tasty
Henrik: Right [laughing]
Beth: But I was a vegetarian but I became meat eater
Henrik: Really, so that’s one of the things right
Beth: Yeah
Henrik: So that’s an interesting trade off isn’t it because meat produces, did you eat beef as well
Beth: Not really no
Henrik: Right ummm, because obviously there is more CO2 production in making meat isn’t it
Beth: It depends… Yeah there is, across the border, yes umm but arguably you should read Simon Farley’s book ‘Meat’. Ummm, it depends like where the meat come from and it depends on, what they’re fed on and depends on what kind of meat you’re eating and other things and it depends on how long before the animal is killed
Henrik: Yeah so lot of factors
Beth: Yeah so basically, but I would argue that animals are an important part of the mixed farm so I think there needs to be animals involved in agriculture. And I was vegetarian before so you know, that’s still; if I am drinking milk I am still involved in producing that
Henrik: Right setup
Beth: Unless you’re completely vegan and I think you haven’t got a leg to stand on really and if you are completely vegan, you are importing your protein from somewhere, unless you’re just eating home grown beans, probably in the form of Soya.
Henrik: It’s a can of worms what we have opened up here isn’t it?
[Laughing]
Beth: It is. Yes. But foods never simple its not like you can say… honestly I was doing research on rapeseed oil and I found like 10 websites that said rapeseed oil is terrible and 10 websites said it was great. Everyone will tell you something different. I have got this book that’s er… recipes from the 1940 and the advice they gave people was completely different to the advice that people would give today about what was wholesome and good for you
Henrik: But then you hope that our advice now is better because we know the science in more detail and there is more research because research is such a big part of things now
Beth: Yeah, but I think you know research just tells you that particular bit of carrots you know is really bad for you but another bit is really good for you. So its kind of ….
Henrik: So we need genetic modification!
Beth: I don’t think so
[laughing]
Henrik: Alright thank you that’s very good
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