You have to wonder what prompted Edinburgh City Council to take the provocative stance of dropping meat from primary schools every Monday as part of the Meat Free Monday movement.
Perhaps the idea came from the council’s procurement department?
You can imagine that someone was potentially up for promotion when they suggested that they could slash the budget spent on meat by 20%, although you would like to think that such a cynical suggestion would be far from the truth bearing in mind it concerns the wellbeing of primary school children.
Perhaps a dietician decided that there was a requirement to reduce meat in the diet in order to maintain a balanced and healthy diet?
In the council’s own words the decision was taken to “… promote the benefits of eating less meat at a young age”. Few parents would argue with the principle of a healthy diet, particularly for young children. However, the benefits of eating less meat?
Given that the Edinburgh City Council authority covers a wide demographic ranging from some of the country’s wealthiest to some of the poorest families, would any nutritionist worth their salt actually recommend removing meat with its valuable protein and nutrients from the diet of all primary kids?
Maybe then the decision was taken by the council’s environmental department which decided there was a real need, again in the council’s own words, “.. to raise awareness of the environmental impact of livestock production, as well as poor standards in which some animals are farmed”.
Was this policy backed up by the council introducing Fruit Free Friday to highlight the environmental impact of growing and importing vegetables from around the world and the poor standards to which some workers are treated? No, thought not.
The same principle could be applied to Vegetable Free Tuesday but this idea did not quite have the ‘same ring’ about it.
If you were to discount all of the above possibilities you might have to consider the likelihood that the council has allowed itself to be led by the ideologies of one person or organisation.
Were this to be the case, there would need to be a serious inquiry into the way policy decisions are made.
Of course there is an argument that dropping meat altogether from the diet on one day of the week is no bad thing and if it can be justified from a child’s nutritional or welfare point of view, then few would disagree.
However, there is a missed opportunity here to educate children in the real benefits of livestock farming in Scotland by working alongside the Royal Highland Education Trust (RHET) which is based within the council’s own boundaries.
To young children, meals are major events, and major events shape your character and health for life. Some of my fondest childhood memories are of my primary school lunches .
Of course those were the days before procurement teams, nutritionist,
environmentalists and militant vegans.
Niall Blair runs 400 ewes and 40 suckler cows at Easter Cammock, Glen Isla in partnership with his wife Katy.
