Vegan

The best British Scottish beef is reared mostly on grass, not heavily on cereal crops. Scottish and Welsh lamb are out on rough mountain or upland pastures for as much of the year as possible, sometimes all year round. They are not using land which could grow cereal/vegetable crops.

Was that an ironic hurray?
djen yes it was, (sarcasm is the lowest form of wit I know)

They are clean, cared for and well fed but I somehow think it's wrong that they never go outside.

We did notice when I was young and the cows were let out into the fields after the winter that the milk improved - it was more creamy and substantial somehow, not sure about the nutrition levels (no-one seemed to care in those days).
I am sure they are fed the best possible diet to give the best and most nutrient rich yield, but cows should be outside - in the summer anyway

I am still puzzled about her appointment.

No, the Minister or Shadow Minister for Agriculture etc does not need to know anything at all - if she is a quick learner she will soon get on top of her brief.
However, to appoint someone who obviously has such entrenched views about farming is an odd decision to make imo.

In my top three foods I miss the most as a veggie is a steak pie bought from local butchers in Scotland where the butcher butchers the meat himself. Probably my biggest temptation.

Not bacon butties WilmaKnickersfit? I don't eat a lot of meat and the team I worked on had a number of vegetarians - they really struggled when we treated ourselves to bacon butties on Friday mornings

I don't see why having a vegan as Shadow Minister for Agriculture is a problem.

so what about George (wallpaper) Osborne as Chancellor when he only has an O level in maths.

I don't think Gordon Brown had any relevant qualifications either.

I am64 never liked bacon, so don't miss it! But I know other veggies who miss bacon the most and I don't think there's a decent meat substitute either. Bassett's liquorice allsorts is something else I miss and it bugs me that the company still uses gelatin when vegetarian options are widely used in other food.

I didn't know about Bassett'e liquorice all sorts Wilma. I accept that farmer's care about animal welfare but I can't see how factory farming methods can be anything other than abusive. When I had 3 hens living happily in my garden, their hen house seemed about right. I later discovered that if they'd been battery hens, not only wouldn't they have had the fun of wrecking the garden when free ranging, there would have been 70 of them crammed into that little house.
The notion of cows who are never given the freedom to wander in a field sits very poorly with me.

I don't eat farmed fish because of my own health as well as that of the fish. I only eat free range, organic chicken and the lamb we buy is from our local butcher, who rears it himself on the moorland around our home. I have no difficulty understanding why the new shadow minister is a vegan and hope her influence will be positive.

Not trying to lighten the tone (well I suppose I am! , but it still makes me smile that after all these years it's Bassett's Liquorice Allsorts that always springs to mind when I think about what I miss - I still check the ingredients on the bags every now and then in the hope that I can eat them! I do have a sweet tooth! Other brands don't taste the same, so it's not the gelatin that makes the taste different.

Mueller light yogurts are the same. All the lovely flavours at a great price - but contain gelatin. Not bothered about this these days though because Lidl's yogurts are simply delicious (especially the pear flavour) and I wouldn't change brands now because of the taste.

intensive pig farming in UK

Hope this link works! This is the kind of disgusting farming practices we should be guarding against. Not just vegans but anyone who eats meat should be shouting from the rooftops. The suffering these animals will experience just to satisfy our lust for cheap meat is abhorant.

I certainly wouldn't want to eat meat from animals reared like this - think of the stress hormones in the meat for a start.

Anya, I couldn't bring myself to look at the link - I've seen photographs etc of intensive pig farming, it's loathsome. In fact, I now regret my bacon buttie teasing of Wilma.

Meat ought not to be cheap, and it certainly shouldn't come from animals who have been treated cruelly, stuffed full of inappropriate feed and antibiotics and never had the opportunity to live as their breed should. I helped out on a pig farm when I was in my teens, loved every minute. Pigs are generally very likeable, we just had one that was kept separate because of aggressive tendencies.

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/damien-clarkson/veganism_b_8106662.html