Looking at some of the cooking threads there is a slight meat’y bias. So does this reflect what people eat? Normally I eat meat maybe once a week (OH doesn’t so this would be a special meal just for me) and that’s the same with many of my non-French friends (with french friends eating a touch more). But we are on holiday, so eating out more and very aware I’m eating much more meat.
So do you eat meat daily, weekly or what? (And meat in the English sense so this includes chicken, lardons, and frog’s legs…)
Probably most days, mainly chicken, sometimes pork (inc bacon and sausages) and beef very rarely (and rare). Lamb almost never as OH cant stand the smell.
Also, seasonally dependent , don’t tend to have many barbies in the winter
Good question. Nearly always have a roast dinner on a Sunday, usually lamb. Apart from that probably twice a week sometimes less. I eat fish several times a week and lots of eggs and I’ve started to eat more plant-based proteins like falafal, beans and my new lunchtime favourite of peanut butter sandwiches. I struggle with the animal welfare aspects of meat so only eat free-range/outdoor-reared meat and eggs.
Izzy x
Free range eggs are readily available (we usually get bio as better welfare standards). But where do you find outdoor-reared high welfare standard meat? We have nothing apart from a couple of local producers, and our supermarkets have nothing at all apart from free range chicken which is still pretty intensively raised. I might eat a bit more meat if I could find decent stuff (I like eatimg it ).
(Try roast trout…two filets sandwiched together with a stuffing in between and roasted for about 20-30 mins depending on size, delicious.)
I ate very little before coming here but over 15 years with an averonnaise farmer’s daughter and although we’ve cut down, she and the kids will often eat meat twice a day, sometimes three times a day, 7 days a week. I’ll eat it at least every other day, sometimes everyday, sometimes I’ll go a couple of days without eating it, but with traditional French cooking on the table, it’s hard to avoid. Having said that, we eat far less red meat than the rest of her family, I don’t eat any at all (which they’ve never understood, not why I don’t eat the home produced fois gras either).
It is very hard to find really good outdoor-reared/high welfare standard meat in France but I think attitudes are changing and it will become easier. There are, of course, high quality farms that sell meat direct to the public (as seen on Météo à la carte, link to youtube channel below) but you need to find them and I know that’s not easy. I recall that Leclerc used to have Label Rouge ham and their own brand bio meat but not sure about the welfare standards. Sorry, that’s not very helpful I know.
I usually buy whatever fish is on offer as I’m on a budget but I love trout and get it when I can, will check out a recipe for next time I buy it.
Izzy x
I’m a bit of a carnivore I’m afraid and eat it daily. When my vegetarian brother came to stay we didn’t eat it at all for3 weeks though. I should make more effort to eat less but hard enough finding some thing we all like with meat in the mix, not sure the kids would be very compliant! My other issue is I need to eat a reduced carb diet for health reasons and a lot of the veggie alternatives often tend to be high / higher than meat (eg I used to make lovely bean veggie burgers but all those beans are really high carb).
I/we eat meat daily, mainly because my wife eats so little of anything but is a complete carnivore, if she cut out meat she would soon starve. For myself I am sure, without becoming a strict vegan, I could cut out quite a lot of it and rely on veg and fruit.
But one thing that puzzles me, why do people insist that they eat a lot of fish but no meat. What on earth is fish if it is not the flesh of a living being ie meat?
If fish eaters avoid red/white meat for principled reasons, how the hell do they think the fish they consume is killed? There are no stun guns on trawlers, the poor flapping condemned die by choking/suffocating/drowning while being tossed around according to which box they are required to be stored in.
I do eat fish and I do eat other kinds of meat, but it is always with a sense of guilt.
And don’t get me started on the farmers who give their animals pet names and treat them lovingly, rather than just humanely. Watching the wonder of the birth of a calf last night on tv and the way they fawn about in making sure the mother gets to it asap makes me squirm. They haven’t told that poor mother what her little boy calf’s almost immediate future is.
OH will eat wild fish, preferably from nearest sources not stuff that’s shipped across the world. Yes they flop about and die, but all research suggests that their level of pain receptors and sentience is far less than mammals. He won’t eat intensively farmed fish, in the same way I won’t eat intensively farmed meat.
Lets not forget vegetables and plants suffer pain too as do all living things.
I am with Tory, low carb, sugar free lifestyle apart from little treats at celebration time.
I don’t think anyone should eat fish at all seeing how depleted stocks are, the ecological impact is horrific, fishing is terribly wasteful, bycatch is appalling and farmed fish is fed wild fish and a source of pollution and disease. Factory farming is the pits.
I refuse to eat animals unless they are farmed in a way I find acceptable, if that means eating meat much less frequently then so be it. When my children were little I had hens who were very tame, delightful and free range and who laid fabulous eggs, but they were stolen - I think I may get some again.
Once or twice a week, mostly some kind of sausage or else chicken, or a slice of ham. If I want anything else, then I will go to a restaurant, which is pretty rare. I have cut back on my meat consumption and can quite happily go without for fairly long periods of time (my wife is vegetarian). Quite disappointed in the quality of French meat generally found in supermarkets, best to find a local butcher/farmer - there are a few in the area.
Absolutely agree, the oceans need at least a 5 year total fishing ban. Unfortunately the whole world would have to agree, and can’t see China (Or any other country) accepting and policing it.
Everyone who I told, that I was buying a house in France, with an idea to live there, told me I was mad. “You’re a veggie, they eat anything with a pulse over there, how will you cope”
In the 40yrs I’ve been this way I’ve never had a problem. I’ve only ever missed bacon, or the smell of it at least.
France provides the best fruit and veg anyway. Its easy for us here. It is a shame the bad press we get though, like we cant function without meat, people need to get educated.
On a personal note, I don’t eat meat, and I don’t care who does. Its a free world
My wife suffers if we eat out being a vegetarian. Omelette being the default or a salad, one of last times 4 mushrooms were added as a special vegetarian dish. We couldn’t wait to leave. How do others get on?
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I’ve never had a problem. I’ve only ever missed bacon, or the smell of it at least.