Examentrainers

		Jamie’s fowl sanctimony1)
		Zoe Williams
1		The conditions of the working chicken in the UK are turning into
		what Americans call a hot-button issue. Jamie Oliver, in his Fowl
		Dinners, gassed a generation of boy chicks for us. Well, it wasn’t
		him, exactly, it was the industry. But it’s such a moral grey area,
		isn’t it, reportage? Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, another famous
		chef, meanwhile, rammed home the realities by creating his own
		intensive chicken farm, which brought him to tears at one point,
		at the horror of it.
2		Two facts stand out, beyond the grim stories of chickens
		suffocating in sweltering vans. First, this is not new information.
		The traumas of battery chickens have been common knowledge
		for as long as people have been campaigning against foxhunting, for as long as
		schoolgirls have been shopping in The Body Shop. Second, the new wave of protest
		hasn’t put any dent in sales − the big supermarkets were apparently bracing themselves
		for a downturn in the market after the broadcasts of Jamie and Hugh. In fact, daily sales
		of chicken have increased somewhat, up 7% on November’s figures.
3		So, what are we supposed to make of this? That, even knowing all we know, we are
		too hardhearted and greedy to act upon it, and we find it incredibly easy to disassociate
		the hateful life of the creature from eating its meat? To put it even more simply, we are
		bad people, except those who are buying expensive free range chickens at £25 each,
		who are good people. Immediately, this statement annoys us. Yes, we all have to take
		responsibility for our consumer choices. But those choices are a lot more meaningful for
		some than for others. To someone with dependants, living on the average national
		income of £24.000, the difference between a three-quid broiler and a £10 organic bird is
		enormous.
4		To Jamie Oliver it is no difference at all, on account of how he is loaded. And why is
		he loaded? Because a) he makes quite a lot of money entertaining us by gassing boy
		chicks, and b) he hoovers up that much and more again by advertising for Sainsbury’s,
		which has been one of the driving forces behind this cheap food since mass production
		began.
5		Or, at least, this is the kind of petty-minded line of argument a person might be
		driven to, standing accused of cruel consumer choices. It is, frankly, obnoxious to see a
		rich person demanding impoverishing consumer choices from a poorer person. These
		chefs consider themselves outside politics, because they’re being straightforward − let’s
		eat what came out of the ground naturally, what was raised in a happy way. Let’s just do
		as nature intended, what could possibly be political about that?
6		They’re right, it isn’t political, in that it has no consistency of ideas. The fact is,
		ethics that come out of your wallet are not ethics. All these catchwords (fair trade,
		organic, free range, food miles etc.) that supposedly convey sensitivity to the
		environment, to animals, to the developing world are just new ways to buy your way into
		heaven. Anyone with a serious interest in this would be lobbying to tighten laws on
		animal cruelty. When we just preach to each other, it turns into the most undignified
		scramble − who can afford to be the most lovely? Well, you can, Jamie and Hugh.
		You’ve got loveliness to burn.

noot 1: sanctimony: schijnheiligheid