It is the (relatively!) quiet season at The Oak Tree, and Richard has been wanting to see the blue cock in Trafalgar Square for ages so The Pig Idea Feast today was the perfect excuse to go.
The Pig Idea is all about legalising feeding catering and kitchen waste to pigs, by boiling it up and serving it as “swill”. It is plain common sense, & what people have been doing for centuries, until 2001, when it was banned following the foot and mouth panic.
The Blue Cock in Trafalgar Square is really quite remarkable!
The Pig Idea are also campaiging to get more legal waste (bread, brewers mash, vegetable timmings etc…) into pigs’ bellies., which is music to my ears as our pigs eat little else, but it can be hard to persuade retailers that it really is a) legal, and b) ok to give us meat-free food from their bins for our pigs, ie they won’t get sued. And I fear that some of the big food retailers simply don’t want us to know much is wasted…
The Pig Idea is promoted by the sort of celebrities that I can identify with. I managed not to faint when I saw Hugh FW (River Cottage on the telly kept my dreams of running a smallholding alive in the depths of corporate career hell).
Hugh FW himself. Really very pleasant and engaging chap. Not that I actually spoke to him 🙂
Tristram Stuart: Food Waste Campaigner and Thomasina Miers, who together came up with The Pig Idea
I had a message to transmit from our own Oak Tree Pigs. I am an old school campaigner (yes, I chanted “Maggie, Maggie, Maggie, out out out” in the late 80s!) so I made a placard to display…
See the fetching ribbons round my arms? They are holding on a copy of the next picture onto my back…
This delightful picture from Tom was emblazoned accross my back!
See? Getting the piggy message out any way I can!
Oooh look – people dressed as pigs! and strawberries….
Lots of people queuing up for….
… for some amazing free waste-fed pork
With the lovely people from Stepney City Farm who raised the pigs for the feast
Many thanks to all who put so much work into a great day, and here is to keeping the pressure on to let common sense win the day!
