Food dilemma

[PrettyCandles]

A friend has just moved abroad, and when I went to her house to say goodbye she presented me with the contents of her freezer, fridge, and most of the store cupboard, too.

My dilemma is that we try always to buy free-range or organic meat, and sustainably sourced fish, but most of her freezer stuff was 'conventional' meat and fish. And a lot of it - at least 3 or 4 family meals.

Although it's not what we would normally eat, it seems to me to be more unethical to discard it than to eat it. DH disagrees.

WWYD?

Hmm. I'd eat the fish (because sustainability doesn't affect taste, and it's already been caught) and any beef or lamb, but I wouldn't eat any non free-range chicken and I'd be iffy about pork. It's already been killed and bought though, so it's worse to waste it - can you make it into a dish to share when people come round? Or to give to someone who could do with a meal being cooked for them? That way it's not being wasted but you're not eating it either.

No idea! I would eat it because I'm lukewarm about organic, and can't abide waste but it's certainly down to your conscience and I think that's your decision.

Reminds me of the Bible verse that says, not what goes into a man's mouth that makes him pure, but what comes out of it. Don't suppose you wanted to hear that though!

I would definitely eat it in the circumstances.

I'd eat it.

If you don't want to, perhaps you know someone with a big dog who would like some meat?

You personally could eat it, DH doesn't have to. Or does he not want you to eat it either?

I think it depends on your primary reasons for eating freerange and organic - if it's about pesticide residues, antibiotics etc then the conventional products may contain these and so I'd understand you/him not wanting to eat them.

However if your reasons are more about animal welfare, then I'd say it was morally "better" to save another animal from being killed (even one which was raised ethically) by having a number of meals from meat/fish which has already been killed , and whose conditions you can't change now. If you throw out this food and buy a freerange organic chicken, then it died needlessly IYSWIM?

I agree with AMumInScotland.

Ethically it is better to eat somehting that is already dead and processed than to waste it.

Definitely more ethical to eat it! It's been killed and paid for. Think of all the hungry people in the world! If you really can't bring yourselves to eat it do you have any neighbours that would appreciate it?

Exactly my point: the animals have already died - not to eat it would be wasteful. Dh, I think, is more concerned with the healthfulness of the food. But TBH I'm not convinced that there is a significant difference. In any case, he eats in restaurants.

So we shall eat it.