This post has been a very long time in coming so I apologise to the small group of followers and the occasional web traveller who stumbles across this blog in search of answers only to find a ghost of an inspiring blog.

You see my husband, toddler daughter and I are having an adventure of our own and we have moved to Spain. It has taken a while to find our feet, start grappling with the language and feel settled. So obviously this has meant that my mission has been shelved.

I hope and know that the information is still useful to people.  If you have any information about farms, suppliers etc I am happy to include your information here for others with the disclaimer that people need to vett for themselves. Even if you are a farmer or a supplier and claim to satisfy my criteria I am happy to include you and people can ascertain for themselves if your product is what they are looking for.

So I have encountered a whole new set of issues trying to source humanely raised, free range healthy meat here in Spain. The language barrier is a huge obstacle obviously. However we have been happily eating lovely jamón from a pig that has been free range raised in a Unesco biosphere reserve who feasts on his favourite food of chesnuts until his demise. I know for a fact that these animals have a superb quality of life but I don't know about slaughter practices and transportation. I do however know that the distances are quite short so the problems of transport we have in Australia are unlikely.

Two jamon legs strapped into the child seat of our bicycle:-)

Other than that I have been lowering my meat consumption and trying to buy écologic' where possible but i am not completely sure of the standards of this certification. Wish me luck. Maybe I will start a European site someday.
 

Some of you have been a bit confused as to why I have included information on here about big chain supermarkets and suppliers. In my utopian ideal we would all buy either organic meat or CICO meat direct from farmers with meat that that satisfies my criteria however I am a realist and understand that not everyone is able to nor wants to go down these lines for various reasons. Rather than just give up  I would rather provide information that helps people buy slightly more humanely raised, healthy meat. Is this a cop out? No I don't think so. Many cannot afford órganic'meat, do not have the time or energy to source meat direct from farmers. If a large section of the market supports more affordable less cruel, more healthy meat by buying these products at the supermarket then it will affect change. In fact it already has and Coles and Safeway are making headway on offering these products. Their decision to eradicate caged eggs from their shelves will save hundreds of thousands of hens from the worst treatment imaginable. It has much more impact than the dozens of people I have influenced or maybe the hundreds that a small farmer supplies.So to Mc Ivor Farms (see their comment below this post here) I know that there is a considerable difference between your beautiful happy pigs and the outstanding product that you offer and the product that Otway Pork provide as you describe in your comment. Otway Pork are a 1 on the utopian ideal and you are a 10 but I firmly believe that change needs to come from a number of sources and the long list of cruelty that does not occur at Otway Pork is a very positive step in the right direction affecting a lot of pigs and consumers. See my blog post and comments on this here
.So I want to make it clear that my aim is to encourage everyone to buy from sources such as Mc Ivor Farms and Farmer Dan but I am not burying my head in the sand and pretending that it is realistic that everyone will embrace my goals. This doesn't mean that people don't care and can't help. I hope that anyone reading this can find ways in which to make positive changes for themselves, family and the animals.