Doncha just lurve a misleading headline? How about this, then:
Hospitals will take meat off menus in bid to cut carbon
It was almost enough to induce an apoplectic rage. Ah, but, read on…
The plan to offer patients menus that would have no meat option is part of a strategy to be published tomorrow that will cover proposals ranging from more phone-in GP surgeries to closing outpatient departments and instead asking surgeons to visit people at their local doctor’s surgery.
* my emphasis
So, they are not – as the headline would have us believe – taking meat off the menus at all. While I would not choose many of the vegetarian options (being firmly omnivorous) what is being proposed is an option – even if the reasoning (carbon bloody footprints again) is specious.
Still, undeterred, Graham Harvey in CiF indulges in some goes into battle based on the headline:
The proposal of National Health Service chiefs to take meat off hospital menus in a bid to cut carbon emissions shows an alarming ignorance of both nutrition and the causes of climate change.
What really pisses me off, is that if his original statement was accurate, I’d be agreeing wholeheartedly with him. There is plenty here to rail against; the spurious “global warming” justification and the attempt to indulge in a bit of social engineering with a captive audience, for example. As it is, he’s made himself look a right tit and holed his argument below the plimsoll line.
Have no meat option => no choice of meat
Have a no meat option => can choose meat or no meat
Given this comment from NHS SDU on the original story, I’m inclined to suggest that this is merely another example of the Guardian’s piss poor proof reading at the editing stage:
Until I see evidence to the contrary, I’m inclined to believe it.
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Update Re reading this, I realise that I had misread it first time around and hadn’t realised. I think this was perhaps because I read the CiF article first where the comments made clear that this had been misreported. Mea culpa.