Modern industrial scale farming has produced some incredibly inhumane methods to satisfy the public's demand for cheaper and cheaper meat/animal products. Some of the worst are, thankfully, on the way out. Examples of this include the veal crate and the exceptionally cruel methods of pig production involving farrowing crates.

Battery hens tend to get the sympathy of most people. Even ardent carnivores prefer the idea of eggs from free range birds and indeed the Vegetarian Society insists on their use in any products they endorse. But very little is heard about one of the most chilling 'farming' methods for extracting maximum yields from dairy cows. 'Zero Grazing' refers to the way in which these unfortunate beasts are reared and worked. They live in vast concrete sheds without access to the open air and natural grass. As if living in an artificial environment under cover all the time isn’t bad enough constantly walking on concrete leads to widespread hoof problems including frequent abscesses. I read that at least one in three animals treated this way is lame at any one time. I also read that around two thirds of milk produced in the UK comes from zero grazed cows. It's just one of the reasons for my adoption of a vegan diet.

If you don't want to take that step, one way of being sure that you don't support this unpleasant system is to buy organic milk, cheese, butter etc. This guarantees that at least the animals have lived outdoors in something approaching humane conditions and you might have thought this would become a standard that the Vegetarian Society would have endorsed. But when we applied to add The Barn Vegetarian Guest House to the Vegetarian Society's Food and Drink Guild I was surprised to see nothing about it in the list of approved ingredients.

I asked why there were such strict rules over even which brand of free range eggs we could use but nothing (even by way of gentle encouragement) about organic milk products. I realise that there has to be a limit to the specification but the effective support of zero grazing seemed to be out of line with what the Society stands for.

The answer I got was that it would simply be too difficult for the Society and too costly for producers to require a switch to organic dairy goods. So much for principles!

Where do you stand on all this? I'd love to hear from you.......