Food & Drink Update: Porky pies

It is difficult to say which is more insulting to thinking British adults: the marketing tactics of the Meat and Livestock Commission, or the latest campaign of a group called Vegetarians' International Voice for Animals.

The MLC is again this year in cahoots with Dutch and Danish intensive pig farmers in a marketing campaign entitled 'Creative Bacon'. Evidently, there is an EC bacon mountain. Their solution? Lumping British producers, who lead Europe in shifting to humane pig-farming methods, with the Dutch and Danish, whose intensive farms are rather high up in the cruelty stakes.

Meanwhile, the veggie camp, calling itself 'Viva]', is launching a campaign entitled 'Convert-a-Parent'. The last famous vegetarian to aim at parents through their children? Hitler.