How to shop at a butchers

So the horse meat scandal is still ranging on, and I reckon it's set to rumble for some time. There are now mutterings that donkey meat has also have found its way into our food. The Food Standards Agency is investigating and the headlines are full of speculation over which countries are involved and where the meat has come from.

It's pretty frightening if you're a consumer - and no doubt even more so if you've got a stock of lasagne or cottage pie ready meals sat in your freezer. How is it possible that these food companies do not know what is going into their products?

My view on this is that it's time to take control, stop buying these products and start visiting local butchers instead. These guys DO know where their meat is from and they can also tell you how to use it. They tend to have good relationships with the farmers who rear the animals, who more often than not are local, so you should also be helping to support your local rural economy.

But I think a lot of people are nervous of butchers' shops. We're simply not used to them any more. We have grown accustomed to having our food neatly packaged and presented to us. We seldom see it lying there in all it's gory meaty glory.

Imagine my trepidation upon first entering a butchers' shop. I'm a vegetarian for goodness sake! Like a devil-worshipper trying to take refuge in a catholic church I expected to be struck down by a lightening bolt at any second. Or at the very least politely shown the door.

The butcher can be a rather overwhelming experience for a veggie. There's bits of dead animal everywhere. Minced bits, random legs, lumps of flesh, raw sausages and chunks of bone. It's all very disconcerting. And the smell is something else - it's a creeping, incipid odor that seems to get into your nose and then stay there for hours afterwards.

But the thing is, all this becomes worthwhile when you take into account that the butcher can actually account for the animals (or bits of them!) that you are seeing and smelling. He can tell you that the pigs lived a happy life, frolicking in large outdoor pens at a local farm, before making their contribution to the sausages, or that the cows had daily grazing on a local hillside before becoming rib-eye steaks.

And you can pretty much count on your butcher to know that they are cows or pigs - not bits of horse! My favourite butcher, Bill, who owns and runs Dunston Farm Shop near Chesterfield, has even been known to take hold of a piece of beef and pass it through his mincer right in front of me - leaving no question that the mince I'm taking away has come from a single cow.

AND butchers really do tend to be very friendly people. They're happy to help out and don't expect you to know any special lingo or criptic passwords to shop with them.

So here's my guide to shopping at the butchers - for those new to the game:

1 - Don't be put off by the bits of blood, slabs of meat or the funny smell. Meat comes from animals and this is what they look like when they're dead. You can console yourself with the fact that at least you'll be able to find out exaclty where they came from.

2 - Don't be afraid of asking for small amounts. There's only one meat eater in my household so I regularly buy a single chicken breast, steak or small portion of mince. Butchers should be happy to sell you whatever you want.

3 - If you're not sure what something is (and lets face it - all those slabs of meat do look pretty similar to the uninitiated) don't be afraid to ask. Most butchers are really happy to help educate their customers and they should even be able to help you out with the best cuts for different recipes or the best way of preparing something.

4 - Ask about where the meat comes from. At the end of the day, that's one of the big reasons why you're at the butcher rather than in the supermarket, so have a conversation about the produce. A good butcher should be happy to talk to you about it, and if they aren't then perhaps you need to shop elsewhere. Ask which farms supply the shop, where the animal was born and reared, under what conditions, and where it was slaughtered.

5 - If you're struggling to find a butcher then look out for adverts in your local paper or foodie publication, or visit a farmers' market and get some advice. You could also try Googling farm shops or butchers in your area, or asking about in your workplace or at the school gates for a recommendation.

So there you go - if the horse meat scandal is alarming you then you know what to do. Take matters into your own hands and make friends with a butcher. Or go veggie!