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Four bishops will be enjoying their first meat-free day of 40 today, after deciding to give up meat for Lent.

Encouraged by the Anglican Society for the Welfare of Animals (ASWA), the bishops of Oxford, Monmouth and Chelmsford, and the former Bishop of Dover, are aiming to highlight the environmental issues connected with livestock cultivation.

The Bishop of Oxford, John Pritchard (pictured left), called meat “a spiritual issue” and said people needed to have more meat-free days.

“Our consumption of meat is reaching dangerous levels, and as countries like China continue to develop fast, it is only set to continue,” he said.

Stephen Cottrell, the Bishop of Chelmsford, added: “What I find intolerable and unsupportable is the way we rob factory-farmed animals of anything resembling a normal life, in order to furnish ourselves with... cheap meat.”

ASWA is actively encouraging all its members to go meat-free for Lent, and the involvement of such high-profile churchmen will underline the importance of the campaign.

The organisation’s chairman Richard Llewellin, formerly Bishop of Dover, joined with the other bishops to confirm that he would be reducing the amount of meat he ate when Lent comes to an end on 7 April.

“I am increasingly aware of compelling ‘eat less meat’ arguments from so many directions,” he said “Environment, health, world food-shortage, animal suffering.”

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Companies and businesses that make and sell fast food have been asked by a US Congresswoman to come clean about their policies on antibiotics in meat.

Louise Slaughter - who is a microbiologist as well as a politician- has written to more than 60 fast-food producers, processors and grocery chains, requesting that they disclose how much of their meat is antibiotic-free and how much is from animals routinely administered antibiotics.

"Very simply, customers have a right to know what is in their food," she said.

"The US is facing a growing public health crisis in the form of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, and information about how these companies are contributing to its rise or resolution should be available to consumers."

Last year in the US there were more outbreaks of antibiotic-resistant salmonella as a result of meat-eating than ever before, Slaughter said. Eighty per cent of antibiotics used in the US are administered to animals destined for human consumption.

In her letter to the fast food industry she observed that the practice of routinely administering livestock with drugs "has been shown to harm human health by contributing to diseases that do not respond to treatment."

Congresswoman Slaughter is the author of the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act (PAMTA), which aims to prevent the livestock industry overusing drugs to the detriment of human health.

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