An educational video available from the Meat and Livestock Commission traces the marketing of pork leg steaks from initial consumer research through to the scene where a family of four tucks into the new dish. At no point in the 15-minute film is there so much as a glimpse of a pig.
Material from the School Campaign for Reaction Against Meat (Scream), features plenty of pigs though not in recipe form. One poster shows them in narrow pens with the caption: "Can you imagine being locked in a classroom in semi-darkness, unable to move from your desk, turn around or even go to the toilet for months on end! Now you've an idea what factory farms are like."
The battle for the hearts, minds and stomachs of the young has moved into the classroom in a big way. All sides are spending substantial sums producing books, videos, resource packs for teachers and project information for pupils; most also offer specialist speakers.
A measure of the intensity of the campaigning has been the launch of a school textbook which puts the case for medical experiments on animals. The Search for Health, which cost more than ú100,000 to develop and distribute, was sponsored by the Research for Health Charities Group, a body representing 12 of the large research charities in the United Kingdom.
Myc Riggulsford, the information officer, says: "Animal-rights activists are inundating school children with propaganda and lies about medical research to the point where young people are turning against science.
"The propaganda goes on school noticeboards. It's always horrid photos of puppies and kittens and monkeys which are out of date anyway. But the activists have been saying things so loudly and for so long that society is developing the idea we can somehow do without animal research.
"These charities spent ú281 million a year on research of which less than ú7 million is on work using animals. They use tissue and cell culture, human clinical trials and population studies, but there comes a point where you have to find out what happens to a living system."
A free copy of the 50-page, full-colour book aimed at 12 to 15 year-olds has been sent to heads of biology departments in every secondary school in Britain. Mr Riggulsford says the group would like to develop something for use in religious studies, English or personal and social education (PSE) lessons where such debates are often conducted. "PSE is the most resource-starved area and animal rights is one of the most popular topics. But it's often harder for a non-science teacher to assess the truth."
Both Animal Aid and the Vegetarian Society, which runs Scream, say their arguments are based on fact, albeit emotionally expressed. Iain Green, the campaigns officer for Animal Aid, says: "A world without emotion would be a terrible place, but we wouldn't have survived if our appeal had only been emotional. It's backed by factual reason."
The organisation's video, Their Future in Your Hands, which cost about ú10,000 to produce, covers most animal issues. It was offered free to all secondary schools last November and there have been more than 800 requests for it.
"It does have a couple of not very nice scenes of pigs being herded into abbatoirs and a rabbit being given a toxicity test," Mr Green says. "But they are brief and not too harrowing. If you make it really horrific you upset the children."
He says there has been a "tremendous upsurge" in schools material in the past two years. A third of the organisation's 15,000 membership is aged between 11 and 18. "Most of this is pupil-led, though teachers approach us for material and for speakers. We certainly aren't going in underground in schools, pushing our stuff. We don't need to."
The Vegetarian Society has expanded the number of volunteer school speakers from 15 six months ago to 90 and according to the youth education manager, Sean McElherron, "can still barely cope with the demand. The meat industry has a huge amount to spend, we are here to put the other side. We are taking the issue right into the classroom.
"We get 600 letters a week from children from the ages of five to 18. In December we launched a teaching pack and sent it to every secondary school. Requests for more are coming in at two a day. We also have a campaign called Choice about getting a decent vegetarian school meal.
"Of course there are big questions about what you should tell children but we argue that if people are old enough at 14 or 15 to know about sex and drugs and Aids they have a right to know about something as basic as how their food is produced," Mr McElherron says.
Eighty per cent of enquiries come from girls. Mr McElherron says the society is aware of the dangers of fuelling their sensitivities about food at an age when they may be vulnerable to dietary fads. "You must not put them off eating meat without providing nutritional information as a back up."
Shirley Ascough, the consumer information and education manager for the Meat and Livestock Commission (MLC), has a department with a budget of ú250,000 a year and runs a team of home economists who give talks in schools. The range of topics and the degree of interest has expanded considerably in the past couple of years: food issues are now debated in economics, business studies and geography lessons. The MLC also produces a pack for primary schools: 60,000 have been sent out since it was launched six months ago.
"I think teachers are very grateful in the main. It may be that they're taking it in these hard times because it's free but I don't see any harm in that."
Barbara Monks, the head of food technology at Hitchin Girls' School in Hertfordshire which has 1,000 pupils, sends off for "loads of resource material. It generates debate and discussion. I thought the MLC booklet which was mainly about nutrition was pretty balanced. The material from the Vegetarian Society seemed more biased and was full of awful pictures."
Marie Gardner, an English teacher at Radcliffe School in Milton Keynes, invited speakers from the MLC and the Vegetarian Society to talk to a class of 12 and 13 year-olds in preparation for a "campaigns day" at the school.
"I think they were a bit bored by the MLC which was mainly statistics. The vegetarianism was very well-presented and the children were probably more sympathetic to it anyway. But the children who ate meat before continued to do so afterwards," she says.
Most teachers say they are only channelling an existing interest in the subject. Mrs Monks says: "These subjects are current issues in society and I think pupils benefit by addressing them."
As for over-burdening children with the problems of the world, she says: "It is important to keep things on an even keel. When there's a big issue, such as a famine, you're going to have special assemblies on it and a lot of the sad side of life. But when that's been happening we try then to have some happier themes."
