Hugh's Chicken Run (Merged Discussion)

Pandora123_2 · 10 January 2008 at 11:53PM

G-G wrote: »

& I hate to say it, because I am all for animal welfare, but chickens have very small brains and they are being reared for food, they are not pets and they are not as intelligent as say a dog... People seem to forget this.. What next, heated fluffy beds for them to sleep in?

The program is all about giving chickens the kind of life that they live naturally, the chance to flap their wings, feel the sun on their feathers etc. Not cram them together in a dark shed barely enough room to move, so stressed out they peck at each other (solution? cut their beaks off!), all in the name of the almighty ££ !

IMO, compassion should not be limited to creatures with a certain brain size.

The question is not, "Can they reason?" nor, "Can they talk" but rather, "Can they suffer? - Jeremy Bentham

Smiley_Mum · 11 January 2008 at 12:43AM

I watched HFW's chicken run and felt really sorry for the guy when he was having to kill the incapicitated chickens each day. Even before this programme I never bought the Tesco Value or 2 for a fiver deals on chicken. I've always bought free range, organic is a bit too expensive for me. Although I probably am guilty of buying intensively farmed chicken in other ways, like the southern fried coated chicken pieces from M&S occasionally or chicken steak pieces. Doubt I'll be buying them any more though.

I went to Tesco, Morrisons and M&S today and I couldn't get a whole free range chicken anywhere. So, I went home empty handed. Hopefully have better luck tomorrow. There was a LOT of the cheaper chicken on the shelves, and Value ones etc. I'll stick with free range, pick the carcass clean to stretch it out and make stock etc for soups. Be interesting to see Jamie's Fowl Dinners on Friday at 9pm.

kethry · 11 January 2008 at 1:30AM

dND wrote: »

Do report back on 'the truth about food' as I don't have UK TV but am really interested in the subject

It wasn't an easy programme to watch, i'll say that much - I'm deaf and rely on the subtitles, and it was live subtitling, which meant the subtitles were behind what was being said by about 30-60 seconds and the amount of figures and things being quoted meant it was a programme you really had to watch anyway. I have a headache now!!

Anyway. basically, it looked at things like ready meals and breakfast cereals, said that the amounts on the back of the packets (you know, where it says X amount of fat, X amount of carbs) can be *legally* out by as much as 20%, some of them have twice as much fat as actually says on the packets.. They did an experiment between three families: one family eating cooked-from-scratch meals, one family ate premium (i.e those taste the difference things) ready meals, with fruit and veg, and another family ate value ready meals, with fruit and veg, all for a month. It found the family who cooked from scratch were lowest in sugar and salt, but not in fat (due mostly to the fact that they wanted full fat milk), the family who ate the premium meals had the most sugar, and the family who ate the value meals had the most salt.

they also looked at the traffic light labelling on the front of packets, and portion control - at how, some of them, if they want to play down the fact that something is high in fat they say "one biscuit contains.." as opposed to "100g contains..". In addition, some of them play down actual portion control - cereals, most of them said "a 30g portion controls.." and yet in an experiment with children in a classroom the majority of them put more in their bowl for breakfast than 30g - some of them twice as much! They talked to all kinds of industry experts about the traffic light systems, the food labelling systems, about the problems with it, with the govt, with the EU. It was interesting, really highlighted that sometimes you really can't tell what's in food.

I have to say that some of the programme was misleading: it was looking at a form of museli, and said "well it turned out this was really high in fat" but what they didn't say was that it was high in fat because it had a lot of nuts in it, which of course, bumped the fat content up - but its a healthy sort of fat. The programme didn't make any attempt to differentiate between different kinds of fat - at one point they did an experiment between a plate of fish and chips, a donner kebab in pitta bread and salad, a Mcdonalds double cheeseburger and waitrose's premium chicken and mushroom pie things (they were pies but similar to it) asking people in a shopping mall which one had the most fat, and it turned out that the waitrose pies had the most fat, but i have to wonder how much of it was unhealthy fat and how much was okay fat, compared to the other foods.

Nothing really new to anyone to frequents these boards but interesting nonetheless. More info here.

HTH

keth
xx

tiggyloo · 11 January 2008 at 5:03AM

The question is not, "Can they reason?" nor, "Can they talk" but rather, "Can they suffer?[/I] - Jeremy Bentham[/QUOTE]

pandora 123 thank you for that quote. thats something really powerful to think about.

tiggy

roddydogs · 11 January 2008 at 8:31AM

What about all the animals slaughtered by having their throats cut-no stunning beforehand which is legal as we cant "Offend" certain religions?

boo81 · 11 January 2008 at 9:13AM

I dont think anyone has touched on this so im going to mention it but the I feel the RSPCA freedom food standard may be an improvement but isnt going far enough.

They say that birds will be given 25% extra space (considering they only have less than an A4 piece of paper this doesnt seem much) and brighter lights.

There seems little true info on the net, if you look up the rspca website the chicken standards for welfare are quite specific but it seems farm chickens are not kept in these conditions and so there is a lot of conflicting info.

As consumers I wonder if the words "free range" means a lot or whether the supermarkets are going to cash in on very small changes in welfare by using new terminology.

purpleivy · 11 January 2008 at 9:32AM

Keth, I think your description of the programme told me more than the link you gave. Thanks!

floyd · 11 January 2008 at 9:35AM

kethry wrote: »

I have to say that some of the programme was misleading: it was looking at a form of museli, and said "well it turned out this was really high in fat" but what they didn't say was that it was high in fat because it had a lot of nuts in it, which of course, bumped the fat content up - but its a healthy sort of fat. The programme didn't make any attempt to differentiate between different kinds of fat

I totally agree with this, it seemed almost that they were trying too hard to make premium foods seem bad. Premium orange juice has more sugar in it because it contains more fruit, premium muesli contains more sugar because it has more rasins and apricots. They also seemed to completely miss the point that although the value foods contain less sugar and fat than premium or home cooked, they also contain fewer vitamins, the meat in them is crap and there are a whole load of 'unknowns' in there.

At best it was a relatively interesting study but I think as kethry mentioned, most people who post here knew what they were going to find anyway

StressedSteph · 11 January 2008 at 9:39AM

I feel after seeing this programme, that I will definately buy free range chicken but just no as often. More liek a treat. then stick to the cheap cuts like mince etc for my daily meat.

I would sooner eat a small amount of free range chicken, than eat lots of tortured chicken :-((((

Off to the butchers I go ..........

dND · 11 January 2008 at 10:00AM

Thanks Keth for the programme synopsis. I don't feel I missed anything there then

I wish I'd seen the other programmes - but then again I think I would have been in tears. I went from intensive eggs through barn eggs to my own chickens after seeing how badly battery chickens were treated. Oddly though I never really thought about whole chickens.

Here in France, on the whole chickens are more expensive. I think this is because generally they are raised with access to the outside. There are lots of buildings where the chicks are kept inside but once they are large enough not to be lunch for the resident buzzard population the sides of the buildings are opened and the chooks can range, usually over a large enclosed area.

Having said that, I watched a programme on French TV showing a bit about a French company that is one of the major world suppliers of chicken and chicken pieces. Not an expose type of programme but it upset me to see the newly hatched chicks thrown into bins and conveyor belts.

I'm a committed carnivore but I don't see why we cant treat the animals with dignity. I think these programmes are useful to keep the subject discussed, it's so easy to be slip back into buying what is cheap and as people have pointed out here what is easily available.

I know it will take me a while to change over to free range/organic as the price change from supermarket offer to organic here is extremely high, at least double but usually much, much more. What I will need to do is seek out local producers and buy direct. Not the easiest of things to do here as advertising is all word of mouth!

So thanks again Keth and everyone else whose commented, I almost feel like I've watched the programmes myself.

Hugh's Chicken Run (Merged Discussion)

Comments

Confirm your email address to Create Threads and Reply

🚀 Getting Started

Categories

Is this how you want to be seen?

Get our FREE Weekly email full of deals & guides - and it’s spam-free