hughs chickens and tesco`s

Beki

It's a family of three... it actually says that

Anyway.. i'm to tired to answer all your questions right now... got more important things to do... like go and look at the 'jamie saves our bacon' thread and laugh my butt off LOL

baileysbattlebus

My two penn'th

1. Organic chickens - are supposed to see the outside for a third of theiir lives - but don't have to - they can be reared in barns but not cages. The food is supposed to be organic - no traces of antibiotics or steriods etc. But it doesn't have to be the food chickens would normally eat. It's often pellets. If they aren't allowed outside they have to be fed sprouted grain, when they would normally be let out. They can, under current EU rules have flock sizes of 9000 birds to a shed - and this is "organic".

2. Free Range - are kept in a barn with continuous day time outside access, there can be 2500 birds per hectare - not a lot of space per bird - which means that nervous and timid birds may not be able to leave the barn at all.

3. Intensively reared - fed conventional food - not much room to move around in and can be given antibiotics - if from outside the EU - the grain could have herbicides and pesticeds and fertilisers from the soil it was grown in.

The RSPCA Freedom Food offers a decent standard for chickens - and I think the Soil Association do too.

Just because a bird is organic doesn't mean it always sees the light of day or lives in uncrowded "happy" chicken conditions.

I buy most of our meat from Waitrose - whose own brand meats are reared to this standard below as a minimum, often much better standards than "organic" chicken needs to be - a lot of producers will use the minimum standard they can.

• Enhanced animal welfare standards which are guided by the five freedoms
  1. Freedom from hunger and thirst
  2. Freedom from discomfort
  3. Freedom from pain, injury or disease
  4. Freedom to express normal behaviour
  5. Freedom from fear and distress
• High quality in terms of flavour, texture and nutritional value – Quality food, honestly priced
• Long-term relationships with dedicated suppliers
• Full traceability throughout the supply chain so we know exactly where our meat, poultry, fish and dairy products come from
• Fair returns to farmers
• Produced using sustainable practices to protect and enhance the countryside and environment

and the chickens
http://www.waitrose.com/food/productranges/poultry/chicken.aspx

There needs to be a choice for people, some can only afford "2 for a fiver" chickens - that's fine, if people want to buy milk from intensively farmed dairy cows, thats fine, if people want to buy pork from intensively bred and reared pigs, that's fine and if people want to buy deformed, antibiotic ridden, colour enhanced flabby, farmed salmon that's fine too.

It all about personal choice, you can't force your choices onto every one else. It's a "free" country and while there is demand for "2 for fiver" chickens they will be sold.

voiceofreason

Phatmouse wrote: »

Right here is what i'm going to do, find a battery farm and rescue a chicken, let it cluck around my garden for a couple of day then run it over accidently in my car. That way I am a hero, my chicken is free range and it hasn't even been murdered it was a simple accident, best thing is I am then going to sell it to some numpty who is crying out to be middle class, so much so they will part with £15 for a squashed bird.

Thing is all chickens should be free range but due to the population of the country it's not possible, to impliment it would be impossible and would actually send the price of chicken through the roof due to the how unstable the supply would be. And as for organic, there is no such thing, read the packets, not routinley sprayed, means its not organic, just a bit less sprayed than the field next to, but then the wind blows and everything is equal. Even if we stopped spraying now it would be 100 years before the ground could be completley organic.

I buy what I can afford, I'm a good cook so i'm happy with the results, I sleep well at night.

Hmmmm - so that's inverted snobbery, wilful ignorance and gleeful self-satisfaction, all in just one post?

Blimey! Aren't you the busy one!

voiceofreason

geordie_joe wrote: »

You can do that with an intensively reared chicken too.

YES!!!!!

Oh, I am so glad to see someone else who thinks that this is the case too - as though one can only make "rubber-chicken" out of an organic, free-range bird.....

It's two different issues though, isn't it? On the one hand, there's the thrift aspect ("How long can you make your chicken last? Can you get a round two-dozen meals out of it before the carcass starts to pong?" or whatever), while on the other hand, there's the welfare aspect (and being objective, those intensive chicken farms really aren't any good for chickens' welfare. Honestly, they're awful).

Most of us come somewhere between get-an-organic-chook-and-really-make-it-s/t/r/e/t/c/h, and roast-up-a-two-quid-chicken-but-only-have-half the-breast, if you like.

Personal circumatance, personal motivation, personal choice.

BilberryCharlotte

voiceofreason wrote: »

YES!!!!!

Oh, I am so glad to see someone else who thinks that this is the case too - as though one can only make "rubber-chicken" out of an organic, free-range bird.....

It's two different issues though, isn't it? On the one hand, there's the thrift aspect ("How long can you make your chicken last? Can you get a round two-dozen meals out of it before the carcass starts to pong?" or whatever), while on the other hand, there's the welfare aspect (and being objective, those intensive chicken farms really aren't any good for chickens' welfare. Honestly, they're awful).

Most of us come somewhere between get-an-organic-chook-and-really-make-it-s/t/r/e/t/c/h, and roast-up-a-two-quid-chicken-but-only-have-half the-breast, if you like.

Personal circumatance, personal motivation, personal choice.

Sounds typical of the selfish attitude that seems prevalent amongst many today, i.e feel you have the right to eat chicken at a very cheap price, no matter who else suffers or, even worse , buy the aforementioned chicken and then waste most of it.

So, personal circumstance, personal motivation, personal choice, and complete lack of consideration for others?

Beki

I love you, Bilberry Charlotte

BilberryCharlotte

Beki wrote: »

I love you, Bilberry Charlotte

Oh thanks Beki , not many people say that!

voiceofreason

BilberryCharlotte wrote: »

Sounds typical of the selfish attitude that seems prevalent amongst many today, i.e feel you have the right to eat chicken at a very cheap price, no matter who else suffers or, even worse , buy the aforementioned chicken and then waste most of it.

So, personal circumstance, personal motivation, personal choice, and complete lack of consideration for others?

Eh?

Did you actually read what I posted?

I said that intensive chicken farms are awful, honestly I did. As for whether one should "buy the aforementioned chicken and then waste most of it", I passed no judgement at all - I merely said that most of us come on a sliding scale somewhere between welfare consciousness and thrift, and indifference and profligacy, based on personal circumstances etc.

Go on, try having a read again. I dare you.

(Note - if you feel like you want to take another pop based on things I've never said, I'd probably take you more seriously if you didn't sound like you were preaching from a PETA leaflet after having drunk a bottle or so of wine.)

Penelope_Penguin

voiceofreason wrote: »

Eh?

Did you actually read what I posted?

I said that intensive chicken farms are awful, honestly I did. As for whether one should "buy the aforementioned chicken and then waste most of it", I passed no judgement at all - I merely said that most of us come on a sliding scale somewhere between welfare consciousness and thrift, and indifference and profligacy, based on personal circumstances etc.

Go on, try having a read again. I dare you.

(Note - if you feel like you want to take another pop based on things I've never said, I'd probably take you more seriously if you didn't sound like you were preaching from a PETA leaflet after having drunk a bottle or so of wine.)

Was that exact post not justr posted a minute ago by avinabacca Am I seeing things or are avinabacca and voice of reason AEs

Penny. x

Beki

Oooooh... interesting! Penelope Penguin's on the case!!! *waits eagerly to see avinabacca's/VoR's response*

Oh, and Voice of Reason... i can't speak for bilberrycharlotte, but what i got from your post was that although *you're* not particularly pleased about lower-welfare chicken, you seem to think it's perfectly acceptable for others to eat intensively reared chicken with no thought.