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A_fiend_for_life

Ah thank you fellow nice person.;)

'insider information' - now I remember she wrote a couple of books called Nobody Nowhere and also Somebody Somewhere iirc.

Edit: correction this was Donna Williams' work.

http://www.donnawilliams.net/somebodysomewhere.0.html

djm1972

zarazara wrote: »

Poor chickens and battery hens, they deserve a decent life.

Why?

I am honestly not trolling; I have a decent post count on here and have been thanked several times; but all I am seeing on this thread is unsubstantiated "don't do this because it's wrong".

A chicken is food, that is only reason we raise them at all. If they weren't foodstuff, the chickens that apparently have a really bad life wouldn't even have had a life at all. It is not in the interests of our species to go to any more lengths than necessary to cultivate what food we need!

Please explain to me why I should feel so sentimental as to a chicken's welfare?

Cleaver

djm1972 wrote: »

Why?

I am honestly not trolling; I have a decent post count on here and have been thanked several times; but all I am seeing on this thread is unsubstantiated "don't do this because it's wrong".

A chicken is food, that is only reason we raise them at all. If they weren't foodstuff, the chickens that apparently have a really bad life wouldn't even have had a life at all. It is not in the interests of our species to go to any more lengths than necessary to cultivate what food we need!

Please explain to me why I should feel so sentimental as to a chicken's welfare?

I'm going to go for a different angle. Because it tastes better?

djm1972

Cleaver wrote: »

I'm going to go for a different angle. Because it tastes better?

Interestingly, on "Hugh's Chicken Run" I think it was, a poll over which tasted better - battery or free range - came out inconclusive.

Of course Hugh put that down to people having become accustomed to the taste of battery chicken. I often cook for myself (despite what my posts in this thread may lead one to believe!) and have used both the cheapest chicken you can get, Vs farm store organic, and I would say that there is sufficient variation in both that there is a significant - possibly 100% - overlap.

Therefore, in order to definitively state that one tasted better than the other, you would need to do a long term controlled experiment - and most people eat one or the other all the time, so ultimately, no-one is really in a position to say!

lostinrates

djm1972 wrote: »

Why?

I am honestly not trolling; I have a decent post count on here and have been thanked several times; but all I am seeing on this thread is unsubstantiated "don't do this because it's wrong".

A chicken is food, that is only reason we raise them at all. If they weren't foodstuff, the chickens that apparently have a really bad life wouldn't even have had a life at all. It is not in the interests of our species to go to any more lengths than necessary to cultivate what food we need!

Please explain to me why I should feel so sentimental as to a chicken's welfare?

Great line of discussion!

My feeling is that indeed we have cultivated chicken.

Domestic fowl are in many ways very different from the forest/woodland dwelling bird we have bred them from. The breed of chook I have currently, for example, is a huge bird unable to fly for more than a couple of flaps a cuple of feet from the ground. In creating this beast I feel we, as the 'governing body' of cultivated animals, have also adopted some form of responsibilty. The same reasoning I apply to why we don't few favourably people who starve or abuse domesticated other animals. We have not just chosen to adapt them to our best use, but imposed on them to our best interests their manner of living, medication, and indeed in some instances 'education'. Our 'rights' coming from our position in the food chain, IMO, come with some responsibiltyto do this to the best of our ability.

One can strongly argue this has benefits to us, in both mental health and society structure, but more importantly to many, physical health of our species.

I also feel that the health risks associated with many practises in high density animal production are not to our benefit. Feeding cows an unnatural meat derived product for our benefit as consumers seemed a really good idea.....pre CJD.

fc123

Cleaver wrote: »

What I am, a performing seal?

Absolutely.

spuds_2

Those Oakham chickens from M and S are really nice. Much better than the cheapo Tesco chickens. Get one when they are part of the £10 meal for 2 thingy. I don't know if they are kept in boxes or can run around, but they are scrummy.

Davesnave

Not all Oakham chickens are free range or RSPCA welfare standard approved.

See here if you are after the real chicken deal:

http://chickens.rspca.org.uk/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=RSPCACampaigns/Consumers/Higherwelfarechickensurvey&articleid=1099596656273

spuds_2

Thanks Dave. So:

Oakham Gold - good.
Oakham white - not as good, but still better than minimum government standard for chicken welfare.

A_fiend_for_life

lostinrates wrote: »

Just cos you seem nice I googled her for you I didn't know she had a website:o

http://www.templegrandin.com/templehome.html might also be interesting to Singlesue and Pastures, for other reasons :cool:

Budget is partly why we eat meat rarely. I'd rather buy ethical stuff less often. We like food that happens to be vegetarian, and we like cheaper cuts well cooked and that leave no bitter taste on the palate, so to speak, for non- fancy meals. . We keep chickens, which helps a bit.

My mistake it was Donna Williams rather than Temple Grandin who wrote 'Nobody Nowhere' and 'Somebody Somewhere'.

Nobody Nowhere
http://www.donnawilliams.net/nobodynowhere.0.html

Somebody Somewhere
http://www.donnawilliams.net/somebodysomewhere.0.html