tesco whole chicken £3

swannee_D_3

MrsE wrote: »

Jamie Oliver said better to buy Waitrose Select & M&S Oakhams as they WERE happier.
He had it on his happy chicken programme.

swannee_D said better to buy at Tesco & Asda as they WERE Cheaper.

*Chattie*

MrsE wrote: »

Jamie Oliver said better to buy Waitrose Select & M&S Oakhams as they WERE happier.
He had it on his happy chicken programme.

I'm sure they were happier as would most chickens be before they ended up in the supermarket

swannee_D_3

swannee_D wrote: »

tesco have on offer whole chickens £3 at the mo....:T

was in T's this morn and this is still on offer...also for our free range friends they are also doing 50p a kilo off free range HTH!

grimerking

I once worked in a meat factory. The beef 'produced' was supplied to all the major supermarkets - i.e. it is all the same.

I'm pretty sure that chicken will be too.

As for freerange 'tasting better', I doubt it. I saw a programme on TV in which a professional chef, an 'ethical bore' and two other people got on their high horse and tried to persuade viewers that they should buy corn-fed/organic/freerange rather than cheap chicken. They cooked up four chickens in an identical manner and conducted a controlled blind taste test (supervised by a university's food science department). Every single person (including the professional chef) that tasted the various chickens chose the 'value chicken'. The scientist running the test said it happends every single time.

The reason that cheap chicken tastes nicer is:

1) The chickens are younger and therefore have young supple flesh
2) The chickens get less exercise. Exercise makes muscles 'stringy' and tough.
3) The chickens are 'fattened' more quickly. Therefore, they get bloated and juicy.

You can't argue with the science.

There are plenty of reasons you might think that 'expensive' tastes 'nicer' - it is a well known psychological phenomenon. However, in test after test people choose cheap chicken.

suki1964

I live next door to a chicken supplier - to Marks,the ones where the name of the farmer are written on the label. And if you can say 16000 chickens in a shed for 6 weeks are happy chickens then go ahead and buy them.

Mind perhaps they are just "happier". Till last year they were squeezed in at 20000

lynzpower

Thumbs down
The 'baseline' levels of the animal welfare requirements within the little red tractor standards are less stringent in terms of animal welfare compared to the standards required by the RSPCA's Freedom Food scheme. For example:
Typically, chickens bred for meat are kept in large sheds, their floor space allowance varies between farm assurance schemes. Chickens reared to the little red tractor standards, can have about 20 per cent less space in comparison to the minimum space allowance required by the RSPCA.

Thank you for posting that Orkney I had no idea that tractor meant so little.

I generally buy the freedom farm ones in sainsburys, as many people reconise they are pretty much always on offer, and I understand even Sainsburys value eggs are barn hens not caged.

I shall never take the tractor symbol to mena anything again, wish I could thank twice x

JoeyG

For me it has very little to do with taste, its more about what I put into my body.

How long before they start artificially breeding chickens in labs, just to keep costs down?... not much different from caged chickens now, fed on steroids and antibiotics, no access to sunlight or fresh air.

OK, on the flipside, its hardly 'natural' to be obtaining any pre-packed meat from a supermarket aisle, and if I could be out hunting my own food I would be... I just don't think I'd be too popular with the local farmers!

sweetstudent

mum26 wrote: »

Unless you buy the chickens marked Free Range from M&S you are just buying expensive cheap chicken if that makes sense not much better than the industry standard battery chicken? Just because it is M&S does not necessarily mean better practice, just more profit along the line?

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

Whilst i dont disbelieve you, but remember that this was performed in 2003 - 6 years ago, i would hope that standards have inmproved since then!

suki1964

sweetstudent wrote: »

Whilst i dont disbelieve you, but remember that this was performed in 2003 - 6 years ago, i would hope that standards have inmproved since then!

Yep,they have reduced the numbers of chickens to a house from 20,000 to 16,000

And they arent oakhams - well the ones from sheds next door to me aren't oakhams thats for sure