Processed Chicken over real chicken?...why??

spike7451

Just saw the advert for ways to serve Birds Eye chicken grills...
Why would you want to use a piece of processed 'poultry' when a real chicken breast is probably the same price & not crammed with addatives & water ect....
TBH,the meals they shown on the advert,like Thai Chicken curry just looked plain wrong with those things...

heretolearn_2

I know some of those ideas sound vile.

They are just trying to market them in a different way, that's all, the abundance of very cheap real chicken is probably hitting them hard.

There's a competition to come up with a recipe. I'm tempted to come up with the most ridiculous one I can think of and put that in for a laugh.

spike7451

TBH,I find them things tateless with the texture of wet card.I prefer to get a chicken breast,bung it in a freezer bag & some herbs & spices,leave to marinade for an hour or two while I sup a beer or two & either freeze or grill them.

I had a item done on TV's Good Food show,after they read about it on their forum,where they deconstructed a Carbonara ready meal,priced it & cooked the same from scratch,using the same amount of ingredients.The fresh one was cheaper,healthier & quicker to cook than the one in the microwave.I made a batch of Beef curry the other day,I've got three servings of it & I rekon it cost me far less than a single serve ready meal.

meritaten

I know the ad you mean - I sat there thinking 'now why on earth would I want to do that'? I mean it looked awful and I would bet my last penny it would taste worse!
besides which - I wouldnt buy those awful things anyway - and the people who do certainly arent going to spend any time or money on additional ingredients to actually cook with them! totally pointless advert!

spike7451

meritaten wrote: »

I know the ad you mean - I sat there thinking 'now why on earth would I want to do that'? I mean it looked awful and I would bet my last penny it would taste worse!

Especially as you've taken the time to buy & prepare some fresh veggies or boil some rice up ect,then you go & ruin it with that !!!!!

cat_smith

spike7451 wrote: »

I had a item done on TV's Good Food show,after they read about it on their forum,where they deconstructed a Carbonara ready meal,priced it & cooked the same from scratch,using the same amount of ingredients.The fresh one was cheaper,healthier & quicker to cook than the one in the microwave.

Didn't they do an entire TV series timing and pricing a takeaway vs. home made version. Home made nearly always won.

Whenever I get whoopsied chicken I marinate and freeze. Although having a slicing machine definitely helps. With slow cooking you can get such a stretchy chicken it seems to go on forever.

Spring_Time

I am going to be strung up and made to get into the stocks with what I am about to say....but..

I am someone that has brought a box of chicken breasts like this. Not the birds eye ones as my funds were limited! A box of 4 chicken breasts for £1, a few spuds and some peas/broccoli worked out as a very cheap meal. Yes I know cheap is not always good and the breasts are full of nasties that I truly do not want to be feeding my family but in the past when I have not had the money to buy fresh chicken a box of chicken breasts for £1 was at least a meal.

I am changing the way I shop, I have been for a while now and with planning I find I don't need to buy these any more as with stretching and planning other meals, instead of once using one of these breasts, I will now use up left over chicken in pasta, pies or salad etc...

We do what we have to do sometimes be it because of money or false feelings of convenience, I wouldn't look down my nose at anyone that had a box or two lurking in their freezer.

spike7451

cat_smith wrote: »

Didn't they do an entire TV series timing and pricing a takeaway vs. home made version. Home made nearly always won.

Whenever I get whoopsied chicken I marinate and freeze. Although having a slicing machine definitely helps. With slow cooking you can get such a stretchy chicken it seems to go on forever.

Yep,the BBC did 'Take on the Takeaway' where celeb chefs tried to out do viewers favorite take out dishes.The piece that Good Food Live did in response to my forum post was around 2004ish.

Spring_Time wrote: »

I am going to be strung up and made to get into the stocks with what I am about to say....but..

I am someone that has brought a box of chicken breasts like this. Not the birds eye ones as my funds were limited! A box of 4 chicken breasts for £1, a few spuds and some peas/broccoli worked out as a very cheap meal. Yes I know cheap is not always good and the breasts are full of nasties that I truly do not want to be feeding my family but in the past when I have not had the money to buy fresh chicken a box of chicken breasts for £1 was at least a meal.

I am changing the way I shop, I have been for a while now and with planning I find I don't need to buy these any more as with stretching and planning other meals, instead of once using one of these breasts, I will now use up left over chicken in pasta, pies or salad etc...

We do what we have to do sometimes be it because of money or false feelings of convenience, I wouldn't look down my nose at anyone that had a box or two lurking in their freezer.

And I agree,I still buy these things & other stuff if I see them in the supermarket on offer,very convienient for a post pub snack or if my Nieces pop round & get hungry.
When I was on the dole,more so than now I'm working,I would find myself buying Bernard Matthews chicken steaks,In fact,my local Tesco's had boxes of his Turkey steaks on offer for 20p each & Brains Faggots at 50p..I bought about 10 packs of each! I'd have been mad not to at that price.
But my point of this thread was mainly the use of these steaks in recipies that,imho, would be spoilt by them.

Cinny91

We use frozen meat quite often, mainly because it's cheaper. We're on a tight budget, so of course we're going to pick a £1 box of Birdseye meat for a meal over a £2+ tray of fresh chicken which'll only go as far. I'd say about 60% of the meat we use is frozen. But I find it works fine in recipes, and I can vouch that thai green curry is actually really nice using birdseye Well in wraps ect too. Though I'll admit, even I'm put off by the adverts! The food looks quite horrible, but I think they're making the chicken 'stick out' so it's easier to see what meat has been used?

meritaten wrote: »

and the people who do certainly arent going to spend any time or money on additional ingredients to actually cook with them! totally pointless advert!

That's a very unfair generalisation I cook meals for us at night no differently than I did when we were using fresh meat. Just because we can't afford so much fresh meat anymore doesn't suddenly make me incapable in the kitchen

Bronnie

Firstly I agree these are convenient!!

However, the manufacturers have worked their magic in adding value to a tiny amount of meat and in successfully planting the perception in minds that this is cheaper than fresh meat. Not true.

Whilst many of them say 100% chicken breast, that just means the cut of meat used. In the main, each burger is only half meat( approx), the rest being breaded coating etc.

So in a 200g pack costing £1, there will be approx 100g of chicken breast, making the processed cost £10kg if you are disregarding the value of the breadcrumbs and convenience, yet Tesco Value raw frozen chicken breasts cost £3.99kg.

That's a whole lot more chicken for your money, even making allowances for my rounding up of figures, variation in meat content, water loss from cooking etc.

I do think there will be a sector of people who will like this idea of cooking with the Birds Eye products as they have little experience/ a squeamishness/disgust about handling raw meat.

Spring_Time

Bronnie wrote: »

Firstly I agree these are convenient!!

However, the manufacturers have worked their magic in adding value to a tiny amount of meat and in successfully planting the perception in minds that this is cheaper than fresh meat. Not true.

Whilst many of them say 100% chicken breast, that just means the cut of meat used. In the main, each burger is only half meat( approx), the rest being breaded coating etc.

So in a 200g pack costing £1, there will be approx 100g of chicken breast, making the processed cost £10kg, yet Tesco Value raw frozen chicken breasts cost £3.99kg.

That's a whole lot more chicken for your money, even making allowances for my rounding up of figures, variation in meat content, water loss from cooking etc.

I do think there will be a sector of people who will like this idea of cooking with the Birds Eye products as they have little experience/ a squeamishness/disgust about handling raw meat.

The bare bones of it is...

Having for example £2 to go and get something for tea.... I have NEVER found chicken breasts for £2 or under. Yet picking up a box of 4 chicken steak things for a £1 and a bag of spuds means on some days dinner is sorted for my family of four.

Yes, one could buy pasta..flour etc and knock something else up for that £2 but in comparing "like for like" I have never been able to pick up fresh/frozen chicken breasts for a £1

I'm not squeamish with raw meat, I have experience of cooking and I have used them and most likely will again one day in the future, though I am trying to batch cook more nowadays so my meals stretch further. I am not sure what "sector" that puts me in.