changing the way you eat

Phirefly

I stopped eating meat when I was 11 (a hefty 18 years ago!) and discovered the facts about intensive farming. Its never been about the cutey-wutey animals, I'm a country-dwelling realist, but more about my refusal to support practices which I feel have no place in modern civilisation.

Growing up in a family of five, my parents had to make ends meet and back then little was known about organic and ethical produce. So I felt my only choice was not to eat meat.

I now run a household of my own and have a strapping, meat loving Mr. Phirefly to feed. We now only buy local, organic meat and dairy produce from our fantastic local farm shop Manor Farm. I'd happily share Matravers' meat with him, but it just been too long since I ate meat and I have no appetite for it.

Its more expensive, and having just bought our first home we're on a tight budget. But instead of buying a pack of 4 waterlogged intensively farmed chicken breasts, we'll buy one huge local organic one, which will provide Mr. P with a meal and some leftovers. We bulk out our weekly protein intake with sustainable Mackerel (dirt cheap) and organic salmon.

The best value organic meat of all is supermarket organic beef mince. Its always on special offer in Tescos. Instead of shovelling nuggets and chips down their kids throats, low income parents would be better off making a huge organic beef bolognese full of beans and pulses.

As others have posted, its a CHOICE. I choose to buy my electrical and white goods second hand on ebay and work hard shopping around to get the best deals on home furnishings, consumables and other expenses so that I can afford to buy local organic food. I'd rather eat healthy, toxin-free, humane food than subscribe to sky. But thats me.

boo81

I make meat go as far as possible to aid the fact I eat organic meat out of choice. We tend to use chicken thigh instead of breast as its cheaper and very tasty, in a casserole we only have one each and it really works out cheap. If I have a chicken I use as much of it as possible so boiling down for stock and using for risotto are great ways of making it stretch as far as possible. Bacon is probably the best on a budget as a small amount goes a long way for flavour.

I never waste things personally and find making from scratch more economical than buying ready made.

katiep_2

geordie_joe wrote: »

Are you saying people who buy non free range chicken waste food?



I do exactly the same with a £2 non organic/non free range chicken!

However, with a free range chicken, it isn't full of water, and doesn't shrink when you cook it, therefore a bird of the same weight, actually gives you more (tastier) meat.

geordie_joe

katiep wrote: »

However, with a free range chicken, it isn't full of water, and doesn't shrink when you cook it, therefore a bird of the same weight, actually gives you more (tastier) meat.

But not two quids worth!

DKLS

The taste of an organic free range chook is worth much more than £2, well to me anyway, I am a bit more concerned about what I put in my body.

geordie_joe

DKLS wrote: »

The taste of an organic free range chook is worth much more than £2, well to me anyway, I am a bit more concerned about what I put in my body.

Yes but this little sub-thread was not discussing the taste or quality of free range.

One person tried to justify free range by saying it is just as economical to use because

i will buy a free range organic chuck for £4 (or so) and i will get 2 main meals, a few sandwiches or lunch and then use the bones to make stock for soup....so potentially 6 meals for 4 quid i think that pretty good.

I simply said that I do that with ordinary chicken. Therefore I do not consider it to be an argument that will persuade me to buy free range or organic chickens.

~Chameleon~

geordie_joe wrote: »

He's now trying to convince them to by free range. Pointing out that it is only £2 difference between the Tesco standard chicken and the free range one. "If there are four of you (in your family) that's only 50p per head. 50p isn't much to go free range, is it?" And they are all standing and nodding, saying "No 50p isn't much at all"

I can just imagine four of them sitting eating a free range chicken, with three of them thinking "It only cost 50p for me to go free range, I do feel good" And the fourth (Housewife and mother) thinking "This bird cost me an extra £2, it better be worth it!"

I take it you've never tasted proper free range chicken then? It certainly is worth it not to end up with a roasting tray full of water and fat but a tray of proper roasted juices that I can make a decent gravy from, not to mention a tastier and more succulent bird to eat

And yes, it really does only cost £1-£2 more (Tesco prices) for a free range chicken as I priced it up on their website the other night to respond to someone in a different thread

~Chameleon~

Just going off on a tangent here for a moment, and I've yet to read through the entire thread, but have none of you ever wondered why there is so much resistance to antibiotics in recent years and that more and more "superbugs" are emerging what seems almost daily????

It's because those "cheap chickens" that many are so fond of buying at 2 for £5 in Tesco are pumped full of antibiotics to prevent them getting ill and diseased in their dreadful living conditions. This is then directly transferred into our bodies via the meat we eat from them thus making us resistant to antibiotic treatment if/when we become ill and need it!

geordie_joe

~Chameleon~ wrote: »

I take it you've never tasted proper free range chicken then?

I was taught to kill chickens and rabbits when I was five. When my mother said "Joe go and get a chicken for Sunday lunch" she didn't mean run along to the co-op.

Anyway, I wasn't on about if they are worth it, just having a pop at HFW for glossing over the fact that the chicken was £2 more by telling them that to a family of four it was only 50p per head. It may only be 50p per head but the poor mother still has to pay an extra £2.

Of course she could always have four more kids then it would only be 25p per head, how cheap is that!!!

~Chameleon~

But what is £2 in the grand scheme of things? They filmed some guys in a pub sitting there drinking pints of lager/beer who claimed they couldn't afford free range chicken. If they just cut back on ONE PINT of whatever they were drinking then they could afford it no problem.

The trouble is people don't like change, and I can bet my bottom dollar that even those on the tightest budgets would be able to find an extra £2 for a free range chicken if they looked close enough at what they currently spend their money on. It's all about compromise, but then it's down to people to choose to do that and if they don't want to no one can force them to