Hugh's Chicken Run (Merged Discussion)

angelatgraceland

geordie_joe wrote: »

I can't say as Somerfield don't say what their standard is. It can't be that good otherwise they would be telling us what it is.

Yes-that's also how I look at it! If its good-tell us about it-boast about it. Why are thy hushing it up? Loose in a barn with no room to move is little better, after all.

boredofbeingathome

I went into our local giant tesco's today and for the first time they have started to sell local free range eggs, from a farm not 2 miles away. I was quite impressed because of the mileage involved, but the price was a bit higher than the farm shop price- 1.64 for 6 large eggs. very tasty though. o free range chicken on the shelf, although they had free range stock left. Didnt buy any though, i ma resigning myself that i will have to go further afield now for chickens.

azjh77

jessbrown100 wrote: »

Slight deviation form the thread but we're taking delivery of 4 'rescued' ex-battary chooks in 12 weeks time and are VERY excited about it! can't wait to see them stretching their toes in our back garden! if there are any chicken owners on the O/s board any advice would be more than welcome!

We are also picking up 4 chickens today!...the kids are very excited and have named them already:- Dorothy, Penny, Emily & Chicken (Chicken being my son's choice...not great with naming things yet!)

ALWAYS_POOR

I've managed to get a free range chicken at Asda for two weeks running now, they cost about £5.50. No free range chicken breasts though. I decided that if I couldn't get free range then I wouldn't buy chicken at all. Do miss it a bit though.

azjh77

Tesco's response to Hugh's work:-

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=512628&in_page_id=1770

I find the idea that the cheap birds are for those on a budget particularly patronising, Why not reduce the 'Free-range' birds and sell them as a loss leader?

There will always be those who don't care and would eat scabby horse if it was offer 2 -for-1 at Tesco, but why presume that the economically challenged among us will buy poorer quality meat because it is cheaper?

(As for our chicken buying...We ended up buying 6 chickens in the end...the place looked just like Hughs farm and the thought of them all sat in there was quite upsetting, so they are now all sat in the wendy house sunning themselves through the windows ...we've even had 8 eggs since Sunday!)

margaretclare

azjh77 wrote: »

Tesco's response to Hugh's work:-

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=512628&in_page_id=1770

I find the idea that the cheap birds are for those on a budget particularly patronising, Why not reduce the 'Free-range' birds and sell them as a loss leader?

There will always be those who don't care and would eat scabby horse if it was offer 2 -for-1 at Tesco, but why presume that the economically challenged among us will buy poorer quality meat because it is cheaper?

If you read the comments below that article, that's exactly what a lot of them were saying. Their comments echoed Hayley on the TV programme - it's their budget, chicken is chicken and tastes no different, it's just meat bred for eating, and so on.

(As for our chicken buying...We ended up buying 6 chickens in the end...the place looked just like Hugh's farm and the thought of them all sat in there was quite upsetting, so they are now all sat in the wendy house sunning themselves through the windows ...we've even had 8 eggs since Sunday!)

I wish I could find someone around here who would keep an eye on a few chickens for me when we go away. I'd love to have some, but we took a decision a few years ago when our old cat died not to have any more pets, too much of a tie, we like to go off at short notice, we like our freedom. And we have visiting foxes too, which I feed! The wildlife is pretty undemanding and can be left to fend for itself if we decided on a weekend away - pets or chickens cannot.

Margaret

Ben84

The Tesco spokesman is quoted in the article: "No one should feel guilty for buying a chicken just because it is good value."

However, I have to question that.

I saw a study where various chickens were sent to a lab to be tested to find out what they were made of. The cheapest ones contained very large quantities of fat, I believe it was around 1/3rd fat, which was caused by the excessively high calorie diet needed to produce the weight and volume of meat in a short time.

The chicken eats junk food, and so it becomes junk food itself. I believe that if the unhealthy chickens are a product of what they eat, then aren't the humans who consume the unhealthy chickens going to be influenced in much the same way. While we're often told that meat is healthy, and it can be, the meat must be made from something and it cannot possibly contain nutrients that the animal didn't consume from its own food. It would be wrong to assume all meat is the same, and that you could compare them on just price alone.

Good value isn't all about big packets for pennies as the supermarkets keep telling us, it's about the quality of a product and all the advantages/disadvantages it delivers compared against the price. By eating junk, you can save a little now and spend a lot later.

geordie_joe

Ben84 wrote: »

The chicken eats junk food, and so it becomes junk food itself. I believe that if the unhealthy chickens are a product of what they eat, then aren't the humans who consume the unhealthy chickens going to be influenced in much the same way.

No because chickens those chickens eat nothing but junk, but humans eat a wide variety of food so the chicken is only a small proportion of what they eat.

Would be true if a human ate nothing but chickens fed on junk food.

Ben84

Living off chickens entirely, no matter what type, would never be healthy!

Humans do eat a variety of things, but I still believe that frequently eating poor quality meat, such as the junk food chickens, is going to be unhealthy. It will significantly increase the amount of animal fat consumed.

The difference was large. As one individual meal it doesn't matter, but consider it over a week, a year or even a lifetime. The extra fat adds up and the reduction in protein gets bigger too. The more fat and less of everything else problem with chickens is also true with many other meat products.

It has to be considered that cheap intensively farmed meat, which typically contains lots of fat, could be a signficant and unappreciated source of fat and cholesterol in many people's diets.

One cheap chicken won't do much to you, that I can see. It's the long term consumption that makes the difference.

margaretclare

I think that these 'value' chickens which contain a high proportion of fat will be a waste of money in the end, because when cooked, excess fat just melts and gets poured down the sink. FR chickens, by contrast, have much more muscle fibre because they've been used to running around and using their legs. Muscle is much healthier meat.

And didn't some of those people on Hugh's programme say that they bought a cheap chicken and only used the breast meat anyway, threw the rest away?

Margaret