Tesco Fresh British Chickens £1.99

daveyjay1

Jonny_B wrote: »

Well it meets my definition of tortured.

It meets my definition of tortured too. I will always buy free range chickens. If I can't afford one, I will go without. There are plenty of other cheaper things to eat.

I do not believe it is 'my right' to eat chicken every week - so I don't believe they should have to be available at stupidly cheap prices.

lesley1960

Its not just about the welfare of the animal but about what you are eating ie what has it been fed on , where it has been kept while alive and dead , how many people have handled , coughed , spluttered and god knows what else all over it before it gets to you !

I saw a quote by Heston Blumenthal where he said something like he was amazed people are prepared to spend thousands on a car but are only willing to spend £2.50 on a chicken , which probably sums up the mentality of today.

TGM

Perez wrote: »

£1.99 for a chicken - that is pretty sad really, I wouldn't touch that with a barge pole personally, imagine what a life that poor thing has had - shameful.



Sorry but don't agree with this statement at all.

Think you should read the Soil Association site to find out what that particular organic certification actually means!

It's not just that the animals are fed organically - they ARE free range by definition, and have to (in order to meet the certification) be given considerably more space than intensively farmed chickens.

Also they're not given growth promoters/antibiotics - whatever your opinion on the taste of chicken (and if you tried a Label Anglais free range chicken you would not in a million years be able to say that it tastes the same as a supermarket chicken!!), surely it makes sense not to consume meat that's been pumped full of who knows what pharmaceuticals!

Here's a link explaining the standards which Soil Association demands with regard to poultry farming:

http://www.soilassociation.org/web/sa/saweb.nsf/ed0930aa86103d8380256aa70054918d/d6d15ce4cfad3ea480257149004cb425!OpenDocument

Hope this helps some people!

At the end of the day, if you can't afford decent, properly farmed meat all the time, eat it once in a while and really enjoy it... The rest of the time, why not eat vegetarian? Plenty of cheap meal options leaving money for decent quality meat... If chicken is just protein to you in your diet then try something else that's not had a horrendous life...

So the Soil Association are saying our Organic Free Range is better than normal organic free range. So in which case my opinion is still valid, cos not all organic farming is covered by TSA.
Is not an actual Government approved body is it just an independent standard.

Basically what I was saying, maybe I'm too skeptical. You see organic labels slapped on all kinds of things from British produce to Spanish Broccoli. I'm saying its all down to trust whether that produce is 'grown' to that standard. What's stopping a chicken farmer getting his Organic standard, whilst still using non synthesized chemicals. the farmer is still crowding chickens into a barn as many as 1.99 chicken?
Restaurants have food hygiene standards, but the Environment Health Depts always seems to be able root out some filthy kitchens.

lesley1960

daveyjay1 wrote: »

It meets my definition of tortured too. I will always buy free range chickens. If I can't afford one, I will go without. There are plenty of other cheaper things to eat.

I do not believe it is 'my right' to eat chicken every week - so I don't believe they should have to be available at stupidly cheap prices.

i think you have hit the nail on the head with your quote about being 'my right' ....I think people now think its their right to have it all. We have been brought up with the notion that we should all have foreign holidays , flash cars . sky tv , ect ect , the sad fact is that we are governed by what we can earn , its not so much we dont earn enough as we spend too much.

PEACHYS

For all these posters on this thread pleading poverty and not being able to find the money to buy free range.Who's computer are you tapping into?Broadband?Sky?Free bus to Tesco?Don't think so.Don't BS me.You're part of the solution, or part of the problem.Just try to cook without broilers for a month.Trust me it's a liberating feeling and you won't go back to 'em.

TGM

As somebody mentioned smoking, and the poor people smoking but can't afford better chicken. Spin that around.

How many people bang on about Organic and Free Range, cos you know whats going into their mouths. Then after their 'healthy' meal, they start sucking on a 'Cancer Stick'?

Lotus-eater

And I quote
Studies have shown that fast-growing factory farmed chickens contain more fat and less iron than traditional breeds of chicken that are usually farmed in free-range or organic conditions. Factory farmed meat chickens may be a major factor in rising levels of obesity among people. In traditional farming, chickens roam free, eating natural foods such as herbs and seeds. Intensively farmed chickens are given high energy foods and are very inactive. The result is that a typical supermarket chicken in the West contains more fat than protein, with 2.7 times as much fat as in 1970 and 30 per cent less protein.

http://wspafarmwelfare.org/hhnutrition.html

Someone asked "What effect does eating a battery chicken rather then eating a free range chicken have on us, i really don't know"

valk_scot

We spend less in % terms of income on our food than most other European countries. The thinking here seems to be cheap food is the be all and end all. We've grown to expect our food to be cheap and the market is driven on price, not quality. Coupled to that is the boom in convenience and processed food...I don't know the statistics but I'd bet my last 10p that more chicken is consumed in this country in some sort of processed form (ready meals, chicken nuggets, pies) than is bought in raw form, whether as a roasting bird or portions. The £1.99 supermarket bird probably represents the top end of quality of this sort of bird, btw...the really awful stuff goes for processing.

We're a family of four living on one wage, and we can afford to eat decent quality food because we make it a priority and because I can cook well. I can afford to buy good ingredients because I don't have to pay the premium for someone else to prepare it for me, and thus I doubt I spend more on food (probably less) than a family living on so called "cheap" processed stuff. of course, you have to factor in my time here which I realise not everyone has, but I can turn out a meal in under twenty minutes if pushed, and I make my own "convenience" foods via the freezer. Pizzas, burgers., chicken nuggets etc? The kids get them all, because I can make them.

Back to chickens. A good 5lb bird does us three meals plus...roast dinner, chicken stir fry, sandwiches or chicken pie filling. The bones make soup and the cat eats up most of anything else left. The only thing that goes in the bin is the boiled-out bones. I think that's good value for £5-6. I suspect I'd need two of the £1.99 versions to make all that, and it wouldn't taste as good.

TGM

PEACHYS wrote: »

For all these posters on this thread pleading poverty and not being able to find the money to buy free range.Who's computer are you tapping into?Broadband?Sky?Free bus to Tesco?Don't think so.Don't BS me.You're part of the solution, or part of the problem.Just try to cook without broilers for a month.Trust me it's a liberating feeling and you won't go back to 'em.

And some of us think there's more to worry about than a CHICKEN. Nobody has died of eating a broiler, but plenty have died by eating no chicken

Perez

TGM wrote: »

So the Soil Association are saying our Organic Free Range is better than normal organic free range. So in which case my opinion is still valid, cos not all organic farming is covered by TSA.
Is not an actual Government approved body is it just an independent standard.

Basically what I was saying, maybe I'm too skeptical. You see organic labels slapped on all kinds of things from British produce to Spanish Broccoli. I'm saying its all down to trust whether that produce is 'grown' to that standard. What's stopping a chicken farmer getting his Organic standard, whilst still using non synthesized chemicals. the farmer is still crowding chickens into a barn as many as 1.99 chicken?
Restaurants have food hygiene standards, but the Environment Health Depts always seems to be able root out some filthy kitchens.

I don't believe that's what TSA are saying at all, it's just those are their rules and if a farm wants to be certified by them then those are the standards which must be met... I don't know which particular organic certification Tesco's farmers sign up to (I assume they can be certified by any of the bodies), but there are also EU/DEFRA rules governing what is and isn't organic... DEFRA enforces that in the UK (See: http://www.defra.gov.uk/farm/organic/standards/index.htm and http://www.defra.gov.uk/farm/organic/standards/pdf/compendium.pdf)

Note that for ANY british chicken to be organic, it must be raised for at least 81 days before slaughter (so twice that of intensively farmed chicken), and must be free range. That is a legal requirement.

So, for food to be "organic" it needs to be from farms which have been certified by one of the various certification bodies (some of these probably place even more stringent restrictions (than the EU/DEFRA standards) on farming density, what feeds/drugs can and can't be used)

I found all this info with the help of Google and 5 minutes, the info is out there if people care to look for it.