Rachel Johnson's £32 chicken!

If Rich people do spend that on food i find it mind boggling

When I earn more, I tend to try to up my quality of meat and dairy as a priority.

We had rescue hens and the poor things were in a horrible state. Non free range hens are pumped full of hormones to grow fast and are killed at 6w. A normal 6w hen is the size of your fist, feathers included.

I'd rather eat less meat than poor meat.

I'm lucky to have three near me where they literally tell you which farm everything was from, and you can easily check the slaughter house to know if it was a giant factory evil one or not. There are also some online ones you can do it.

I've had to work hard to find a butchers where that is the case. Butcher doesn't necessarily mean better meat, several of our local.butchers just get stuff from the same place as supermarkets.

That is what it costs to ethically raise animals. All this whining about the cost just pressures farmers and shops to reduce welfare standards and produce meat as cheap as possible. Eating high welfare organic meat is a non-negotiable for us - we will cut other things or cut the amount of meat we eat rather than go battery farmed.

Whilst I entirely take your point, farm animals would not exist if nobody ate them or used the products that come from them. I've worked on farms (small scale, highest standards of welfare) where the animals were incredibly well cared and had really good lives from birth to death, every aspect carried out with utmost compassion.

The options are -

• no animals
• animals kept to the highest possible standards (more expensive)
• animals treated like a commodity. (cheap).

At the risk of sounding horribly pretentious,I have just discovered venison. Found a local farm shop place which has a butcher and I thought I would give venison a try. I was tempted by the ingredients list on the pack of venison burgers which was venison,salt pepper. And that's it. I am now hooked. The meat is no more expensive than beef and very tasty and low fat. It sounds terribly grand to me,raised on council house fare,but actually I like the taste,the healthiness,the animal welfare and the cost!

Presumably the chicken fed four people so at £8/head that's not bad - certainly compared to eating out, or even buying a sandwich and coffee.

So many people on MN think nothing of ordering in pizzas which, according to Dominos website, are £14 each.

The term ‘ethical meat’ always made me laugh. The animal was happy and well fed… before we slaughtered it.

I just don’t understand meat consumption all together so this is a bit lost on me. What I will say is if you grew up rich as she did, she won’t even consider that a luxury.

Did she say how large the chicken was? That's also pretty relevant. I mean, you can order a £70 chicken from a butcher near where we live, but the chicken would weigh up to 6 kilos!

It just kind of happens as your income goes up. The point at which you think “is this a reasonable amount to pay?” migrates upwards because you have more disposable income. We were a high income family and didn’t think too much about spending £1,000 for a day trip on the Northern Belle for instance. Our income has changed now due to life choices and I’ve just received a Christmas jumper for £3 off Vinted because I couldn’t justify spending £20 for short term use. The reality is that a lot of people who earn more cease to recognise how much money they waste but they also cease to recognise what it is to be hard up - as it witnessed by the raft of threads from well off folk this week!!

@GreenGodiva do you mind saying or pm-ing whereabouts you are as I'm always looking out for good places to buy better quality meat that won't bankrupt me?

I've had an interest in her for years since I read an article in the Sunday papers about her at university and have read all her books. I'm not aware of anything 'objectionable'. What should I search for? You feel strongly about this. Give me a steer.

I think we've just got so used to food in general being artificially cheap, that paying 'above the odds' for something that's (hopefully) had a decent life seems crazy to many.

Food is going up in price quickly, but I hope that's because producers are demanding a fairer price for their product, which means they cqn pass this on in fairer wages, rather than simply supermarkets making more profits.

Unfortunately, this is also pricing out the poorest.

Meat, especially, though, used to be a once a week treat.

I do think we eat far too much of it nowadays (myself uncluded), partly because it's so cheap, and I'm pretty sure that's not good for us.

why not dip your toes into the magical world of internet search engines?

I agree. If I had £32 to spend on chicken, I'd absolutely spend £32 on chicken. Instead, I just don't eat it because I suspect that any chicken that doesn't cost £32 has had a pretty miserable, and probably very short life.

I find it far more problematic that it is even possible to buy a whole chicken for under £5. The welfare conditions for mass produced meat are absolutely appalling. Better to go without than to knowingly eat it.

Sounds about right for ethically raised meat. Not that it's something I can afford.

What has she done that is objectionable please?

There is a long list of things Rachel Johnson has done that are highly objectionable.

Purchasing this chicken isn't one of them

I think if you can afford it, then it’s good to spend your extra wealth on food which is ethically produced. The same for clothing or other purchases.

I spend £20-25 on an organic, free-range chicken weekly. Which works out at less than £3 per portion. £32 seems feasible for a fancier London bird. It's probably represents the true cost of rearing animals humanely for meat. I'd rather not eat chicken at all than support the battery farming industry.

It's not something I care to think about too closely. All I can do is try and buy free range etc.

I think a lot of us probably bury our heads in the sand.

This chicken is £22, so I suppose £32 for a particularly large bird raised in very high welfare conditions isn't insane. Nice to be able to afford it.

Can I ask how you dispatch the chickens and butcher them ready for eating?

I like the idea of my own chickens and I have the space, but the practicalities of end-of-life scare me somewhat!