What is more important to you - cheap food or high welfare standards?

[Scrowy]

There has been news coverage today that the US has said that to enable trade relations the UK may have to consider lowering some food standards (chlorinated chicken, growth hormones etc).

As a beef and sheep farmer I'm genuinely interested to know if the British public really cares about animal welfare standards or if the reality is that money is tight and as long as it's meat people aren't actually too choosy about it's origins if the price is right?

Please don't pander to me, please be honest. If the truth is that you would like to think you would choose high welfare but when it comes down to it at the supermarket shelf you choose the cheaper option... just say.

We have a tight food budget, around £70 per week for 6 of us including 1 in nappies that has allergies.
Dp won't eat vegetarian, we've argued around the subject many, many times and he just won't. So, for us, cost is the main factor and I try not to think about the welfare because I can't afford to.

I'm quite price sensitive, but will always choose British (and ideally local, if labelled). Not always organic etc though.

Welfare, but we eat very little meat as DD is vegetarian and I CBA to cook separate meals.

Higher welfare, although it’s always going to be relative/subject to budget. We used to have a very low budget, we didn’t eat loads of meat anyway and what we did have was the cheapest/budget meat. We tried to find different ways to get a little bit of higher quality meat but we don’t have the options - eg local-ish butcher turned out to stock very average/cheap meat and couldn’t say where it was from, friend suggested bulk buying from the meat market and splitting the cost but the upfront cost was too much.

Today we spend a bit more on meat, not just the cheapest, and I always buy British meat, but, I find it hard to determine whether it really is higher welfare (bought from the supermarket). Some meats might be from a ‘finest’ range but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re high welfare - I would hope they are but it doesn’t always say anything about the animals on the packet! I was told once that organic is usually also higher welfare, but there isn’t a wide range of organic meat in our local Tesco. We checked out a fancy butchers nearby but it was incredibly expensive (£25 for a whole chicken, would have been £50 for a small beef roast, for example).

So yes, welfare is important to me, but I’m not sure we get enough transparency in supermarkets on the welfare of the meat we buy now. And the article about the US and standards for meat really put me off, I don’t like the idea of lowering our standards at all considering we already have very low welfare meat that fits into the current standards!

Cheap food.

But to be honest I'm getting keener on turning veggie, or at least reducing meat consumption.

Should say that I choose British because I think it's generally better level of welfare, not just the food miles.

Usually standard supermarket meat but cost is a big deal. We've stopped eating lamb & beef as it's so costly. We tend to buy chicken thighs over breast and started to use pork mince over beef as it's cheaper.
I only buy free range eggs but I don't know what that exactly means for the hens, how much do they get to "range" I'm not sure but I do hate the thought of battery hens.

High welfare meat, 100%.

Cheap meat. We only really eat turkey now. We have a good budget of £27 a week including nappies. So we eat alternative sources of protein or tinned fish a fair bit.

I see this as a totally false equivalence.

Procedures which mean you don't cover your chicken meat in chicken sht in the first place, aren't actually onerously high.

Now that we can afford it, animal welfare hands down. When I had no money growing up, we could barely afford meat anyway but when we could it wasn't the free range eggs or chickens we could get. I felt terrible guilt over that. So now we can, when we do buy meat or eggs, it's free range etc.

Well I don't mind how my lentils or mycoprotein get treated welfare wise tbh.
Seriously though we eat less meat and dairy and what we do consume hasto be ethically and we'll treated

High welfare, we only buy from the local organic farm so we can see how the animals were treat. When we couldn’t afford that we (DH and I) went vegetarian (though we still bought meat for DS).

Welfare. I'd rather eat less but more expensive high welfare meat than any amount of chlorinated American shit.

Always welfare and offset cost by eating cheaper cuts and no more than twice a week

Cost is my main look out at the moment but if standards were lowered I wouldn’t buy American meat.

I’d buy free range organically farmed stuff all the time if money was no issue.

To those worrying about organic, it makes very little difference in the British meat industry. It certainly doesn't equal higher welfare standards. Except for pork. If you buy pork and can't go without always buy the most expensive you can afford,

We have meat in most meals but we eat a lot of cheaper cuts that aren't routinely found in supermarkets. Those of you that choose meat based on price would you be tempted by cheaper cuts (ox cheek, beef shin, lamb scrag end, offal etc) if they were routinely more available?

Thanks everyone who has posted so far. I think in farming we are very removed from our potential customers a lot of the time.

I would rather have a small portion of quality than a large portion of crap meat

High welfare, but have the luxury of being able to afford it. I am a vet, so well-informed about welfare standards, and I do not compromise. If out for a meal, I will only eat higher welfare meat there too, and if none available on menu, will go vegetarian.

Always high welfare for me. Cost is an issue but I’d rather go without meat than eat low welfare standard. I also try to eat as local as possible so tend to forgo supermarket meat in favour of a local, locally sourcing butcher.

Welfare & British.

Don't each much meat but when I do it has to be right.

I’d be more interested in cheaper cuts of meat like you mentioned if I knew how to cook them. I’m not the best cook, standard home cooked meals I can do, but I’ve not got the imagination or flair to take a piece of meat I’ve not used before and make it into a meal.
And because my budget is so tight I’m not going to spend £3/4 on meat when I’m not 100% certain I can make something nice out of it.

Welfare. Every time.

I am on a tight budget. If i can’t affort high welfare animal products i don’t buy animal products.

Meat isn’t an essential.

Animal welfare every time. I have a high income though and I’m very particular about what I eat and my health in general (over 50 so trying to stay fit). A lot of people dont have that luxury.

I was listening to Radio 4 earlier and heard this story. I must admit my heart sank. I worry enough already about our own lack of animal welfare in livestock farming, without us shackling ourselves to the US’s drugged and chlorinated food supply.

I started eating only birds and fish this year with a view to stopping eating birds next year. It’s not enough I know but it’s a start.

Has anyone seen the caged European pigs Facebook story this week? Just awful.

Always welfare, if I were on a budget I would reduce the quantity rather than the welfare standards. It worries me where we are heading with such deals as these.