to feel sorry that chickens' happiness isn't worth 60p to most people?

[oohdaddypig]

So - in my local Sainsburies you can buy pre-cooked whole chickens. Free range cost 60p more than the battery farmed variety.

Girl behind the counter told me almost no one buys the free range ones.

Now, I know things are very very tight these days for many families. But this is Sainburies where the average shopper is probably slightly better off.

Doesn't anyone care about where their food comes from now at all? Is the only thing that matters now the cost?

I'm not vegetarian - but I try to shop reasonably thoughtfully, locally when I can etc,

poor chooks!

Lurking some/many people really can't afford free range and that is totally understandable. An awful lot of people can afford free range but prefer to spend their money on other things. That's less understandable to me.

Although, I have recently being contemplating whether there's any point me trying to be ethical with food when my mortgage is with a high street bank which is no doubt funding the arms trade . Everyone has a threshold and although my current acc is with an ethical bank, my mortgage is not. Why am I worrying about chickens when I'm actually committing far worse sins??

It was Russell Brand of all people who said that the way we as a society treat our more vunverable including animals says a lot about us.

I think he's right.

Aldi do free range chicken for under a fiver, for those looking for cheap but more ethical. I have no idea what their standards are, just saying

And op, I agree, it is sad people won't unless of course they have to budget that strictly. Which most people don't. And sainsbos is posh round here too :)

Our sainburies is near a 'deprived' area of our town so no not all customers can afford to shop for chicken when 60p could get them something else, I do think they should just sell them as chicken sometimes have the idea that it is much more expensive than it is, not everybody can shop ethically some dont even care they just need food ,

As an aside, every time I see this thread in active convo's, I think someone's doing a collection for me

oh dd brings chicken home she works there and will buy the free range but it is half price at the end of her shift,

oohdaddypig. I was one of those who say they don't care. I guess I care a tiny bit, but not enough to choose poultry over good wine or strawberries. It must sound very callous to you, sorry. But in all honesty I don't feel guilty.
If it's any consolation, I don't eat meat every day, and I don't usually buy very cheap meat. I go by taste, not ethics. If it tastes good and is within my budget, I get it.

How can anyone feel ok buying meat that's come from a tortured animal? I just don't get it. Chicken and pork are truly the worst as they are crammed into cages and pens and can't move. Next time you want to roll over in your nice comfy bed spare a thought for the wretched animals that only have a cold, hard, wired mesh to lie on and that cannot even turn around.

I'd rather not eat meat if I couldn't afford to buy free range.

But that's ridiculous as an emotive argument! You might has well say free range farmers are the real sadists for giving the animals a lovely life of freedom and unalloyed joy, and then slaughtering them and selling their flesh anyway! There are proper arguments to be had here, but that's not one of them.

Though I am inclined to think if you were that bothered, you wouldn't eat a dead animal whether it had had a happy life before you killed it or not.

Nit - I think whether or not to be a vegetarian is a whole other thread...

I do feel that if you are eating another animal then you have to at least consider the life it had before you chose to eat it.

Babymaroon - I don't get it either. Makes me very sad.

Interestingly, the Co-op's long term plan is to ensure that all the meat it sells is at least free range. I appreciate this in itself opens up a myriad of issues in itself but it's a great step.

"i would have to ask you how you know free range hens are happier than barn reared hens? Are you projecting human feelings onto a hen? "

Let's just suggest you had two choices-sitting in your own shit constantly, without light or any other human company
OR caged some of the time with the hope of escaping and getting a little breather of fresh air and daylight.
Hmm tough one eh?

Steaming I totally disagree. I have absolutely no problem with killing animals for food, for their fur, for any purpose. It's an animal, I believe animals are distinct from humans. I do have a problem with animal cruelty, which is what battery farming is. Of course animals should have a happy life before they're killed, just because you're going to kill it there's no reason to torture it first.

oohdaddypig yet Co-op is one of 3 supermarkets accused of bad practice regards to their forcing British dairy farmers to sell milk at a loss. While M&S, Waitrose and Sainsbury have agreed to raise prices in order to support our farmers.

Thats the trouble really, you can try your damndest to be an ethical and responsible consumer but it is all but impossible to be furnished with all the information all the time :(

lurking but beans are pretty ethical (and nutritious).

If people are so skint they are struggling to feed their families maybe beans instead of chicken would be a good start?

Really waterwater? that's so disappointing. I hadn't waded into that argument. (get my milk delivered, must check the price thing with the supplier)

Please tell me there isn't a thread on here with some folk saying they don't care about loss making farmers?

Itsallgoing: Beans are damn good, yes. Very tasty. But I'm guessing people sometimes fancy some chicken, so they go and buy the one within their budget.

if it were cheaper i would buy it its never just 60p more like a couple of quid more expensive

OP yes there was a thread like that. One of the milk threads saying farmers shouldn't be paid more for their milk as they were obviously just inefficient, and this was the natural way of capitalism, the inefficient fail.

catus but if they can't afford decent chicken maybe they should continue to eat an alternative. I guess it depends how strong your ethics are :)

Wow if it is only 60p dearer I'd buy it!
I only buy free range chicken and then only a couple of times a year. Its expensive and dh isn't keen on chicken.

Itsallgoing. Well, on this subject at least, my ethics would perfectly accommodate with a non free range chicken!

As a child I lived on a chicken farm (not my dad's, a corporate farm owned by the biggest producer of chicken in Scotland - Dad was the farm manager). Chickens were brought in at a day old and grown in huge sheds; the feed they were given included chicken parts; when they got to the correct size to be killed they were pretty crammed in; some died of suffocation. A team of catchers would pitch up and cram them into small crates and take them to the factory, where they would be hung by the feet on a conveyor belt and electrocuted. This is still the way that most chicken is farmed. I spent a week working in the factory (and then got chicken pox, which is totally unrelated to chickens) aged 17 and it was horrendous. I refused to go back after the chicken pox and I wash every chicken I buy thoroughly.

Having said that, DH still buys frozen Tesco value chicken thighs for snacks to take to work. I can't bring myself to touch them.

buy Sainsbury's So Organic whole chickens if you live in Scotland

what about danish pork - maybe its changed but i belive the sows are kept in foul conditions trapped in a horrid cage to give birth and totoally unnaturally for them not allowed to do anything really...

i usually buy british bacon but once it had run out so tried danepak, i can honeslty say its one of the foulest things I have ever put in my mouth, the taste of the chemicals stayed with me all day making me feel sick! I dont know why I ate it , seeing the white gunge flow out of it - made me want to wretch,,

turteldoves your post made me cry.