to ask MEAT EATERS if you buy free range or standard chicken?

[Granllanog]

I got attacked on my last thread for saying I buy standard supermarket chicken. Considering only 4% of all of the chicken produced in the UK is free-range and only 1% is organic I don't think I am unusual in doing this?

YABU = I'm a meat eater and only ever eat/buy free-range chicken.
YANBU = I buy standard chicken.

Another “whatever’s cheapest” here. Don’t have the luxury of being fussy where my food comes from.

Ten years ago, all organic and free range. No farmed fish or anything.

Now, after 2 kids and their dad just walking out on us leaving me on one salary with full childcare costs etc so I can work, we eat veggie 4 nights a week, fish once or twice and meat the rest. And I buy what I can afford now which means no free range chicken.

Its slowly getting better, and I'll go back to buying free range organic as I can.

Organic all the way, better welfare, and guaranteed that what it’s fed isn’t contributing to deforesting the Amazon rainforest. I can’t afford to eat it all the time, so I eat vegetarian in between.

On mumsnet everyone buys free range/organic. In the real world most people obviously buy standard as that’s what’s mainly on the supermarket shelves. If you look in people’s baskets next time you’re in the supermarket you’ll get a much more realistic answer. Also our local butcher doesn’t even sell f/r chicken.

Free range, from a farm near my house.

I haven’t voted because although I only buy free range I fully appreciate some people are on a tight budget and simply can’t afford it. Doesn’t make them unreasonable in my view.

Whatever is cheapest.

I don’t have the money for morals when it comes to food.

I think you were 'attacked' more for your unpleasant judgy tone regarding your friend.

I buy cheap food/clothes/everything.

It's cheapor nothing, I can barely afford to run the oven, never mind paying £10+ for a chicken to put in it

As recommended on another thread I buy ‘properly’ free range chicken from Pipers Farm. But I recognise I’m very lucky to have this choice. We have also cut down on the amount of meat we eat and are mostly plant based too (80/20?).

Standard
I can't afford to buy free range chicken

Where meat products in general are concerned, it's a mixture including free range and organic when possible, depending upon

How much month is left at the end of the money
The quality of cut
The portion size
Whether there is gluten and/or dairy listed in the ingredients (automatically puts you into the higher price bracket when you have to avoid them)
If there's room in the freezer and enough money for ingredients to make it stretch to more than two meals/it will be simultaneously affordable and cost effective to do so
Whether I feel that I can manage another week without having a source of haem iron and other vitamins/minerals or need a boost (please see the earlier remark regarding GF/DF need before you give me the lecture on spinach, orange juice and chickpeas - I don't absorb nutrients very well)
Whether there's any choice in the supermarket/butcher in the first place

I don't think most meat eaters realise what free range actually entails. You all just like to claim you buy free range so you can virtue signal and pretend to yourself that you don't fund the torture and rape of sentient beings. None of you actually give a shit.

Standard because we're poor and buy the cheapest.

@Porcupineintherough

The truth is though that most people dont give a shit about an animal's journey from birth to fork as long as they dont have to witness any of it or think about it.

Yep very true.

I only buy free range chicken and free range/organic eggs. Conditions for battery/cages are appalling. I wouldn’t judge those who cannot afford that choice, but my personal view is that if you can afford it, you should buy higher welfare meat etc.

As an aside, this has reminded me of someone I used to know.

She was an awfully rude about anyone who didn’t buy free range or organic. She came round with her children one day and got stuck as her car wouldn’t start; I made the all dinner.

I got a chicken out of the fridge and honestly, she was holding it reading the label looking like she was having an internal crisis - It was because it was just the cheapest supermarket one.

She told me there was no way I was feeding her children that. Which suited me fine, as if i’d have fed it to them, dh and I would have gone without dinner that night to do so.

Some people are bloody rude about it.

@Lavender24

I don't think most meat eaters realise what free range actually entails. You all just like to claim you buy free range so you can virtue signal and pretend to yourself that you don't fund the torture and rape of sentient beings. None of you actually give a shit.

I don’t buy free range to virtue signal; I buy it because it tastes better

I often buy free range but I also buy the Waitrose non-free range as I believe their standards are higher than the other supermarkets. If I’m grabbing a sandwich, or in a restaurant, I don’t really consider if it’s free-range or not.

@Lavender24

I don't think most meat eaters realise what free range actually entails. You all just like to claim you buy free range so you can virtue signal and pretend to yourself that you don't fund the torture and rape of sentient beings. None of you actually give a shit.

I found this interesting- I buy organic, free range but I do wonder whether that's just a way of not thinking too much about the reality of eating meat. A bit like medieval Christians buying indulgences.

I think a lot of people feel like this and are on the cusp of going veggie/vegan. I wouldn't be surprised if meat eating was a minority activity within 20 years, in the UK at least.

Free range only. It's expensive, so we very rarely eat it. It's a treat here.
We eat mainly veggie instead.

I know lots of people eat chicken several times a week 'because it's cheap', but it shouldn't be. I can't see how the cycle will be broken though, because so many people buy it (apparently no-one on MN though!)

@Lavender24

I don't think most meat eaters realise what free range actually entails. You all just like to claim you buy free range so you can virtue signal and pretend to yourself that you don't fund the torture and rape of sentient beings. None of you actually give a shit.

You think wrong then, Lavender24.

Trying to reduce/ eliminate meat is easier said than done, when you have limited time and resources. It doesn't mean some people aren't trying.

Whatever’s cheapest. I can’t afford to be choosy.

Free range if in the supermarket. But I confess I'll eat it in a restaurant without knowing what it is, and we all know what it is in most places. Remember having a big row that became a discussion with my parents as a teenager about that as I wasn't happy buying breaded chicken which is never free range. And we sort of came to and agreement that good enough is sometimes good enough. But I will still at times just not buy/order the chicken because I know it'll be non free range.
It does frustrate me that so many people who could afford it won't pay the extra. I get that it's hard when there's a pack half the price sitting there. I just try and tell myself that this is what chicken costs, pay it or leave it. Also every time I buy free range I'm sending a message about the welfare standards I want.