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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To ask you to think twice about eating chicken regularly

640 replies

Tigofigo · 25/09/2022 09:03

...it's just not sustainable for us to consume as much as we do.

Intensive chicken farming is polluting and destroying our rivers and also potentially causing breathing difficulties and lung issues in those who live near farms spraying chicken / other animal manure as fertilizer.

Really worrying too, at a time when govt are ripping up EU regs on environmental laws that will further destroy our rivers and the animals, plants and people that rely on them (along with the shit already pumped into them...).

www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/sep/25/chicken-farm-giant-linked-to-river-wye-decline-was-sued-over-water-blight-in-us

www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jan/14/muck-spreading-could-be-banned-to-reduce-air-pollution

inews.co.uk/news/brexit-bonfire-environment-regulations-otters-dolphins-birds-conservationists-1875799

OP posts:
Musti · 25/09/2022 14:36

bellac11 · 25/09/2022 14:27

Thanks the top one is something I have cooked before, didnt know it was an actual recipe!! Or had a name

Your others come up with page not found

Bibimbap, fabada asturiana- just Google vegan versions and the gousto one is vegetable noodles with silky cashew nut sauce.

sunshineandsuddenshowers · 25/09/2022 14:38

@Eeksteek is right:

”Chicken was historically a middle income food, precisely because it’s expensive. Historically, the poor are very little meat at all. I don’t say we should go back to that, or that it’s right, but meat is affordable at all for many people (and certainly at the frequency it’s consumed now) only because the barbaric unsustainable factory farming has artificially depressed the price. Just as travel is only accessible to many people because of the low and unsustainable price and practice of burning oil. There’s no values attached to those statements. It’s nothing to do with class. It just can’t last forever. “

It can’t last. That’s the point. And it is only possible now because environmental destruction is free…

Meili04 · 25/09/2022 14:45

I'm on a really restricted diet (medical issues ) a vegan diet would leave me more malnourished. I eat small amounts so I need protein and fat rich foods.

kateandme · 25/09/2022 14:46

Sillysop92 · 25/09/2022 11:38

My roast chicken is about to be cooked! It will be delicious and far better than any over-processed vegan substitutes. Served with lovely veggies, stuffing and gravy and maybe some sausages that need using up. Chicken fajitas for tea tomorrow!

Sounds perfect
i might have to include some demon white bread chicken sandwiches there too!

LadyMaid · 25/09/2022 14:52

Chicken parmesan with thick cut chips and a green salad. Yum.

vodkaredbullgirl · 25/09/2022 15:02

user29 · 25/09/2022 14:01

£18 for a chicken! Everyone reading this is going to think you are a gullible fool. Which doesn't exactly help your cause!

I've just been to the local farm shop, medium chicken cost me £8.99, couldn't see any chickens costing £18.

midsomermurderess · 25/09/2022 15:07

I find this utterly presumptuous, posters like you jumping in your soap boxes. People will make their own choices, whether you approve or not.

bellac11 · 25/09/2022 15:07

Musti · 25/09/2022 14:36

Bibimbap, fabada asturiana- just Google vegan versions and the gousto one is vegetable noodles with silky cashew nut sauce.

So without knowing the names or exact recipes, I seem to be cooking things like this, a version of them and this is what Ive become bored with

Veggie stews for want of a better name. I tend to throw things together rather than follow recipes so you find your way to putting thigs like this together with various condiments and ingredients and various veg. Turns out they've all got a name!!

I dont find them hugely satisifying after a while to be honest. Bean stews Im sick to death of and I dont really enjoy rice all that well.

I like thai flavours and like putting nuts in things.

blackheartsgirl · 25/09/2022 15:08

I thought eating red meat contributes to the risk of bowel cancer and all that. Or is that processed meat, sausages, bacon etc?

Thebestwaytoscareatory · 25/09/2022 15:12

@BerriesOnTop

Well yeah nature doesn’t give a fuck but I can’t understand people who don’t value themselves over animals. Or understand there is a hierarchy of life that we place value on accordingly. Like, a dog obviously has more value to humans than cockroaches and we act accordingly.

Because a human is not intrinsically more valuable to the planet than an animal, except in the minds of many humans. You may consider yourself special but you are not. I do not believe that just because I am human I should have the right to abuse or support the abuse of other animals for my pleasure.

You claim go understand their is a hierarchy of life based on value but I'm not sure that you do, as if you did you would understand the point I am making.

Out of interest why do you think a dog is more valuable to humans than a cockroach? Surely this would depend on the situation. For companionship sure a dog is more valuable but, cockroaches help pollinate plants in the wild and breakdown decaying matter into nutrient rich soil. Scientists have also taken inspiration from the mechanics of cockroach legs when developing prosthetics and are looking at how their naturally produced antibodies could be used to fight against antibiotic resistant viruses.

Better now than literally any point in human history so don’t know what you are on about. As for animals, we have concepts like animal welfare that are very new but there. I dare say animals don’t have this concept at all 😆

It's not better now than at any point in human history at all. Up until the industrial revolution human population was relatively stable with a population growth rate around 0.02%. That jumped to 0.3% on the back of the revolution and continued to rise to a peak of 2% in the 1970s (we're now around 1.1%). That explosion in population has meant we have had to massively increase our exploitation of the Earth and there is no plausible way you can consider this to be "best" the relationship between humans and the Earth has ever been.

Would you say that about all living things on this planet? That all living things are cancer on the planet? Maybe you would 🤔

No, because most other living things live in balance with the Earth and aren't actively exploiting the planet to the detriment of everything else that lives here. Current extinction rates are between 1,000-10,000 times higher than the background extintion rates we would expect to see naturally, with human activity being the primary (and pretty much only) driver.

You won’t be impacted quite as much as you think.

I should be dead before the impacts are acutely felt at a UK level but unfortunately they're already happening in many places around the world. The increase in extreme weather events we are seeing including drought, flooding, storms, fires, intense rain, temperature extremes, etc are all happening with a 1.1 degree rise in GMST and were currently on course for a 2.9 degree rise by 2050. You think brexit or covid has caused issues with supply chains? Wait until billions if people are displaced and billions of acres of food producing land suffer crop failures.

Isaidnoalready · 25/09/2022 15:24

Don't quote American statistics and then bang on about brexit we are not all in America and we don't all have the same welfare standards as America

Thebestwaytoscareatory · 25/09/2022 15:25

bellac11 · 25/09/2022 14:01

I didnt justify mistreatment, I compared your comment of a sheep having an early death (in your view) to a sheep having an early death at the hands/paws of its main predator.

I dont view the short lives of animals that we eat as mistreatment in and of itself

And yes we have evolved to eat meat when we want because we have farmed it, evolution hasnt ended, we are still evolving, farming was part of that.

Personally I dont eat huge quantities of meat, unfortunately my nemesis is cheese which of course is also part of animal husbandry, but industrial scale animal agriculture isnt 'wrong' any more than industrial scale agriculture of anything is wrong. They are neither right nor wrong.

But the animals that are raised as part of an industrial farming system ARE mistreated. You cannot slaughter animals on an industrial scale humanely.

Take pigs for example, 90% of pigs sent to slaughter in the UK are put into gas chambers and gassed unconscious. When the Nazis did that to humans it was considered one of the worst atrocities in history, but its a "humane" way to kill pigs. It is not, it is fucking sick and despicable.

You can Google "pigs being gassed" and find hundreds of recordings of them screaming and thrasing in absolutely terror during this process but I guarantee most won't because they want to pretend it's ok.

user6363 · 25/09/2022 15:28

OP, if you bring up anything to do with people’s meat intake being an issue so many people will just shut down and get defensive. There’s always a reason why they absolutely can’t make any change at all.

I recognise that food is a sensitive topic for people and I’ve never bothered trying to change anyone’s mind, personally. I would say people don’t understand that vegan substitutes can be eaten sparingly, if at all… I eat vegan chicken substitutes maybe twice a month. I appreciate people don’t necessarily like a diet of pulses, tofu, falafels etc (I really do get that), but being vegan doesn’t mean eating processed substitutes all the time.

I’m coeliac so being vegan too is hard but doable. But anyway, reducing your meat intake is super easy for most people, it really doesn’t have to be all or nothing.

PreferAnimals · 25/09/2022 15:30

Hubby and I became veggie 5 years ago. Next step will be vegan. The planet just can't sustain the amount of meat humans eat. Just my opinion, but I thunk a lot of people just prefer to bury their heads in the sand and don't care. Sad really.

AclowncalledAlice · 25/09/2022 15:32

Well you can ask but chicken is the only meat I eat so I shall be neither cutting down, nor giving it up. Sorry OP.

user6363 · 25/09/2022 15:37

Dreamwhisper · 25/09/2022 14:16

But also you don’t have to be perfect. It isn’t all or nothing. A lot of people doing something is better than only a few doing it perfectly

This is really important. I think a lot of people, myself included, have tried veganism and when it gets to a point where it feels unsustainable, "give up" which usually means going back to exactly how they ate before, which is very meat heavy.

I'm trying to get into a head space where I don't beat myself up for eating McNuggets and a milkshake once a month or have chicken gravy with Christmas dinner. If everyone cut down for the welfare of the planet and the welfare of the animals, at least even if no conditions changed billions less animals would be subjected to that life, and farming billions less animals a year is going to make an impact of the environment.

This is absolutely it.

bellac11 · 25/09/2022 15:38

Thebestwaytoscareatory · 25/09/2022 15:25

But the animals that are raised as part of an industrial farming system ARE mistreated. You cannot slaughter animals on an industrial scale humanely.

Take pigs for example, 90% of pigs sent to slaughter in the UK are put into gas chambers and gassed unconscious. When the Nazis did that to humans it was considered one of the worst atrocities in history, but its a "humane" way to kill pigs. It is not, it is fucking sick and despicable.

You can Google "pigs being gassed" and find hundreds of recordings of them screaming and thrasing in absolutely terror during this process but I guarantee most won't because they want to pretend it's ok.

I know you're trying really hard here, but I simply dont agree with you and am not going to go round and round in circles with you

There are constant improvements to be made to how animals are treated around the world, both in terms of agriculture and in the wild/kept for entertainment and pets but humans are carnivores, nature isnt concerned with who is 'on top', it just happens that we are at the moment. No doubt in a million years it wont be the case.

ILoveDB · 25/09/2022 15:41

😂😂😂

Thebestwaytoscareatory · 25/09/2022 15:44

BerriesOnTop · 25/09/2022 14:17

As such, we should have been using our intelligence to find ways to feed the population sustainably and in balance with nature

You can’t balance nature, it’s literally out of human control. Nature without humanity is chaotic and unpredictable, earth has been a hostile environment incapable of any life whatsoever in the past, and when it has life, there have been many mass extinction events. No reason to respect it all that much.

Seriously.

I didn't say we should balance nature. I said we should live in balance with nature, as in live in a way the planet can sustainably support.

The Earth has supported life for around 80% of its existence and most mass extinction events have come from either volcanic activity when the tectonic plates where far more active or asteroid impacts.

I'm not sure what any of that has to do with how humans have impacted on the planet but if you want to compare our impact against those events then here's a little fact to illustrate the issues we cause.

Since the turn of the 19th century it is estimated that human activity has realised 5 times more co2 into the atmosphere than the Chicxulub asteroid that helped spur on the end of the dinosaurs.

Are you saying that because the Earth is infinitely more powerful and long-lasting than humans we should just be allowed to do what ever the fuck we want without a care or thought?

Seriously.

maddiemookins16mum · 25/09/2022 15:44

It’s a certain type of very privileged person who thinks they can get on their soap box and preach to people about what they should and shouldn’t eat. How dare you.
For some people, chicken will be their main meat (it’s certainly ours, at least three times a week in various forms).
It’s still inexpensive compared to fish, beef etc and we’ll be eating even more of it the way things are going.
Do I even look and see if the chicken has been raised on a 5 star luxury farm, eating gold encrusted chicken food, nope - I can’t afford that luxury.

SheWentWest · 25/09/2022 15:47

I wanted to eat less meat but not give it up altogether so now if I make a meaty meal I sub half the meat with something else. Green lentils in cottage or shepherds pie are fantastic, for Bolognese simply do half of it as veggies, Stir fry - add reduce meat and add extra veggies and nuts, chicken and chickpea curry etc. Saves cash and reduces meat consumption and makes me feel healthier. It's a middle ground for me.

bellac11 · 25/09/2022 15:49

SheWentWest · 25/09/2022 15:47

I wanted to eat less meat but not give it up altogether so now if I make a meaty meal I sub half the meat with something else. Green lentils in cottage or shepherds pie are fantastic, for Bolognese simply do half of it as veggies, Stir fry - add reduce meat and add extra veggies and nuts, chicken and chickpea curry etc. Saves cash and reduces meat consumption and makes me feel healthier. It's a middle ground for me.

Do you use the tinned lentils, I think they are fantastic, started using them about 30 years ago just like you said, cheap, easy to store, no cooking required and sort of taste a bit 'meaty' once they're mixed in with mince or even just the meat gravy for flavour

I cant get on with dry lentils unless they're red, I use those a lot.

ZeroFuchsGiven · 25/09/2022 15:50

Having known many chickens as pets throughout my life I can vouch for the fact that they are all individuals with personalities - and you really couldn't enjoy eating one if you'd kept them as pets

I had 4 chickens as 'pets' they had names paige, pru, pheobe and piper, once they stopped laying we ate them, we actually had one for christmas dinner one year.

Thebestwaytoscareatory · 25/09/2022 15:52

bellac11 · 25/09/2022 15:38

I know you're trying really hard here, but I simply dont agree with you and am not going to go round and round in circles with you

There are constant improvements to be made to how animals are treated around the world, both in terms of agriculture and in the wild/kept for entertainment and pets but humans are carnivores, nature isnt concerned with who is 'on top', it just happens that we are at the moment. No doubt in a million years it wont be the case.

Fair enough, I'm not sure there's any point engaging with someone who can listen to those animals scream and think "meh, they taste nice though".

Oh and humans aren't carnivores, we do not need meat to survive.

vodkaredbullgirl · 25/09/2022 15:53

Had 2 sheep when younger, kept in a field by the house. Called Mint and Sauce, tasted lovely when cooked.