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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think that if you cannot afford free range chicken/turkey meat and eggs...

755 replies

LolaTheShowgirl · 27/05/2009 09:31

...then don't buy at all?

I mean the suffering these birds go through in cramped, dirty sheds is unbelievable. There is usually no natural light and the birds are usually ill before they're culled.

If you can stomach it, please look at these:
WARNING: NOT NICE PICTURES!
HERE

OP posts:
LaurieFairyCake · 27/05/2009 12:31

pizza with hidden veggies
pasta
baked potatoes

jumpingbeans · 27/05/2009 12:31

mamdiva, esp the Donner kebab

bronze · 27/05/2009 12:32

anyone else hungry?

bronze · 27/05/2009 12:32

Lucia I was just trying to find that link

Spaceman · 27/05/2009 12:32

I think I'm the only person on this thread who has had direct experience of chicken slaughter as I used to work on a chicken farm. My job was to walk around the chicken barns and pick out the sick chickens twice a day. My colleague would then get a metal bar, place it over their necks and stamp on it to break their necks - more humanely than you would ever get in this country I may add. I would then run after their convulsing bodies as they bounced down the road and we would then take them to the furnace and burn them. It was in Israel when I worked on a Kibbutz.

Thought I would just let you know my story.

Lucia39 · 27/05/2009 12:33

Those on benefits are given enough to feed their families it's just that many of them don't know how to.

For years nutrition hasn't been taught in "Food Tech"! Oh they can all design a flow chart for a fish-finger but a cheap, nutritious meal on a budget? No chance. Despite Bliar and Broon's hand-wringing over diet the Government's done precious little to redress this situation.

Does anybody remember a cook book written back in the mid 1990s by a young single mum on benefits? She managed it but she knew what to buy and how to cook it.

Thunderduck · 27/05/2009 12:33

The people that I really can't understand are those who think that dp and I are cruel because he goes rough shooting and we both go hunting with hawks and ferrets.

They say we're cruel because we go hunting and eat what we kill, but they eat meat which they purchase from supermarkets.

expatinscotland · 27/05/2009 12:33

'pizza with hidden veggies
pasta
baked potatoes'

My 5-year-old will eat none of those.

I've tried the, 'Eat what you given or nothing' approach.

She chose nothing.

She is 4ft., 2.5 in. and 38lbs.

She can't honestly afford to lose any more weight without it becoming a health issue.

Gorionine · 27/05/2009 12:33

"I really don't see how this thread is an attack on the poor either. It's up to you however rich or poor you are if you want to eat crap meat"

The point is ItsGrimUpNorth it is not actually true, people do buy what they can afford. I had to give up on anything not "essential" so my Dcs can have reasonably nice food. Different people have different priorities and I really hope for your sake that you will never fall on very hard time and then get judged because of the fact that you are still trying to feed your family on a non vegan/vegetarian diet.

bronze · 27/05/2009 12:34

spaceman I have direct experience I also have to pluck and gut them, divide some up, bag them up and put them in the freezer.

You can kill a chicken much more humanely than that with just a bar for a start

LaurieFairyCake · 27/05/2009 12:35

what does she like expat? I was answering mamadiva who didn't say her kids didn't eat those.

bronze · 27/05/2009 12:36

Lucia- no dont remember that book but sounds good, if you remember more details?

thunderduck- you're not in norfolk are you? If by any chance you are I would love to learn a bit from yo

onagar · 27/05/2009 12:36

Perhaps one day I will have enough money (and be bored enough)to talk smugly of choosing dinner on the basis of how the food feels about it.

expatinscotland · 27/05/2009 12:36

Depends on the day, Fairy, but she hasn't like any of those things in a long time.

Thunderduck · 27/05/2009 12:36

I'm afraid not I'm near Glasgow. We do often have meets around the Norfolk area though as part of the BFC. So if we're in the area I'll let you know.

helsbels4 · 27/05/2009 12:37

I'm quite clearly doing something fundamentally wrong in life because I really can't afford to buy organic/free range meat, although I would love to! I do always buy fr eggs though because they really don't cost that much more but fr/organic meat certainly does

How people make four or five meals from one chicken baffles me and it's all very well saying that I should make meat-free meals but have some of you got any idea how difficult that is when you have two fussy children with very different tastes?

Ds would happily eat chick-peas, kidney beans etc but dd wouldn't, dd loves noodles etc but ds doesn't, dd would eat tomatoes, cucumber etc but ds wouldn't, dd would eat eggs but ds wouldn't.........can you see a problem forming?

I don't live near any butcher's shops, greengrocer's, farm shops and I don't drive, so all I have is what I can afford at the supermarket.

So what exactly should I feed them Because I can't afford the decent meat?

Should I just say, "Sorry kids, we're poor and can't afford the meat that I know we should eat and if you don't like the lentils then go hungry?"

Sometimes needs must however unhappy that makes us.

Lucia39 · 27/05/2009 12:37

bronze here it is

www.poultry.allotment.org.uk/Chicken_a/Chicken_Egg_Excess/index.php

Information on storing fresh eggs.

Re- kids not eating what you give them - let them go hungry for a day - it won't kill them!

Boco · 27/05/2009 12:37

Although I wouldn't dictate what anyone else should do, or what their priorities should be when feeding their own families, personally I won't buy meat that isn't free range.

And as I can't really afford free range, we now eat meat once a week, and a roast chicken maybe once a month. Before children and when we both had a decent wage, it was more often, but I don't want to give my children meat that is battery farmed or from animals who have had a miserable distressing life and fed on crap. I'd rather they had healthy vegetarian meals and meat occasionally when we can afford it.

GetOrfMoiLand · 27/05/2009 12:37

Lucia 39 - you raised a good point in that people do not know what to buy or know how to cook it. And it would be lovely to think of people going to the library and learning how to cook. However most cook books are reliant on (a) some degree of knowledge of the basics of cookery and (b) require expensive and unusual ingredients.

Even something like the Jamie Oliver basic cookbook would be useless to someone who really, really cannot cook. If you are writing a cookbook specifically for people who eat nothing but convenience food, you cannot assume that they know what cooked pasta looks like, know when a bit of chicken is cooked, know best how to chop up an onion. The basics aren't there.

And to be perfectly honest, if you live in a deprived area, have to get the bus to work, work minimum wage in a shop, kids are going to underfunded schools, you may well think sod it and have chicken nuggets, chips and beans for dinner, and not have the energy or inclination to attempt a (possibly incomprehensible) recipe from scratch.

mamadiva · 27/05/2009 12:39

Expat same here, DS is 3 but would be skin and bone if he did'nt eat toast and sausages all the bloody time, although have just realised am being slightly hypocritical, I cut back on chicken etc so I can buy DS decent sausages and bread instead of cheap shite.

And the that or nothing does work with us either he starved for 3 days when HV told me that's all I could do !

I love baked potatoes but DP and DS will not touch them, DS will not eat pizza but DP will eat pizza with pepperoni and chicken and pasta well none of them will touch tomato based sauce more than once a month!

Spaceman · 27/05/2009 12:40

How can you Bronze? I don't mean this is in a challenging way, I just want to know what you think is the most humane way of killing a bird apart from breaking its neck.

bronze · 27/05/2009 12:40

I just googled single mum cook book and got some really interesting links back

expatinscotland · 27/05/2009 12:42

Mine's the same, mama. She doesn't like cheese, either, and doesn't like tomato-based sauces.

And yes, she also chose starvation, which again, she is already well underweight and has dyspraxia.

Thunderduck · 27/05/2009 12:43

In your case Expat I'd feed her anything she was willing to eat, including chicken that isn't free range, and not feel bad about it.

bronze · 27/05/2009 12:44

No I just mean you dont need to stamp on its head. We take the bird gently place a bar (broomstick) over its neck. Then very quickly snap its head back. Then hold the wings for a minute for the nerves to stop. You need to do this or you get internal bleeding which can harm the meat. I just thought the way you described it sounded excessively dramatic and cruel when in fact you can do it without the bird getting stressed at all.