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

[LolaTheShowgirl]

...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

Deadflesh, that's not a bad go but still wouldn't win it with my obviously very fussy dc's

Vegetable lasagne wouldn't even get on dd's fork, let alone into her mouth, although ds would like that.

Have tried cauliflower cheese in all sorts of ways but neither are keen. Again, ds would eat it reluctantly but dd would rather go hungry.

Pizza - now they both like that! Great fun choosing their own toppings (although dd will overload hers with tomatoes, peppers etc whilst ds would have just cheese.

Onion layer bake........yeah right

I've made some lovely pies (obviously in my opinion) ds loves them but dd not so keen. Not exactly healthy having pastry because whilst you might think I am a dreaful mother feeding my child food from the devil, I do try to provide them with what I consider to be a healthy diet and that doesn't usually include too much of the pastry type meals.

Keep trying

Wish I'd been on Mumsnet earlier today. Come on for first time today, this evening, and found all these amazing controversial threads!

Haven't managed to wade through the 18 pages of arguments, but I'm completely in agreement with the OP.

I'm a single mother, studying, with limited income. Regardless, I would never buy products that weren't free range at the very least. That includes not buying things like Jaffa Cakes because the eggs used in them are from battery hens.

I think it's bollocks that people say that they can't afford to feed their families if they buy free range etc. It's all a matter of priorities and using ingredients properly. A chicken can be used for a roast, then the remaining meat can be picked off and used in sandwiches, stir-fries etc. The bird can be boiled, the stock used for soups or risottos. Furthermore, I can't abide the argument that someone 'can't afford to buy free-range meat/eggs' but then amazingly have enough money to buy cigarettes or booze or crappy junk food. Or go to Costa del Sol for two weeks in the summer.

It's perfectly possible to live ethically and within one's means. Either eat less meat (which frankly would do wonders for the planet too, given the amount of CO2 produced by animal rearing for meat) or spend less money on other stuff. It's honestly not difficult to do.

Or, at least be honest, say that you don't give a flying fuck about animal welfare and eat your cheap meat guilt-free.

I can't afford free- range or organic meat. I don't smoke, I don't go out, I don't buy frozen pre-packaged meals and I most certainly don't go on holiday. Anywhere. Couldn't even afford to go bloody camping. So please don't tell me what I can and can't afford.

Aw no. Are the eggs used in Jaffa Cakes from battery hens? Bugger it. They're my current craving.

hels - If dd likes peppers and tomatoes how about oven roasted veggies and rice or raw veggies and dips? She does sound very difficult to cater for Does she like fruit? No reason why main meals couldn't be fruity eg pineapple/pepper/tomato/sweet potato/grapes concoctions

Winky - M&S do Jaffa Cakes of their own version which are free range....

Expat, my dd used to like baked beans as well. In fact some days she still does......and some days she doesn't! You can't second guess them can you?

GetOrfMyLand (I love that name!) thankyou . I try so bloody hard to cook them nutritious meals ( and I do cook 98% from scratch), so to feel like I'm failing my children and pandering to their "whims" is difficult to take.

My dd is ultra fussy with dinners but she will eat any fruit while my ds will begrudgingly eat his dinner whether he lkes it or not but won't touch fruit. It's virtually impossible to please everybody all of the time.

The one conclusion I have come to though, is that my dc's probably couldn't give a hoot if there's meat every day or not! I suppose I've just been brought up as a meat and two veg dinner kinda gal

Still not sure what else I can feed the fussy buggers little gems though

deadflesh, you're getting there with my dd..........but miles away from what ds would eat!

DD would love raw carrots, peppers, cucumber etc (in fact that's the basis of her lunch usually) but ds doesn't like that at all. He would eat raw carrots but it would be such a chore. Also, she's a scrawny scrap and needs something a bit more substantial to keep her going really.

She loves fruit (ds doesn't!) but she won't develop on just fruit and veg. (Although she doesn't go for much more than that now!)

There are few things more frustrating than cooking something from scratch and having your children turn their nose up at it in manner of Michael Winner.

Helsbels - perhaps give yourself a break one night a week and do snack plates of stuff which you know that they like. When dd was about 6 she used to love it, she used to have cheese toasties, chopped up apples and grapes, bits of cucumber and chopped up bits of ham, all arranged on a plate. Which I know is a faff but she did love it once a week, and saved that wearying feeling that used to come over me knowing that dinnertime was going to be an effort. Mind you dd is an only child and I know that having 2 kids must be a lot harder .

Winky- I admit I struggle to remember whats ok and whats not when doing my shop
on this page at the bottom there is a really useful link

GetOrfMoiLand thank-you for not making me feel like the failure I feel I am!

I must admit, we went out for a family day out on Sunday (my dh is self-employed, I'm at home til dd goes to school and dh works five and a half days + four nights a week, every week) and when we got home, we all had sausage sandwiches on a picnic rug in our front-room for dinner!!!!! I felt so guilty that they hadn't had a "proper" meal all day but they loved it! I guess I should lighten up a bit. They're not going to starve are they?

Try feeding teenagers on tuppence ha'penny and a handful of lentils a week.

I find that most food nazi's tend to have one, or at the most two, very young kids.

When I'm faced with feeding hungry 'big' kids and worrying about chickens I'm afraid that I just don't give a shit about the chicken.

RockinSock - Great post, and I agree totally.

i think we could blame the massive consumption of battery chickens on teenager boys

Rockinsock - how many kids have you got, how old and do you work.

'Cos for many of us 'real' people on here your argument is shite.

far from 'converting' me, the smuggery on this thread makes me think, 'Two tears in a bucket, mother fuck it.'

seriously, okay, bring it!

i'm cruel, selfish and an animal-killer for eating Jaffa cakes and the like.

fuck it, i don't care.

'So please don't tell me what I can and can't afford.'

NO shit!

Would be better off on benefits, have no truck with people who are on them at all, not my deal, don't much care when MPs and execs from banks bring scrounging to new heights.

But not on 'em.

Preaching to people who are or aren't about what they eat.

Sorry, can't see where you get off.

But it makes me want to fuck off and eat some cheap shite, tbh.

Christ helsbels he works a lot, must be hard for the both of you.

Picnic sausage sarnies sounds lovely. I am simlar to you, used to feel guilty if I didn't cook. Took ages to get over the feeling that dd would somehow suffer if she didn't have a cooked evening meal every night! I would say have some more sandwich nights and don't beat yourself up

expat I'm finding myself agreeing with you more and more

Jaffa cakes are yummmmmm (although ds and dd don't like them. Shocker!!!!)

'When I'm faced with feeding hungry 'big' kids and worrying about chickens I'm afraid that I just don't give a shit about the chicken'

Then why have a pop at rockinSock when you have admitted you 'don't give a shit'

I have one child who's 8 and I'm a full time student living on a student budget (and a single mother who receives nothing from DD's father).

Even if I had 6 children there's still absolutely no way I'd change my principles.
I sold my car, kept heating on bare minimum over winter, made my own lunch and took my own coffee in a flask to college each day, shopped on ebay and in charity shops and sacrificed things as necessary. I also eat a lot of baked potatoes and other filling, nutritious and cheap things. I grow as much of my own veg as I can. Therefore, I go without things in order to buy good quality and ethical meat.

helsbels - my DS is a bit of a nightmare. He won't eat most veg and will sometimes eat apples, strawberries, grapes, etc and sometimes the only fruit he will eat is bananas.

I give him filled pasta (waits for criticism from PFB thread ) with spinach and ricotta in it and pesto (from a jar) and philly quite often. It's all ready food really, no effot and takes about 5 mins. But crucially it's some veg, some protein and lots of carb so it fills him up and is pretty healthy. You do what you can really don't you?

whats a real person low energy?

this is why I keep chickens.

Didn't quite work out Expat's last post! Not sure if she was having a go at me or not!!!!!!

GetOrfMoiLand, yes, dh is working bloody hard right now because we both agreed that I would be a sahm til dd was at school full time. I don't drive blah de blah de blah, so not easy to get a job near to where I live that fits in with childcare/school holidays etc. No family to help out at such times either

Hence why I find it hard to take when people criticise the choices that I reluctantly make for my family.

It's the old addage of walking in someone else's shoes and all that.