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

I would rather give my chilldren lentils than a chicken that cost £1.99. Fed on bits of other animals and pumped full of antibiotics, ethical issues aside there is no way I would allow my children to eat that.

We eat too much meat and expect our food to be ridiculously cheap, as a family we have very little money and yet nearly all our food and clothing are organic and ethical where possible. We just go without lots of other stuff.

We are a society that expects not just something but everything for nothing and it is just not sustainable.

Meat should be a luxury IMO.

Actually, back in the good old days when the poor knew their place didn't eat as much meat, there were health problems caused by insufficient protein in the diet. DOn't forget that the agribusinesses and battery farms didn't evolve because 'they're all bastards', the initial thinking was to make cheap food widely available.
And yes, I am aware that it's possible to have a vegetarian or vegan diet with plenty of protein in it, but this requires knowledge, skill and commitment, just telling people to eat less meat won't do much good (especially when you put it as 'only people who have money are allowed to eat meat'.)

I think Sainsburys and M&S have stopped selling eggs from battery hens and Morrisons are going to soon.

Excuse while I mount my high horse for a moment...

DP and I eat all organic meat and eggs, and organic veg, except for the odd bit (we choose british over organic if necessary), and only eat seasonally, and can feed 2 of us and DS (only 9 months, eats about as much as your average 2 year old, but still not loads) for £35 a week. We achieve it by:

• Having chicken once a month, if that
• Buying cheap beef like brisket and cooking it for 4-5 hours or more in a pot roast
• having lentils occasionally, but not that often as I'm not really a fan
• beans are good (dried ones are cheaper, you just need to remember to soak them)
• Not buying organic for tinned stuff (apparently it has less crap sprayed on it as appearance is less important, and it gets scrubbed more thoroughly before being tinned), so we can buy sainsbo's basics tinned toms etc, and not buying organic potatoes - we eat a lot of potatoes!
• We make our own bread, muffins, cakes, biscuits, so can buy local, organic ingredients usually.

I appreciate that's not quite £25 for a family of 4, but we have ridiculously high standards, and I reckon if we reduced our standards to only free range meat and non-organic but seasonal veg, we could easily knock a tenner off our weekly shop.

I think the trouble is, it comes down to lifestyle choices. We can eat like we do because I'm prepared to spend a lot of my 'free' time baking and preparing meals, but obviously if I wasn't willing/able to do that, we'd have to spend a little bit more for added convenience.

Don't have a garden (I have a paved square). I live in a flat as do millions of people.

In my opinion (and I stress that it is my opinion only), animals are not as important as humans. Yes it is selfish, it is called survival of the fittest.

From a species point of view chickens/cows/pigs have done the very clever thing of being tasty. From an individual animal's point of view though, it sucks.

if meat was treated as a luxury we may not have the weight problems we have now anyway.
You can feed your family on a count every penny budget without the cruelty endured by these animals, trust me I do it, neither me or dh are working and we dont claim any benefits, we are making one moths wages last about 3 months.
It is doable, you just have to plan.

Exactly r.e. the sweatshop workers, so don't shop in Primark and the like.

The way to do it, is say you have chicken once a week, just have it once a fortnight instead.

Oh, and we have meat probably only 2-3 times a week, and often that will be the same bit of meat in 3 meals (£4 bit of brisket roast on sunday, in sarnies on monday and stir fry last night)

You don't have a right to meat - nor is it essential. Buy vegetables if you can't afford humane meat.

YANBU

In your opinion they may not be as important as humans, but that doesnt justify cruelty, these animals have less space than an a4 sheet of paper, they are not in cages alone, they fight, viciously, for every inch of space, ounce of food. How can anyone say that is acceptable.

Morloth we have about 3 feet square of outside space, but we grow salad on the windowsill, and are planning on doing sprouts (but I am scared of them) in the winter. We also have some growbags outside with some veg in, but we've only started that this year, so not reaping any rewards from there yet.

Can I ask a question? This is something that always bothers me in this type of discussion.

However they're fed, looked after, reared etc..... they still get killed, right? So what difference does it make?

I can kind of see Lola's argument. I avoid supermarket meat as it's full of crap. I buy from the butcher instead. It's more expensive and so we don't have meat every day. Dh and I have it about twice a week, the kids more than that.

DO YOu know that male chicks born into these hen sheds are minced or suffocated alive and fed to the hens?

The chicks have their beaks sliced when they are born.

The hens are fed so much shit that their bodies become too heavy for their legs to carry, and the majority of hens break their fragile leg bones.

I'm with the other posters who buy free range, but just eat less of it. Also, if you shop around you can usually get free range chicken for not very much more. I have to be honest, though, and say that this wasn't something I thought about too much until I started keeping hens myself. Very difficult to sit in the kitchen munching on a battery chicken leg while the girls stare in the window at you.....Of course, we don't have to buy eggs now.

It makes an enormous amount of differnece, 1 year of crulety or a year of a happy life, you choose.

SH - it's makes a difference because they have have to live in extremely cruel conditions.

Sorry fio, I only said it because of someone's comment about outside space, I know it's not exactly relevent to the chicken debate, more about the cheap food debate.

do you know what they do to animals in japan lola? that'd get yer knickers in a twist.

But I don't give a flying fuck, Lola. There are more important things to worry about than species lower down the evolutionary chain than me. End of.

free range eggs in the supermarket are from £1.30 + per half dozen. I have no idea what battery eggs cost. Free range eggs in my local market are 99p per half dozen. I don't think that's a lot, personally.

Chicken is not essential.

Isn't swine flu/bird flu caused by these farming conditions? Do you give a shit about that Solidgold?