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

Are you still going to be my friends after this

Animals are treated barbarically.

If you don't care about the way animals are treated, then that's fine but it is cruel not to care, I'm afraid. No way round that. But lots of consumers can live very happily with that and that's up to them. You can't expect people to feel the same way as the OP.

However, there's nothing wrong with someone saying that there is another way with regards food.

I don't like the way animals suffer so much and I think we've been led to believe we need a lot of meat in our diet. I think it's doing our bodies no favours to eat cheap, hormone fed animals (and god knows what other rubbish they get).

And of course people are treated appallingly too. But that's another discussion, isn't it? The OP was talking about specifically animals......

'I have a small garden, you would be amazed how little space chickens need,'

You own your own home. Many do not. And unless you're renting a croft, your tenancy agreement has stipulations about pets and livestock.

It'd be nice to have chickens. Isn't going to happen because, like increasing numbers of people, we rent.

the sort of meat that is cheap is really not healthy meat

it is full of pumped in fat and water and god knows what.

It isn't a "healthy" part of the diet of your children.
Really it isn't.

Well looked after and rearedanimals DO make the best meat.

And IMO lentils are better than the £1.99 chicken for my kids TBH.

But it's not a popluar opinion i know- it's hard to change your opinion if you are convinced.

i have worked on farms and in abboatoirs... and have chosen not to eat the meat.

How many of you have had the experience of working in an abboatoir and seeing the way anilams are handled/reared/killed?

We buy a small-medium chicken and I do lots of veggies, stuffing and Yorkshire puds.

KFC are fking shits. Their supply of chicken is from battery hens too.

hear hear to you! Winky!

Did anyone see 'Blood Sweat and Takeaways' last night on BBC3? It is so interesting but heartbreaking at the sort of conditions people work in so we can have tinned tuna or prawns.......next week is chicken, I think.

You can watch it on iplayer.

some of these people earn 40p per day for a 10hr shift!!!!

am not entering into the rights and wrongs here but just as an observation- when I was a child free-range eggs were very expensive and hard to find - my Mum used to drive around a lot to find places that sold them - now they are nearly the same price as battery eggs especially when on offer in Morrisons, and widely available.

I do think therefore that the welfare-friendly foods become cheaper as more people buy them and then standards overall improve. Just an observation - not a judgment.

Winky - I do care about animals being treated cruelly, but when it comes to animals bred for food I'm afraid I listen to my budget rather than my heart.

And what is this thread, there is only one way that this is going to stop.

Yes. Somehow I can't get it out of my head that animals like pigs and chickens who live in such squalor means that said squalor i.e. shit etc will get transported into the food. I mean, it's not as if producers of meat are particularly stringent when it comes to general care and hygiene.

Gemmiegoatlegs - my Mum would slice a Mars Bar into six. Ha ha, now I know where she got that from.

I recently made a decision to buy free range or eat veggie. Not really on moral grounds.

It was after Hugh what-his-face revealed just how low in omega/high in fat battery chicken is compared to chicken of the 1970s.

Exactly grim up North. They've been sitting in shit for their entire life - possible eating it as well.

Isn't it home economics ignorance to think that you can only get protein and vitamins from meat sources? Isn't that part of the problem with our meat obsessed country/world?

IMO people are in deep denial over the cruelty and death caused by human animals to non human animals.

I believe that one day killing and eating animals will be viewed as equal to keeping slaves and to denying women the right to vote.

It is so so easy, cheap, and healthy to feed yourselves and your families an animal free diet.

Expat, I am not suggesting that we are not very lucky to own our own home, we have onyl had it for a year and every day I think how lucky we are, i amsuggesting that there are ways to feed your family that do not include these animals, most of us have access to supermarkets, we can eat cheaply, in times gone by every penny would have been spent on food. Things we take for granted are luxuries.

I agree with edam's first post. We can't afford to eat organic meat every day, and so we eat it every other day. This is both for health and animal welfare reasons ('health' meaning eating meat that's healthier for us).

I wouldn't impose that on people who can't afford expensive meat, but I think it's important for us to all realise that eating meat everyday is a huge luxury, not just in our day and age but also as Westerners. I believe that most people in the world do not eat meat because it's too expensive/ they need their animals to work their land so they can grow crops.

While we're on the subject of nutrition, have just looked on sainsbury's website, and the basics chicken (1.99 per kg) has 218 cals and 26.3g of protein per 100g, while the organic one (5.99 per kilo) has 356 cals and 52.7g of protein per 100g. I know that's nowhere near 3 times as much calories for 3 times the money, but it is twice as much protein, so effectively only a third more expensive, gram for gram of protein.

so meat should be only for those that can afford it

nobody is saying that, meat is however animals, if it is cheap there is a reason.

I lived with a guy at uni who was from a family of chicken farmers. He knew a lot about chicken farming and worked on his Dads and Uncles chicken farms all through the holidays etc.

He told me that he would never buy free range as it was more epensive BUT the chickens actually ended up worse off on a big free range farm than in a cage!
The rules are very ambiguous and any farmer in it for the money will do the minimum legally. For example there is a minimum size of entrance for the barn that is the chickens shelter. Many farmers make it this minimum size as it encourages the chickens to stay in the barn and makes them easier to locate/find the eggs.
My friend used to have to find and take away the dead trampled chickens every morning who were the casualties of stampeding chickens for the exit.
Once they are all in the barn and with not a lot of prospect of getting out to roam free, they actualy have a simlar amount of space and freedom as if they were in cages.

You gotta research the companies well. Dont just trust something that says 'free range' on the box!

LolaShowgirl, I think that £1 for the happyhen eggs is an introductory offer
they're new and it looks like the retail price is supposed to be £1.58 for 6 medium, and £1.78 for 6 large.
(I hope they do stay £1 though).

We hardly eat meat in our house now because of cost
I often cook vegetarian and just 'meat things up' with tuna/sausages/whatever. Luckily DH isn't one of those fellas who thinks it's not a proper dinner without meat.

We are all so much more aware now, and the Hugh Fernley Whittingstall campaign etc has made people uncomfortable enough to think twice about the quality of meat from battery farms. But the price difference is so big.