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

Apparantly yes Astra.

Cripes, you'd think that us meat-eaters are sat here with blood dripping from our fangs shoving mouthfuls of raw fillet steak into our fat over-meaty chops. Fact is non-meat eaters or those who choose to buy free-range have chosen that. Congratulations on YOUR choice.

My choice is to eat meat from time to time and I buy what I can afford. If no-one likes it I couldn't give a toss.

Come back and preach when you are wearing that hemp dress woven by your own fair hands...

it OUGHT to be that things should be affordable to all people.
And we should all be able to eat a healhy diet cheaply and easily.
BUT this cheap meat just isn't healthy and yu are seriously deluded if you think it is....

not arguing the point from a welfare issue (which is ginormous- but that is another issue), jsut from a "what do you want to put into your childrens' mouths" issue.
something healthy and safe, or something full of extra fat, additives and antibiotics and grwoth promoters/hormones?

And I do believe that we should all drink champagne, not thunderbird !

Champagne should be classed as medicine and available free on the NHS.

I am going to bow out of this discussion and go and watch my chickens, as this is something I feel so very strongly about, I understand that others dont, I must admit I didnt realise the level to which people think crulety to animals is acceptable.

Oh, and the taste the difference free range one has 49g of protein per 100g, for £3.91 per kg, so is in fact almost exactly the same price in terms of protein grams per £

Tough one.

The thing is, in the West, we've come to expect to eat meat every day, sometimes even twice a day, as a result of the gradual increase in wealth since WWII, and the association of meat eating with prosperity. This has a massive environmental impact. To produce one kilo of meat consumes considerably more energy than an equivalent kilo of non-meat produce. It also means that if we eat more meat, less food in general is being produced, and someone somewhere starves as a result. It's not nice to think of it that way, but, there it is.

In terms of our health, well, the disastrous effects of eating too much saturated animal fat is obvious to see.

So, above and beyond the ethical question (which I agree with), YANBU.

However, given that individuals are not solely responsible for the price of food, YABU. And fresh food prices are frankly ridiculous.

Recently, we have been unable to cook from scratch because of time constraints and stress. We have bought pre-prepared food (fishcakes, etc.). I expected our food bill to go up as a result. I was wrong. It went down. Unbelievably, it costs us considerably more to prepare food from scratch with ethically produced ingredients than it does to buy (even reasonably good quality) pre-prepared food.

Penthe - well if you do insist on buying nowt but baked beans and fish fingers, of course your food bill will go down!

sockmonster- it's hard isn't it.
FWIW, i belive that kindness and respect is part of a continuum and treat little lives with respect and it follws that you treat bigger lives with respect.

I was HORRIFIED to read the post that siad- well they will all get killed so how does it matter how much creulty they have when they are alive/
You can't argue against such a strange and nasty opinion IMO.
I really can't start with that- it's jsut so warped

Anyway, maybe a couple of people will think again, maybe not. But the discussion is good to have i think...

enjoy your hens

YANBU - agree entirely. Being on a budget does not mean enforced vegetarianism, just cheaper cuts or eat meat less often. Free range chicken thighs or drumsticks are very cheap. Sausages, burgers and mince are also very affordable in organic and/or free range versions and all excellent for family meals.

I spend around £60 a week for a family of 5, organic veg box, free range meat and eggs. It is all local produce except for a few imported bits like coffee and pasta.
Have clear conscience that my chicken dinner had a happy life and the additional satifaction of helping the local economy rather than lining the pockets of supermarket shareholders.

I can't believe it neither sockmonster. Heartless. I think many people are in denial though and choose to ignore what goes on.

Did anyone see that river cottage program where they made elderflower champagne? I expect the recipe is on their website. Very cheap, easy to make, my MIL makes this stuff every year.

my kids eat chickpeas and cous cous, and veg.
kidney beans in wrpas with salad,
beans and rice with veg,
cheese,
falafels,
lentils and potatoes and veg.
squash and chickpea curry and rice.
scrambled eggs/all sorts of egg dishes (well, ds1 doesn't like eggs)
pasta pesto/tom sauce made with lentils.

they are robust and fit and healthy and very very clever!

Oh, and it is a whole other thread- but they do get sweets and cakes and stuff- just not gelatine based ones.

Fruit is a treat and so is dreid fruit as well as chocolate and other sweets.

It's depressing - especially when I'm so proud of discovering that the nutritional benefit is the same, pound for pound, when you buy free range (at least from sainsbos). I want someone to be converted!

I was genuinely expecting everyone to say they would like to buy free range but see it as unaffordable, when actually the view is quite often that they just don't give a toss about animals, and there's not really a lot you can do about that.

fucksticks, you have a point. I also recall a Watchdog (or similar consumer-affairs) programme a few years back that looked at "free-range" eggs being sold in farmer's markets etc, then traced them back to source and discovered that a lot of them were battery-farmed. It's just that the people selling them in the markets knew they could bump the price up by 50p a dozen if they hand-wrote "free-range" on a bit of cardboard. Caveat emptor and all that.

The other thing that occurs from some of the suggestions here about using dried pulses and alternative protein sources is the time it takes to cook with them. If you're at home all the time then fair enough, soak those beans and hand-bake those breads. Some of us, though, have to juggle time spent in the kitchen with time spent with the kids with time spent at work and doing housework. And, hopefully, still be able to carve out a little bit of me-time as well. I love to potter around the kitchen for a couple of hours doing a big Sunday lunch, but I can't devote that amount of time to cooking every day.

I'll ask the question again - to those who are so opposed to cruelty - I take it you never wear leather, or drink milk, or eat our at a restaurant (where heaven forfend they may use budget meat)?

You will all use at some point by-products of the meat farming industry.

PS - hope you all know a decent glazer to sort your windows out in your glass houses, any more stones anyone????

Oops - why is fruit a treat? (out of interest not judging!)

reality- some of us believe that trying to live with respect for humans is only art o f the deal- that it is a continuum and that people who show respect for little lives pften go on to show respect for bigger lives.

Now we can all talk about the mad cat woman who hates people and the animal torturer who was lovely to his mum,
but in general, respect and kidness to all lives can't be a bad thing.

Fruit is basically just sugar, nutritionally speaking.

err Hopefully - most people have said at some point or another they they buy what they can afford. If I could afford £7 for a chicken I would pay it as it does taste nicer there is no denying that. I buy what I can afford. Simple as that really

They can afford to buy Boden, but not afford to help the poor chicklets out

Really though, how many of you saying you can't afford to switch to free range, are sat there in your swanky homes, wearing your new boden top, with the little one running around in mini-boden drinking a fruitshoot?

I side with the OP on this one, as a lone parent, i live on a budget, but i would rather have good quality organic chicken, less often, than the vile budget chicken that tastes of nothing more frequently

if people would stop buying this shite meat anyway, there would be less demand for it, then the demand for better quality chicken would go up and it would come down in price, therefore it would even itself out, we would get good quality meat at a reasonable prce.

Lola - I have no idea what Boden is but from other threads I am guessing it is a posh up-its-own-arse shop. Defo not for me thanks very much. Swanky home? LOL yea right.....

But the beans, peas... can be soaked overnight Snorbs so it really does not take any extra time at all. You can also find all sort of pulses in tins which do not take time at all aither(devil's advocate in action here ).

I buy free range eggs because I have the choice but do buy my meat in halal butcheries and have honestly no clue of the provenance of the meat! Until I find a butcher that advertises for " traceable,organic, freerange halal meat" I am afraid I will have to carry on that way. We do not eat much meat anyway but I have no intention of becomming a vegetarain.