Do you REALLY buy ethically-raised chicken?

[morningpaper]

After reading the Emkana-eating-nuggets thread I was very surprised at how many of you claim to buy ethically raised chicken.

I DO buy is occasionally but it usually costs me between £10-13.

I don't BELIEVE that you all buy ethically raised chickens. Not for one minute.

Please justify yourselves.

a pack of 2 free range chicken breasts is around £4 in Tescos

I has to start buying free range/organic after a TV programme last yr about battery chickens

mp - probably

so when he left the pub one night as a lamb was being born he was really waiting for a lorry?

the lying bastard!

x

MP im telling ya its £7

they are not massive but the £7 one does me, dh and 2 small dd's

maybe its cheap cos i buy it at the farm

he doesnt have to transport them anywhere

the red meat is more expensive cos thats from a neighbouring farmer, who uses this other farms shop

DH worked for an electrician during university holidays. They had to service a fan in a chicken shed, and could only keep it switched off for up to half an hour at a time because there were so many chickens squeezed in together they would overheat otherwise. He is the son of a farmer and not in any way squeamish about the rearing of animals for meat, but we only eat proper free range (very expensive) chicken, and eat it rarely as a result.

If you buy British meat, do you think that chicken is really the only meat that you need to worry about, in terms of welfare?

Do we still factory-farm other animals, or not to this degree? I tend to assume that if I buy local lambs/cow that it's probably reasonably free-range. Do you think that is right?

organic chicken is much more YUM than factory shite

MP am going to the farm today and will double triple check

yes np I want to know

is it organic

is it free range

buy one for me

fancy raising some lovely little fluffy chicks, feeding and nuturing them, cluck, clucking at them as you feed them vitamin enriched chicken feed then

they find themselves being spit roasted

i dont eat lamb - they are too cute

dont eat pork - its tasteless

and i find it hard to eat beef cos cows have the most beautiful eyelashes and big wet noses but i do cos i love steak and chips so much!

and shepherd pie, etc

We buy them at the farmers market they are organic and free range, about £11 - £13 for a biggie which does us for roast, sandwiches the next day and then I make soup from the remains (they also sell spare carcasses to make stock)

I only buy either free-range or organic chicken - depends on where I buy it from, my local butcher doesn't do organic so I buy free-range from him. A small Sainsbury's chicken (and I do mean teeny) costs me about £8. One from my butcher (which generally is bigger) costs about £10-£12. I don't begrudge the money when we are well off; at the moment I am on unpaid maternity leave and we are rather hard up so my solution is to eat cheaper cuts and to eat meat only rarely. I would rather eat meat only two or three times a week and not feel too guilty about its life and death. I don't feel bad that animals die for my lunch but I do feel bad if I think they have lived in horrid conditions.

Last time I ate at a friend's house she served battery chicken and not only was it very watery and mushy, the bone of the thigh I was given had quite clearly been broken and only partially healed. I really couldn't enjoy the meal for thinking about the poor chicken hobbling around in the months before it died.

Also (sorry for long rant but I am on a roll here and the baby is asleep ) I find it completely bizarre that people would prefer to eat eating expensive cuts of poor quality meat, rather than unfashionable cuts of good quality meat. You can get delicious cuts of beautiful meat for literally pence if you ask for the right things, eg shin of beef, breast of lamb, neck fillet of lamb, pork knuckle etc etc. I would far, far rather eat an organic drumstick than a battery chicken breast. In fact even without the ethical dimension I prefer meat on the bone anyway as I think it has more flavour and would sooner eat polystyrene than a battery chicken breast, but that's another argument....

Morrison's sell free range chickens (freedom food) from about £4. Granted they're quite small, but there's just me and 2 kids, (7 and 4) so plenty to go round between the three of us. And organic chickens are about £7 in there.

I also buy freedom food legs from there, which are only about £1.20 for 2. One of them is a portion of meat for a child. It's not that expensive to avoid shit 34 day chickens.

My PIL had a small farm raising beef cattle and sheep. They were certainly well cared for. Not sure how lamb in particular can be anything but free range. Don't know about bigger farms. When PIL were still farming, we got most of our meat from them. Now they've retired we have to buy it .

MP

ive just had a look at one in my freezer

its just over 2.5kg (bigger than i would normally buy) and it cost £9.78

it says free range corn fed chicken

so maybe it isnt organic (it would say so for definite wouldnt it)

here is the website for the farm although its not working just now!

he is a cool farmer with his own website doncha think?!

i also think its important (well it is to me) that i shop locally as its better for the environment and local economy

I think the Freedom Food scheme is a bit of a con. It has had very bad press. It is still intensive farming in dark sheds. The RSPCA's standards are EXTREMELY low.

shepherd's pie is usually made with fluffy, little lambikins

oh yes ellie so it is

not in this hoose tho

yes only free range chicken, i buy a large one jointed from butcher once a fortnight it does at least three meals for two + toddler and costs about £8.

mp in answer to your question re other meat, i also buy uk outdoor reared pork (not available at my butcher grr), but gather that british beef and lamb is basically ok and not much different from organic in terms of living conditions.

we do and I balk at the cost every time. having said that I am disappointed to find that this thread is not actually about buying ethically-raised children. I thought maybe someone had some for sale...

Is it really? The one I usually get says it's free-range and corn-fed. (Does that mean it gets to stretch its legs for an hour a day and gets one portion of pure corn while the rest of its food is a mixture of slurry and flaked carpet tacks? )

We ate our own chickens Jools. The killing bit wasn't nice, but at least we knew that they'd had happy (if chickens 'do' happy?), spacious, well fed lives.
As far as my budget allows, I'll buy organic meat & animal products (milk, cheese etc) ideally from a named source.

Does anyone else keep reading this thread title and think it says "ethically-raised children"?

I buy free range and organic for chicken eggs and dairy and then am a real budgeter for everything else.Not over the top price wise in asda A bit more in sainsburys althoguh shall be looking for a morrisons now!

yes, free-range, organic and local otherwise don't bother. If I can't afford it, i'll stcik to veg and wait till I can afford a decent one.
The principle behind cheap meat is revolting, IMO.

Our butcher doesn't even sell free range, much less organic. "No demand love."

So I buy it in the supermarket. And then they complain about the lack of support for small businesses.