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.

Freedom Food barn-reared chicken: Price per bird: £5.40. Market share: 1.7 per cent of broilers slaughtered last year.

Welfare: Reared in sheds but at lower stocking densities - a maximum of 30kg per sq m, i.e. 1.25 sheets of A4 paper per bird. Lighting varied to simulate natural cycle. Six hours of total darkness at night, allows birds to rest properly. Minimum light by day 20 lux, bright enough for birds to be active, causes fewer eye abnormalities. Perches, straw bales, and toys encourage pecking and activity. Deeper litter allows birds to dust-bathe.

Diet: Cereal with a high ratio of maize (corn-fed) means growth rates are only 45g per day. Age at slaughter: 50 days. Pros: An affordable compromise of ACP and 'gold standard' organic. Birds live longer, grow more slowly, have lower mortality rates and are less likely to suffer leg and hip problems, hock burn and foot pad burn. Fewer birds rejected at the slaughterhouse due to defects.

Cons: Still industrialised farming on a massive scale. Eating quality: Pale, but chewier and firmer with more flavour. 50 per cent less likely to be infected with campylobacter.

BTW, MorningPaper I thought when I read the title you were going to do an expose of the truth of so called Free Range chickens!

Do you remember there was that thing in the news recently about how 3 million battery eggs were being passed off as free-range? So who knows, perhaps we are all paying top-dollar and feeling smug, and in fact not only are we eating poor battery hens but the difference is going to fund what the government would probably call "terror" or summat.

Ok, off to puree DS some free-range, grass-fed, freedom-fries (oh ok, not really, just carrots if you must know.)

link{http://observer.guardian.co.uk/foodmonthly/story/0,,1876749,00.html\intersting article on chicken rearing standards}

Yes the Freedom Food thing is dubious to say the least.
The Observer Food Monthly run some good articles on this sort of thing (a harrowing one about pineapple farmers in this months.)

I eat whatever I am given in other people's houses as do my kids (in fact dd has just had party invite with 'Does she like nuggets and chips?' scrawled along the bottom)but I wouldn't buy intensively farmed stuff or choose it in a restaurant.

I'm a big fan of things like shanks,ribs,sardines,herrings and mackeral.
All good and cheap.

Am about to take delivery of halp a pig from the Lleyn peninsula,raised on food grown there.

Can't say better than that.

OH THE SHAME

here

That's what we used to get from PIL moondog - half animals!

"Would you like half a lamb dear?"

Surprised ds the first time he heard it...

Hmm, that does sound shit.

I've just remembered something though. The label on mine says "outdoor reared". Does that mean anything?

We don't have pots of money, but like other posters are happy to eat less meat, and organic free range chickens or other meat when we do.
For those of you who worry about the size of the chicken, if you serve it with three or four veg dishes, then you still have a filling meal iyswim

On the subject of eating cheap cuts - you can get an organic, free range BOILING chicken from Selfridges food hall for about £4. Ok, you can't roast it, but it makes the most divine Coq au Vin you can imagine, sooooooo much flavour.

My butcher is fantastic but he puts all the pricey cuts in the window and hides the unfashionable ones out the back. I asked him the other day if he had mutton and he winked and said very quietly, "Wait here and I'll see what I can do." You would have thought it was a heroin deal.

i think ill become a vegetarian

We buy a whole organic one every 3 weeks or so and then joint it (or DH does, I would cut my fingers off!), so it does 4 meals (breasts, legs, thighs, wings). But then we eat a lot of things like stir fry or jambalaya which might only have quite a small bit of chicken in, with lots of veg. Our general policy on meat is to buy the organic stuff and just eat it less often, or pad out the meal with veg. The chickens we get are Sheepdrove ones and generally cost about £11. Most of the rest of our meat comes from the organic farm shop at great expense.

ok whos going to be the first to link to PETA

same here. we only buy ethical chicken. but then only have it once a fortnight. and you can get delicious stock out of an organic chicken carcass so it does at least two meals.

What's the difference between a boiling chicken and a roasting one? Why can't you roast it?

Nailpolish..you're wanted to do backing vocals in the Mumsnet band girl!

WhizzBang, boiling chickens are ex-layers and are very old (well, old for a chicken). They are only suitable for very long slow cooking with lots of liquid as they can be very tough and dry if cooked quickly. The chickens you normally find in shops are killed while young and tender and are reared to be quite fatty so they roast well. But you could pot-roast a boiler I'm sure.

I should add, I don't routinely shop in Selfridge's food hall! I was in there buying a present for my MIL and happened to see the chickens.

Message withdrawn

yes

(but we don't eat much chicken anyway as dh is allergic to it)

We get four chicken thighs for about £3.50 from our organic butchers.
If we want a whole bird, we get one from Waitrose. They cost, true, but you can get two family meals and sandwiches and soup from them.
You do realise you will mainly be swamped on here by people who are committed to humanely reared meat etc MP, so your hypothesis, that many of us are lying, may be hard to prove...
As with many others, we choose to eat less meat but always organic or free range, and preferably local (butcher tends to use Kentish farms).

Yes I do wonder how many people are going to come on and say that they buy the cheapest possible chicken they can find in Asda? Can I just say that I have only taken the decision to buy free range chicken in the last couple of months. Previously I used to buy cheapy ones. And I still buy cheapy thighs.

i did feel sorry for the old couple buying a free range organic chicken from tesco earlier, it was the size of a budgie and cost £5.80. of course it's better to buy organic,fr ones but isn't it better that people on a low budget can afford fresh chickens (however cheap) rather than processed stuff?

I do. it does a roast one night, stripped for something else (pasta bake etc) the next. Good value in my book

ROFL at the budgie-sized chicken SEA!
I must admit the Waitrose ones (Sheepdrove and their own brand) are mahoosive - not the sort of bird you'd want to meet in a dark alley. You can tell they have spent a long time running free - their leg-bones are strong and thick.
but that of course means that these giants cost about £12 to £15

I've visited an organic chicken farm. They said that business was increasing steadily. So folk must be buying them...

I only buy free-range or organic, Sainsbo's or Asda do it.

Chicken breasts (two large ones for about £5) about once a week, feeds all the kids as chicken bang bang or the two of us for adult tea.

Whole chicken (about £7-£8) about every 3 weeks for Sunday lunch.

Feel quite strongly about this actually. Lamb is bascially free range (correct me if I am wrong) and we don't eat beef, but I get quite angry about battery chickens and eggs. Mu mum eats battery eggs and all her children gang up and tell her it's wrong.

Am rethinking the occasional takeaway as that's the only other time we eat chicken and obv not FR.

(Of course the children have it at school too )