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.

You use the stock as a base for a soup, becca.

Or, I've just made it a soup in general by adding a bit of barley and red lentils and white beans.

You use it as the liquid in the soup. So you might like to gently fry some onion, then add other veg, then add the stock and some seasoning or whatever, cook it all and then blend.

brill I think im gteting it...

The half onion, carrots etc that i throw in to make the stock to i keep them in or fish out?

I usually stick them through a sieve and sling the resulting mush in the soup

Clary,my dh works in agriculture and he reckons lamb and beef are pretty much freerange so I don't worry about the organic issue there.

Chickens and pigs are the dodgy ones.

MY COUSIN'S DH (HARDENed POLICE DETECTIVE FROM DARN SARF) visited a pork battery farm place once on the course of his rounds.
The images haunt him still.

CD,tell uo more about your pressure cooker.I well recall you acquiring her.

I am simmering duck bones for stock at present.

I always buy organic free range chicken and eggs, they're the only things I'm super strict on always buying organic.

I'm veggie and I only buy a couple of chicken breasts (£4 - 5) for dd every now and then. I bought some today, made a batch of nuggets and whacked them in the freezer.

never will a single penny of mine go towards the battery chicken industry.

I will buy organic where our budget allows it, other than that it has to be the cheap stuff, chicken included. At the moment we are stoney broke so it's cheap stuff all the way. Btw I did not change my name for this post, it's my real one !

I don't buy free range or organic chicken. With 2 adults and 3 teens to feed I just can't afford it.

I buy organic but not a whole chicken at a time - because I'm a duff cook! TV has convinced me that other sorts of chicken have had crap lives and are pretty toxic to the health. Happy to drink less cocoa cola to pay for it!

Ha ha twig!
Bozza - my dh or (deep breath, prepare for the ribbing pph) the gardener wring their necks.
Takes 1 second.
If you all ask me very nicely I will take a photo of one of my lovely cockerels and you can see how delicious he'll be for yourselves (have to be tomorrow though, it is dark and they have gone to bed)

PS I'd rather not eat chicken than eat a battery one. In fact I've stopped eating chicken in restaurants because of the possibility of it being yucky meat. Not only because of the welfare issues (although they are huge)but more because of the CRAP that goes into them. They are living breathing processed food.
HORRIBLE!

Moondog said: "Clary,my dh works in agriculture and he reckons lamb and beef are pretty much freerange so I don't worry about the organic issue there.

Chickens and pigs are the dodgy ones. "

Interesting, this is pretty much the assumption I made. Cows and sheep mostly reared outside, so less welfare issues, chickens and pigs mostly reared inside, so substantial welfare issues. We, buy organic beef and lamb, which is not that much more expensive than the non-organic stuff. There doesn't seem to be a 'free range' option as presumably, within certain constraints, cows and sheep potter around at will. We buy free-range but not organic chicken. Mostly legs and thighs as they are substantially cheaper. When we buy pork, we buy non-organic outdoor-reared pork. I've naively assumed those are the pigs living in fields in those jolly little porcine 'Anderson Shelter' type things you see from the Motorway, but I could be wrong!

In a funny way, by choosing free-range, we are going back to the way things were in the '50s before intensive chicken farming was introduced: beef and lamb are relatively inexpensive and eaten frequently, pork is quite expensive (apart from sausages) and chicken extremely expensive and eaten as a 'treat'. We try to offset the cost of free-range meat by eating smaller portions.

Always buy organic chicken/chicken pieces if in stock, yes. Organic chicken about £6.50.

Meat should be expensive. I'm more surprised by how many people eat meat on a daily basis. Eat less of it and save money if the cost bothers you that much.

yes I do

i do not eat any battery chicken at all ever

Yes, only ever buy organic.

And never eat chicken in restaurants or buy chicken sandwiches unless labelled free range or organic.

Same for pork.

And if I'm not sure I always ask.

I only buy organic chicken, yes (imagine your surprise!). Will read the thread now, it's v long!

I don't buy free range/organic meat cos I can't afford it.

I don't buy expensive cuts either (unless very rarely as a treat).

And yes I buy whole chickens but I do strip the chicken down and get several meals and sandwiches out of it (only me and dp eating it). And I use the carcass for stock. Why assume if people buy cheap ones that they don't do this?

Don't eat meat every day either. Try and get the most out of what I buy. And I bulk up meals using lots of vegetables.

Sorry to the chicken, but tough.

I just bought a chicken for £7 and it was quite small... I was pretty shocked at the price difference... but I dont really like battery chickens or whatever the other poor buggers are.

An organic chicken only needs to have been kept to organic standards for the last 6 weeks of its life.
Organic eggs - ditto.

I have my own hens running around the back garden.

those cheap chickens stink

of fish mainly as they feed them on fish meal

i dont know how you can eat them - the IDEA of stock made from one - bleurgh

Am horrified at the RSPCA standards, i had no idea. I used to only buy organic free range meat but since a major change of circumstances in jan this year ive had to relax a little on my standards. I have been buying free range or RSPCA standard chicken, i will not anymore.

Was converted a few years ago by Hugh Fearnley Whitt's meat book. Great reading, it really opened my eyes.

The cheapest chicken I saw in Asda today was £1.98.

btw, I don't remotely care about animal welfare, I just care about no antibiotics and pesticides and BSE and stuff.

£1.98! Bloody hell! That's v cheap and therefore prob nasty.