campaign for free range chicken!!!!!!! Please.

[fordfiesta]

Please check out www.chickenout.tv or watch Hugh's chicken run tonight at 2100 channel 4.
you can sign up for his campaign on the above address.... sorry dont know how to do the link.
If you have been watching the program you will know how important it is!
thank you.

Agreed PPW.

One last point on free-range vs battery chickens. I do find that free range taste so much better.

Not sure about UK battery chickens but in SA the ratio of fish meal in the feed of battery chickens is very high. Most often resulting in a chicken which tastes like Cod - bleuuuughh!

£10 for a chicken

That is a quarter of my weekly food budget.

and how many legs would you say there were in a 1kg pack? According to the picture on the Asda website that would be ermm 2 - I would need to buy 2 packs - so that would be £6.......I'd be better off forking out for a free range chicken that would last me more than one meal at that price.

I don't see anyone being a "deny-er"......rather than a realist with their budget.

Wisteria - just how many potatoes do you think I should serve - I already feel that 7/8 for DH, 3/4 for the DS's and 4/5 for me is quite a lot

Hunker - re your 18.18 post - I don't buy my meat from the supermarket - so I see little point in campaigning to Morrisons about a product of theirs that I don't even purchase!

I have the choice to chose free range and/or organic food where I can. And I do on the whole, yes.

However I can fully understand why some people on lower incomes do not choose free range and organic food. The cost is prohibitiev for them. The choice is removed because of the price.

I do think that, really, only the better off have any real choice over what they buy and where. When it comes to feeding a family on limited finances of course people will have to make a choice over quantity and quality.. They might not like it but they have to do it.

Until the prices come down I can't see that changing.

and I still don't buy the whole "if people bought more of it then the cost would go down" argument - look at the co-op - it's "fairtrade" on just about all products it can be fair trade on - ok they're not a "huge" supermarket chain but do well enough - their products are STILL expensive - and at Morrisons I can't say I've particularly noticed the price of my fairtrade tea,coffee and sugar go down in recent years - despite the increase in number of people buying it!

icequeen, earlier you said that you make one or 2 veggie meals per week which cost almost as much as making meat based ones. What veggie meals do you make then?

39 days from birth to death for a intensively farmed chicken,its freakish and utterly wrong.
I was completely blown away last night to find out that 45 million chickens are killed or die even before they even get their £2 price tag on them

Despite my personal feelings on the matter, I have to say that I can totally see where Nutty is coming from and agree wholeheartedly with Hula's post.

It's such a difficult one.

Literally chicken and egg [hmmm]. If everybody ate organic/free range, the cost would come down. Sadly it's prohibitively expensive so that's unlikely.

The world is a crap place sometimes - or at least it is for battery chickens.

oh all sorts I have a folder full of them from when I used to subscribe to a menu mailer whatsit - but I have to buy LOADS of veg, and use the either 4 or so tins of pulses (or equivalent of - I buy the packs but often don't have time/energy/memory to soak and boil them), then bulk out with lots of veg and wholemeal pasta/rice.

When I can go to the butcher and buy enough meat for the entire month for approx £30 (so works out at around £1 a meal) - which I often bulk out with more pulses! - a meal consisting entirely of pulses just wouldn't cut the mustard round here.

I truly those that can feed their OH/DC baked beans on toast and call it a meal

posh - I was shocked by the 45 million too - awful. But I still can't find a chicken to feed my brood (excuse the pun ) for £2.....only tiddly little ones that have them all complaining that it wasn't big enough LOL.

I do understand nutcracker and I really feel for you, but my chicken did us 3 main meals with the addition of only a few veg and a 99p cheese pizza from Lidl, which I added the chicken a veg to.

I don't spend a lot on food, although I admit I see it as a bit of a challenge, rather than out of necessity, which I realise makes a whole lot of difference.

I buy one joint (like the chicken) a week and use every last bit & and £9.50 veg box then we'll have eggs at least once a week, one meal with no meat, one of sausages or similar and I use a lot of tinned tuna. 1 tin (40p) can do the four of us, mixed with pasta and veg, with mayo or creme Sp? fraiche (c.50p in Lidl and use half pot at a time. )

Don't know if I could do it on £40 though.

ok im totally confused at what is the best to buy......... i stopped buying chicken from caged hens a long time ago BUT thought i was buying organic chickens as i was buying sainsburys corn fed range?
it appears that these are still caged, So what am i best to buy if i really do not want to eat caged chickens??????

labelling needs to be clearer.........

Nutcracker - have you searched around for an alternative greengrocers to buy fruit and vegetables more cheaply. I find most greengrocers sell fruit and veg more cheaply than supermarket chains but some are even cheaper than others.

1 tin of tuna mixed with pasta and veg does 4 of you ! Wow I think I'm going to cry - my DS's really are going to eat me out of house and home by the time they're teenagers aren't they.

And is that 1 pizza for all 4 of you for 1 meal???

hugh is on the one show tonight if you are interested.....

We are on a budget for food also-feed a family of 4 on £55 a week most of the time (sometimes it goes up if I need to buy household bits).
I use the butcher (i.e piece of free range belly pork cost under £4.50-lovely roast)for meat plus buy organic meat when I can usually sausages and mince-cheaper meals.
It is do-able but we dont eat meat most nights-maybe 3 times a week,rest is pasta or fish or veggie meals..

We only have chicken once a month if that-its a luxury to buy IMO.

sausages a cheap meal? That's one of our "luxury" meals!

It would appear to me that supermarket labelling is quite explicit when they want to cheer about something ethical and lacking information or misleading when they want to hide something.

I paid #1.73 for a packet of two large free range chicken legs in Asda the other day. By my calculations that would make the ordinary ones about #1.40.
What I am trying to make people see is that it is really not that more expensive than intensively reared chicken.

Yes Ice Queen. DS's are only 4 & 6, but I don't think anyone went hungry, we may have had some garlic bread with it and there will have been lots of topping, much more than if you buy one readymade.

The tuna thing is exactly my point, for all our meals we can eat less meat by padding it out with veg and satples (that's food not stationary . DH always complains I've done too much when I do that meal and he could do with losing some weight!)

Hugh sums it up nicely in the Times article from a few weeks ago.

?We have a problem as a nation,? said the chef. ?Somehow we?ve decided that food is a really good area to save money. We spend less of our household income on food than any country in Europe.

?I completely sympathise with families on a very tight budget, but at the same time intensive farming accounts for 95 per cent of the chicken that we eat. There are undoubtedly millions of us who are buying cheap chickens who could easily afford to buy free-range.?

I'm amazed the figure is so high

People on a low income shouldn't be 'ticked off', totally agree.

IQ, are your boys massive or something?

Food prices have remained fairly low for a number of years now. I can remember when food was a much bigger proportion of income.

There are a number of reasons for this but the main ones being bandied about are climate change, growing demand from emerging countries, fuel shortages/alternatives etc.

I still think the main one is the stranglehold supermarkets and food conglomerates have on us. Maximum profit basically.

I am not judging anyone who buys cheap chicken I promise , especially not those on a lower income; it's a personal choice and one that is supermarket driven, but I think it's unfortunate and sad that in order to get things changed on a governmental and legal level consumers have to vote with their feet and if we do, it will drive the prices of ethically farmed meat down thus making it affordable for all.

We can survive on less meat as a nation. We can also decide to spend more on food and less on holidays/ treats/ cds/ whatever else you do with your disposable.

We have very little left after mortgage and bills are paid but we eat ethically and well as far as possible and spend less on things that many of our peers take for granted.

Going back to the original thread title - I now buy only free range (organic when available) chicken and eggs, but struggle with products that contain eggs, which means I make all cakes etc, but DS1 eats Mayonnaise with everything. Does anyone know where I can get mayo made with free range eggs? Unfortunately, it needs to look and taste like Hellmans.

yes I guess my DS's are massive eaters (and I suppose they are quite big for their age - height wise - not sure where they put all the food they consume as they look like rakes LOL).

if we have pizza and I buy goodfellas - I have to buy 3 (deep pan base - not thin) and then we have 2 garlic baguettes with it too - and it all goes!

DH doens't like Tuna (and I'm not keen) - but if I use tinned salmon I have to use 2 (large) tins padded out with lots of other stuff.

Wisteria - the last "holiday" we went on was to visit my granddad, we rarely buy CD's or DVD's (only the £2.99 sort in Morrisons), and don't have many treats. So it's not like we're prioritising our money onto other things. I'd LOVE to be able to spend more on our food budget and buy better quality - but right now that isn't going to happen.

For a meal for 4 of us (DS3 doesn't really count yet as he's still "picking" at stuff - thank god LOL), I'd typically use a mug full of rice or 1/2 a pack of pasta (1/4 if it's one of the big value packs). Potatoes I probably would use 5/6 quite largish ones regardless of whether I'm doing mash, roasties, or boiled. Veg - if I'm doing something like tonight (which was chicken thighs - 8 of them for the 4 of us - but I only eat one ), 2 largish carrots and 1 decent sized broccoli, or a very generous serving of green beans.