So I just bought, cooked and fed the family value chicken and we're still alive...

[nkf]

Have I been too precious all these years? It tasted fine too, cooked a la Slater. Free range would have been three times the price. Felt a bit strange as, for years, I have been avoiding cheap meat. But credit crunch etc...
Have other people made changes and found them not so bad?
And I do know that many people buy nothing else and I apologise for insensitive Marie Antoinette sounding anxieties.

Lidl do a free range chicken for about £5.

Don't understand the OP's point - of course cheap chicken isn't going to harm you and if it's cooked correctly, it will taste just fine. I wouldn't criticise anyone on a tight budget for buying battery chicken but personally I do think you have a moral responsibility to buy the most humanely-reared meat you can possibly afford. We only eat organic/ local meat and have cut our consumption right down.

You don't need to eat meat frequently - or at all - to provide a varied diet.

there are no lidl's near us, and we have only recently moved so am still finding my feet (move coincided with a drop in income from £60,000 a year to just over £12,000). We have a tesco, a sainsbury's, a spar and an M&S simply food locally.We do have an aldi within short driving distance (am reluictant to use car often), which I had not thought of earlier - do they do free range chickens cheaply?

aldi sell them aswell but not sure how much they are.

That's exactly what I was thinking mmj. As for the point that we don't have to eat meat - no we don't, very true, and I have been veggie before with no probs. And, in fairness, when dh is not around, we often have cheap veggie food like jacket spuds etc. However, DH is a carnivore through and through and would just go out and buy meat if i didn't. I know that's a lame excuse, but there it is.

i would not buy value chicken..and the more people do the longer battery farms wil exist...

Have you checked if ASDA online deliver to you? Cos we buy their free range chickens which are £3.98

Oh should mention they are only 1kg though. Tescos are £7.96 but 2kg so works out the same but they are too big for us.

there is an asda about eight miles away so i will check, but do they charge for delivery? Seriously, on our budget, I would rather walk somewhere and carry heavy bags then pay for an unecessary trip in the car or delivery charge.

yes, that won't be big enough for us. Look, I realise that I sound like i am making up a lot of excuses here. I do actually think wherever possible we should buy ethically and where i can, i do ie all our clothes are from charity shops and i have discovered that M&S fairtrade sugar is cheaper than our local Tesco's, so i walk there to buy that etc. I have been guilty of thinking that cheap meat is my only option at this time, but I will make more of an effort to check this out. However, I wholeheartedly have sympathy with those trying to shop on a budget and can see why we make the choices we do - it is not as clear cut as some people seem to suggest.

Having just rescued 2 ex battery chickens and seeing (and smelling) the condition they were in there is no way I could ever eat battery chicken anymore. The stench was horrendous, even washed I can't imagine eating it!

Aldi do very reasonable free range chicken which we buy. When I'm skint I occasionally compromise with rspca freedom foods chicken which is not expensive at all. I would rather, and do go without chicken than subject a creature to that brief and cruel existance.

Interesting too to see how much poultry food contains gm maize, something I definately do not want to be feeding to my kids.

guitarheroine - I'd like to see you try and persuade my "frankly pathetic" dp to go vegetarian

Just to add that the comments above about welfare standards for meat/dairy production only apply in the UK. Much cheap meat is imported, and animal welfare standards may be very much lower in its country of origin.

Also, 'outdoor', doesn't necesssarily mean 'free-range'. In the USA, for instance, a lot of beef cows are raised on Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs). These are outdoor feedlots where cows are packed together, standing in a lake of their own manure - manure which can have a very serious damaging effect on the wider environment in which the CAFO is located.

I am well enough off to be picky about the meat I buy, but I wouldn't judge people on tighter budgets for making different choices. I do think though that there is no argument against taking the time to inform yourself so that you make the best choice you can in the circumstances - e.g. buying British beef rather than imported American.

Too right zazette, I will always buy British meat because of the welfare standards. I really don't think people realise that ready meals are generally made with imported meat.

It's not true that all British meat is farmed to high welfare standards.

Pigs are often farmed very intesively too.

Truth about British pork

Nonetheless, welfare standards are higher than elsewhere.