Free range chicken and eggs, is it worth the extra cash if you're on a tight budget?

[mamadiva]

Since watching all the programs about barn chickens etc, it's made me think abit more about how they live

Would you say free range is worththe extra few qui? I'm ona very tiht budget but figure if I spend say £8 on a free range chicken I could probably spin it out for 2 meals. Maybe roast chicken and chicken fried rice or pasta type stuff where it's okay to usescraps.

Does anyone else do this and does it taste better or is it just the ethics of it?

yes, tastier and more meat too, less shrinkage on cooking, less water

Yes the taste is better.

I eat less now, and make it go further.

I just could never eat non-free range ever again. I want to eat happy chickens

We never eat any other chicken than free-range now. Much more meat, much tastier, not all watery.

just get used to eating less meat per meal. Generally we eat for more meat than is healthy for us anyway.

My kids wont eat any others. I cant bear it and buy free range pork as well whenever possible. Keeping pigs in crates is inhuman, they are intelligent sentient beings.

Free range chicken and eggs taste so much better. Couldn't bear to eat them knowing they grew up on abattery farm - have you ever seen a battery chicken? Ugh, like weird alien chicken species...

Thanks for your replies, yes we do eat far too much meat in his house as DP and DS wont eat veg but am tryin out some hidden veg recipes so we'll see...

Free rane chickens just dont look as appealing to me but I think that's all down to it not being all plumped up wih water.

Yes, taste is better. We buy free range, and as CarGirl says, try to make it go a bit further. We've just had a free range chicken for lunch and the left-over meat and gravy will go into a pie for tomorrow night. I shop around too. I buy free range chickens, pork and sausages when a supermarket has them on offer and freeze them.

it's not fair not to

please see: day in life of a waitrose pig

we have long vegetarian phases in this house though

OMG am I totally naive? I didn't know they did that with pigs

I have a big pack of cheapo pork chops in freezer, think I shall ahve a clear out LOL.

Honestly pigs can be treated worse than chickens. I always buy free range or freedom farmed at the very least.

We also eat free range - a lot tastier.

A medium chicken lasts at least 3 main meals in this house for 2 adults and 3 or 4 dc! I roast it and the we share the legs that meal. Then basically a breast and some other bits a meal each over the next 2 days.

Do they like potatoes? Plenty of potatoes is the key in this house.

I will only buy free-range. It's much tastier and a better texture too.
With the chickens be prepared for slightly less breast meat and more leg.

Yes we eat potatoes.

Goodness I am trying to buy food to cook from scratch but it's working out a hell of a lot dearer than normal.

CarGirl I'm impressed! How on earth do you share two legs between 6 of you?

When you take the whole leg you get that extra meat that comes of the back as well. I guess it's small portions!!!! Also 3 young dc is not the same as 3 10 year olds!

I did wonder how old your dc were

Yes. The cost isn't that much more, the flavour is better, the meat is healthier and, special bonus points for this one, you won't go to Hell.

We've just had a £9 chicken (corn fed, free range natch), it fed 5 of us - 4 adult appetites & one meat obsessed 6yr old. It is on the hob to make stock and the left over chicken, veg and stuffing have all gone into a pie dish to be covered with flaky pastry and had later in the week.

A £9 chicken would still feed 9 adult portions and 6 child portions in this house. We would all like to have more meat than I dish up (chicken obsessed dc here too) but I just restrict portion size.

Yes - there's only two of us but because the chicken is more expensive, we make it go further. One £6 chicken does three meals handsomely (and I could make it go further if I had to - we don't skimp on the amount).

Even when I couldn't afford free-range chicken I have always bought free-range eggs. Can't bear thinking of those poor hens in cages just so I can save a few pence.

I went free range a year ago after Hugh FW 's chicken campaign. I've eaten non free range chicken since then only 3 times. I find the key is not to eat meat that often. I used to think that a meal wasn't a meal unless it had meat.
My roast will be ready in 15 minutes. Yum Yum

You can deffo taste the difference and I wouldnt buy any other now.

It does go further as others have said.

The other trick is to carve it and plate it in the kitchen and not leave it on the table where everyone can pick at it! It will go further then and you will have enough for a pie or risotto or both!

In answer to the OP it tastes alot better, i get eggs from my mums chickens, they are free range and thier eggs are lovely and rich the yolks are almost orange!

Chichen is so worth the money buying free range and organic if poss, my mum used to work in a chicken factory that pepared and packaged the cheap Tesco chickens and she used to find all sorts of shit in them, hair/rubberbands ect and they just used to putt them out and continue packing them! bleugh!!!