That chicken programme, on at 9 tonight, hugh someone...

[charliecat]

3p a chicken the supermarkets pay

Thanks for the egg freezing advice. Will definitly give it a go once they start laying again. Hopefully I will have cracked it (pardon the pun) once we get to the end of the year and maintain a supply of frozen ones for winter

Aviatrix: Not dissing the pickled egg - just doesn't work too well in cakes!

I like Hugh, he's really shaken things up around here. My dd is horrified that she might be on tv as she was filmed when he went to the local college!!!

Completely agree tortoiseSHELL.

Most of the readymeals in supermarkets seem to be chicken based e.g. Indian. Interesting as many indians are vegetarian...

They may stock freerange organic chickens, but what about the chicken korma?

Jamie Oliver is hosting a prog on Fri CH4 9pm with scenes of intensive production that should put anyone off. If you can't afford free range buy less often and buy legs not breast. From my butcher the legs cost about £1 each.

i think he is great we love river cottage 3p is scandalous

I'm sorry to have to say this but the only one of Hugh's crew tonight that said she couldn't afford to buy free range chicken looked like she could do to eat a lot less chicken Sad but true.

It's a matter of balancing the budget. Instead of seeing it as 'I can't afford decent food' I see it more as 'I can't afford to feed my kids crap food that's inhumanely produced. That's not a value I can afford to pass on.'

It can be a PITA if you're low income, but it is doable!

This series' website gives terrific recipes and ideas to get three meals for four out of one bird.

Easily done - roast one night, strip off meat for a coronation chicken to lunch off or make another evening meal (He did a fab risotto tonight) and then stock for a soup base.

If you're going to be up late, PLEASE WATCH 'The Lie of the Land'.

This is about chickens and their welfare, but also about one of Britain's most valuable assets - its food producers - being driven out of business by supermarkets.

Woman in red t-shirt to HFW. "The only difference is the free range chickens go outside". Apparently she can only "afford" chickens whose legs are soaked in their own wee. Poor thing. If I was her I'd rather be a vegetarian.

am with expat
easy roast
fried rice
soup/or good stock for freezing out of
one chicken.

Can I be really unPC - but Hayley really annoyed me with her 'this isn't my budget, you might be able to afford it, I can't' - thinking meanly, she must be able to afford SOMETHING, and eating less, but better quality food would be very much better for them!

well you can be rude and think she did not on the face of it appear to be erm starving...

My god, I watched it and i very rarely eat meat anyways,

when DH / the kids have burgers or chicken I usually have a veggie alternative but IF i ever eat chicken from now on ill make sure its free range,

I felt so sorry for those poor birds,

and BTW I havent really got the money to pay £7 a chicken but if thats what I have to do then ill save elsewhere.

I've been watching this programme and wondered what sympathy there would be for the single parent on a budget - obviously not a lot on here! Doesn't seem to occur to anyone (including Hugh) that she may have little idea how to feed a family without cheap meat. I suspect she was already stretching the chicken into more than one meal.

I can not easily get free range chicken unless I travel a long distance - not very green, so we do it mainly when we're travelling for other reasons. Even if the neighbours would stand for chickens in the garden I know we'd make pets of them and not eat them. But chicken is one of the few meats my family will eat. The local butcher assures me that his birds are less intensively farmed than the supermarkets - and his prices suggest that so we have bought those sometimes.

Anyone care to suggest some vegetable protein that my family might (a) like and (b) be able to eat? Lentils are out for allergy reasons, so are nuts and they aren't keen on quinoa.

I feel mean now. But she did annoy me with the whole 'I can't afford to buy ethically reared food, I'm a single parent'.

I'm sure life is really hard. But you can eat cheaply without compromising ethics. If she bought 1 chicken a week, that's only £2 extra (going on the chickens they showed).

Y'know I feel for both sides on this ..

Poor shitty chickens, it is just cruel the way they are reared when there are such simple things that can improve their way of life. BUT those things cost ££££ and by doing them it adds ££££ onto the end price of buying the chicken meat ...

but what if the supermarkets ALL signed up to this, yes great all the chicken are happy, healthy and live a good life up untill their humane slaughter ... but EVERY CHICKEN in the supermarkets now costs £6 or £7.

There NO DOUBT would be children going without meat. Without a part of their diet that they had before,

and cheap meat is better than no meat IMO..

It sucks for the chickens and it would be better all round if people COULD afford Freerange but not everyone can,

and I think be going 100% free range this country would be forming a society where only the rich eat meat.

I think we just have to continue with the way things are.

You can afford organic free range? Fantastic, enjoy it. You are eating better and doing a great thing for chickens.

You cant? Dont worry, carry on with what you can afford and live within your means.

Thats what i truely do think.

and if she buys 2 chickens a week its 4 pounds - and a month of 4 pounds is e.g half a pair of school shoes. Where do you compromise - buy your child shoes that don't fit their feet because they are cheap or worry about a chicken?

Yes you can eat cheaply and well but you need to know how to do it. My mother never taught me to cook rice (that was for puddings) or pasta or any vegetarian dish.

I'd like to see Hugh F-W live on her budget for a month.

True tatt, but it's also 5 or 10 cigarettes. Not making any assumptions, but you see what I mean.

I don't think saving money by exploiting another living thing is a good saving tbh. And I know they're just chickens, but they can still have a better quality of life. My chickens are little personalities - having kept chickens I would never think of them as being there to be kept in crammed barns as shown.

He could probably manage to do better than she does as he has a good knowledge of food and cooking which not all of us are blessed with. I have to admit I get most of my food-related money saving ideas from internet cooking sites which are less accessable for those on a low budget.

Thing is though - what is the supermarket mark-up on free range chickens? They like to charge their customers for having ethics more often than not. For certain organically grown produce is cheaper in my local organic farm shop than it is in the supermarket.

I didn't watch as I am aware of what goes on but didn't want to see the full story.

I only buy chicken from a good butcher, yes it's expensive. But we don't have it that often. I find if I make a curry (courtesey of finding out sainsburys ready meals chicken was (and I quote) 'This chicken is from either Thailand or Argentina' - no thanks very much). The breasts are much bigger then supermarket stuff that 1 is plenty enough for dh, myself and our 6 YO.

One thing that hasn't been mentioned is the TASTE the taste/texture is so different to cheap chicken, thats another reason I buy it.

I would imgaine that if Hugh lived on Haleys budget for a month he would do very well and manage it well as HE knows about food and obviously Haley doesn't !

What annoyed me (well incensed actually) was the fact that no one seemed to be able to argue that stupid woman's point about the fact that as the chickens knew no different that meant it was ok...
None of them used the chicken carcass afterwards (although at least she did say she picked it clean) and one threw it away after just taking the breast meat off

Hmmmm so if you abuse a child from birth and it knows no different then by the same token that is also ok...

I think education is the key to this though, not their fault if they weren't taught to be economic with their food. I agree less and better quality would have done a few of them an amazing amount of good but I think it's also extremely difficult to say no to the 2 for £5 chicken when you're on a tight budget.