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

[charliecat]

3p a chicken the supermarkets pay

The thing is Hugh is trying to educate them, and for some it is working but that Hayley's mind is completely closed to new ideas. She didn't even seem moved by her son's obvious distress. She reminds me of Jade Goody.

no i don't think better cheap meat than no meat. and if you think intensive farming is bad in the uk just imagine what it is like in thailand and other places. i would never ever eat a ready meal made with this sort of stuff. god people eat a lot of shit in this country.

what about other pulses tatt? quorn? tofu?

I would imagine that cheap meat may even be worse for you than no meat to be honest.

We have recently (gradually over the past 2 years) made the transition from weekly supermarket shop for everything to organic deliveries and locally produced meat, I will try and do a monthly shop comparison one day but I am fairly certain that my weekly outlay is no more than £10 extra and that is because on the few occasions I visit the supermarket now I am more extravagant so I think you can probably do it on a similar budget if you're canny.

We eat less meat and it is bulked out more with veggies but we are also much healthier and our food tastes better

Piffle, Dh and I said exactly the same thing about Haley. I know its a horrible thing to say but I can only assume Haley spends a lot more then the extra few pound ethically reared meat costs on junk food.

I'd love to see the contents of her shopping trolley.

She really wound me up TBH, I hope her son puts huge guilt trip on her....

Oh and as much as I loathe jamie oliver I'm going to record his Foul Food programme on friday and make DS1+2 watch it.

agree re haley and her pointblank refusal to consider spending a couple of quid more on a decently reared chicken

she was so blinkered, so certain she was right and that it was her right to buy chicken that had been reared in such unnatural conditions it irritated the hell out of me

and agree with wisteria re cheap meat not being better than no meat at all. would rather eat less of something good than lots of something cheap and nasty.

inspired by the programme dh and i decided to cut down the amount of meat we eat (we do only buy organic or freerange) and eat more pulses (we already eat loads of veg and fruit.

there is a veggie chilli on the hob!

I think it's partly that Hayley is enjoying her five minutes of fame and being the voice of dissent. Fair enough - it would be a dull programme if everyone rolled over and said 'Yes Hugh, no Hugh, aren't you jolly marvellous, Hugh' - so she's a godsend to the producers.

Her argument is rubbish, however. This is the BIG problem with food production and consumption in this country, imo - the idea that good food means expensive food, that eating well, ethically, healthily means having to have a middle-class salary/lifestyle. It doesn't. You think free-range chicken is too pricey? Buy it once a fortnight rather than once a week. Don't buy it at all. You'll live and so will your kids.

Cheap meat is NOT, emphatically not, better than no meat. Apart from the ethical issues, the physical consequences for the animals, if we buy cheap meat we are being ripped off. We're not getting a bargain if we buy two chickens for a fiver. We're getting tasteless, watery mush. And then we waste half the bloody thing anyway

The supermarkets play on this. Didn't Somerfield say that there was no point in encouraging free-range chicken production as their customers wouldn't want it? What patronising crap. The supermarkets don't provide us with what we want - we just provide them with the means to sell us what they want. We need to wake up out of our Tesco-sponsored slumber and see what is actually happening - the supermarkets manipulate us, not the other way around.

We do need to know what the mark ups are I think.

I have been trying to boycott Tesco for a while now as they are so unethical in all their dealings, not just the food sourcing.

I don't think you can blame the British public for buying what is being sold as unfortunately, money is a huge factor for the majority, but the fact is that the supermarkets are guilty of 'false/ misleading marketing' for instance the picture of the field on the factory farmed chicken and I think this should be addressed at source by the government.

At least make it clear to the general consumer what they are subscribing to.

Yes snaf, methinks she has watched one too many big brother episodes. I don't think her points are valid but she is entitiled to her opinion, lets hope she is just acting up for the cameras a bit.

What worries me about the cheap chickens is that they are huge, like they have be blown up with a bicycle pump, its all down to what is put in their feed (steroids etc) and that stays in the meat once it is killed

Totally agree it's about education, which is why I like programmes like this. The more people that have their eyes opened, the better.

I don't blame people at all for being tempted by two-for-one etc etc - I used to be all the damn time! (I still am for things like toiletries, tbh) And if you are, as Hayley says, as single mother on a tight budget, then of course it's tempting, enormously so. Especially if you've never been taught how to use leftovers, how to make something delicious of out cheap storecupboard staples, etc... (1001 ways with organic mince, anyone?)

I think she is right to point out that lots of people would consider £7 for a chicken way too expensive. But if her argument is 'I want to eat chicken twice a week and I don't want to go without it or eat something else' then, well,

where are these 2 for £5 birds - as I've never seen them. I do (when I can afford it) buy free-range - but for the size chicken that will feed us I can't afford it. An extra large battery chicken costs me around £4-5 - and I can scrape 2 meals out of that - plus make a stock with the carcass.

And before you say "don't eat so much meat" - well it costs me just as much in vegetables, beans and starch as it does to buy meat if I want to make a meal that will actually satisfy my DH and children.

oh and I only buy whole chickens about once a month. Usually it's thighs (need about 7/8 to satisfy my brood - excuse the pun), legs - need about 4/5 of those, or drumsticks (again like thighs need around 7/8). And we only eat chicken in any shape or form 2 times a week MAX.

The 2 for £5 birds are a regular in Tesco Ice Queen.

I understand what you are saying and it is hard if you are on a budget but if you watched the prog last night or were really aware of what you are giving your dcs when you feed them factory farmed chicken you may revise your viewpoint.

I can promise you that you get far more taste from a free range chick and also your stock will go further.

I can whip up tosated chickpeas (3 tins for a £ and they're organic, you can use dried for cheaper) handful of spices
All my 4 family eat them with pitas and salad and chutney
Cost about £3 for the entire meal

i am a new single parent (married for 11 years and just split from dh) and on a lot smaller budget than i was justa few months ago, but i still make our budget stretch to free range ethically grown meat and organic veg delivery. its about re-education.

i am rubbish at cooking but over the last few years ahev been geting betetr at it, i come from a fairly well off background but both my parents worked full time and once colelcted form the childminder my mum would bung some fishfingers and potato waffles in the oven and opene a tin of beans (i'm 31) so apart form sunday dinner we never really ate home cooked meals. i used to lvoe goign to my nans for dinner as she would make casseroles and hoty pot and all good traditional food.

anyway my pint is i feel that people who beleive the same as hayley form teh programme need re-educatign about how to budget and how to cook for their families. i beleive she ahs two children, i have three and we manage ona food budget of £40 a week i have a veggie box deleivered and meat delivered and a milk man who brings organic milk and free range eggs, and i have brought and borrowwed cook books and taught myself how to make more subtantial meals form cheaper cuts of meat or from left overs.

and i don;lt live in the country where its easily accessed i live in a big town in berkshire where asda is less than two minutes from me and tesco only five minutes but i rarely if ever go in them.

i have signed up for hug's campaign as i think my children deserve a better quality of food and the naimlas deserve a better quailty of life even if they are being reared for food.

ooh sorry sounds a bit aren;t i so clever but not meant to, just trying to prove some points.

Yes I watched the programmer last night. So I understand what the issues are (have done for years - as I used to avidly hand out leaflets about battery farming when I was a teenager).

I know the taste is better - when I can afford it the taste difference is immediately obvious.

Toasted chickpeas, pitas, salad and chutney would probably be ok for a snack for lunch - but if I cooked it for dinner, DS1, 2 and DH would be routing round the cupboards looking for more food afterwards.

Its like these people that say they give their DC baked beans on toast for dinner......my DS's would think I'd lost the plot and be asking what was for main course/desert (we only usually have a main course and desert) thinking it was the starters LOL.

Mind you I have a family which when I cook 500g of mince, mix in a few tins of beans and loads of veg still complain of being hungry 1-2hrs later LOL.

Now if they had my appetite we'd be fine - it'd be (organic) scrambled eggs on toast for lunch, and baked beans on toast for dinner

lubyluby - doesn't sound like that at all and it needs more people like you to stand up and show how it can be done.

That's incredible on £40 a week though, do you include toiletries etc within that or not?

TIQ - yes I understand but they wouldn't still be hungry after loads of pulses and beans in a casserole surely? That's cheap and you could halve the amount of chicken and replace with butter beans or something, more potatoes etc.

I'm going to try the risotto he made last night as it looked yum!

I don't disagree with the campaign AT ALL - I know it sounds like I don't - but I really do agree with it a LOT.

I don't buy meat from the supermarket - I buy it from the local butcher (and I agree with someone above who says that just because it's a local butcher doesn't mean that the animals are any better reared) who does some really good deals on his "bulk" packs of meat - so I spend around £30-40 on meat for the month (probably have 1/2 veggie meals a week).

I buy most of my veg from the local market, but can't afford to buy organic milk - I already spend close to £10 on milk a week as it is - and that's only going to go up in a few months time once DS3 is drinking cows milk. Eggs I do try and buy the free-range ones - as we go through loads a week so I buy the big pack of 18 for about £2.99 which tends to last about 1 1/2 weeks.

Wisteria - yes - I often put 3/4 tins of beans/pulses into meals - and they're still clammering for desert, or complaining they're hungry just before bed (and they only eat about 1 1/2hrs before bedtime!).

I tell you it was a nightmare last year when my brother came to stay for a month - as he has an appetite like DH does - they both eat twice what I do (which I'm very about as they're just DON'T put weight on - but mine just creeps up).

i can't understand why i can see hock burns on free range/organic chickens in tesco. i wonder if they're pulling a fast one.

southeastastra - I'm not sure but I think that "organic" doesn't have to mean "free range" - so they could (I think) still be caged - but just fed "organic" food.......

I know, it's so annoying isn't it , we're the same here but with dds not dss..

Sorry, I wasn't deliberately trying to bait you individually. Men eat so much! teenage boys are even worse as they just never seem to get full, probably why I used to make my XBF's sons eat loads of potatoes!!

That's why I said further down I don't think you can blame people for buying the 2 for 1 deals - it's easy to do but I bet if there was a picture of a battery farm on the front people would be less likely to. What needs to change are the laws around it all.
I wouldn't buy the cheap chickens as I am too scared at what I would be putting into my kids mouths for later life IYSWIM. Would far rather cook extra mash which is far more filling than chicken anyway and eat less quantity but better tasting meat..

Organic chickens are just fed pure organic food and no steroids etc, there is no requirement for them to be ethically treated.