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

[charliecat]

3p a chicken the supermarkets pay

That's ok - I'm terrified about the future though - if DS1 is still at home at 19 - then I'll have 3 teenage boys in the house!!

DS2 (at 4) already eats the same amount as me (often more) - and DS1 (7) overtook me a long time ago.

For when I'm feeling lazy/knackered I keep a pack of frozen roast potatoes (I know shoot me now ) in the freezer - and use virtually a WHOLE sodding pack for 4 of us.....and I only eat 4 or so!

Potatoes, vegetables, beans - god damn the lot of them (and the meat) - I cook enough food to feed a flipping army and STILL they keep eating........now I understand the phrase "eating me out of house and home" .

i place free range higher over organci with ref to chickens FWIW
AS I know there are loopholes.

QOQ - dp is 14 stone and big eater, ds1 is 8 stone and big tall lad. Both eat big meals, it fills them both properly.
Ditton lentil curries - tis the theory of GI you see.
Has cut our food bill enormously

What do you put in your lentil curries? I've tried them and no-one was very impressed/full (except me - but it's not difficult to fill me up).

I usually use pulses to "bulk" out my meat based meals, pulses on their own, and quite often just meat on its own, just doesn't seem to cut the mustard.....

I am a vegetarian and I love Hugh Personally I feel that if one is going to eat meat one needs to understand how it was raised etc etc

I have found this programme compulsive viewing but as WWW he is preaching to the converted here.

Ref organic meat not necessarily being free-range - actually Soil Association organic meat is always free-range, even if it doesn't say so:
www.soilassociation.org/web/sa/saweb.nsf/a71fa2b6e2b6d3e980256a6c004542b4/4d7ace4372263d 8880256ae5004f49ef!OpenDocument

Pearl Barley is a good one TIQ - even my meat eating DP doesn't object to that (means we can afford to make lamb stew )

I just do anjum anands recipes from [http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/database/slightlysweetbengalg_86576.shtml here]]
Spent a wee bit getting up a good store cupboard of spices and bulk bags of pulses and go from there
What makes it filling is adding rice/pita breads (homemade chapatis piss easy too)

So.......just to change the topic slightly

Which is most ethically correct.

1. To buy meat (free-range or battery) from a major supermarket.

1. To buy meat (again may/or may not be free-range - I suspect not with my local one) from your local butcher and therefore not support the supermarket?

I do 1 and 2 LOL
and it works out cheaper
we are very lucky though we have a glut of good butchers opening left right and centre here

Piffle - can I have your recipe for your toasted chickpeas please?

ta very much

I have been watching this series and I welled up last night when everyone got upset

how Hailey can be stone faced in front of crying children I have no idea

Jamie Oliver has a program on Friday, have seen a clip and it looks grim

Organic chicken is free range chicken having been fed on organic feed. Don't believe otherwise, they would not be allowed to call it organic if it had been kept inside.

i buy chicken and lamb and beef from butcher - he does free range chicken and lamb and beef is usually not intensively produced. well sheep just keel over and die if you try i believe. i buy pork from waitrose, where it is free range or outdoor reared. my buthcer doesn't offer this. i love meat which is why i'd never eat cheap or foreign.

am sure i once read a post by moondog re uk lamb and beef being very close to organic, hvae i dreamed that? isn't her dh an agronomist or something?

ice queen have you tried wholemeal pasta and brown rice for your bottomless pits family? slower release of energy so feel fuller for longer.

oh yes - we already have the (organic - I'll have you know ) wholemeal pasta and brown rice

Piffle - does that really fill your family up? It sounds very yummy - but I'd have to "add" stuff to it to have any chance of it satisfying my pit family.

Olive - I agree about Hayley - her DS was distraught and it just didn't seem to bother her!

Great to see that 20,000 more ppl have signed up to Hugh's campaign(since yesterday when I peeked)-not enough though!!!!

I only buy the organic free range chicken/eggs, that being said I have always had a sneaky fear that although I am doing this I really don't know what conditions they have lived in.

I remember a while back reading a report about RSPCA labelled meat where the RSPCA inspectors had never even visited the place and it was all battery production.

So while I try to do my bit I do worry that what is being labelled as ethical may very well be not.

I have also read about the RSPCA freedom food label-I don't think it's all that great tbh from what I've read.
I do feel the only way forward is local organic produce-we have alot of choice here,guess we are lucky(although I'm abit over the price at times.
I saw some argentinian organic beef mince in tesco's the other day,but I wouldn't buy it, seems ridiculous coming all that distance-no doubt cheaper for Tesco's to buy in

I think that there's far more to the ethical side of food production than just free range or not.

The most ethical way to buy anything is to use local farmers/ shops for local people (Royston Vasey style ).

So Wisteria - do I get away with buying quite a lot of cheap meat (in bulk) because I buy from my local butcher (who's lovely ).

Or should I "support" my local supermarket and buy free-range?

I didn't watch last night's programme so can't comment specifically. But I will say IceQueen that you're right to be worried. I'm feeding a dh and 3 teens and they eat a LOT. My chickens are stretched to do 2 meals - a roast and then the bits and carcass for soup - but soup, even with pulses doesn't fill them up!

Trouble is unless your butcher buys from local producers,your meat could be from anywhere-even imported stuff.

Our butcher has a weekly board telling you excately where the meat is sourced and which slaughter house too

Organic food with soil association logo is kept at pretty high standards relatively speaking. They have strict rules about welfare, flock size etc as well as the food. Not all other "ethical" labels are so good. I know the RSPCA freedom food stuff has been criticised. However I would still encourage folk to buy it in preference to bog standard battery stuff. At the end of the day the more people buy that sort of stuff the more the message is sent across to the suppliers.

I have to admit I do most of my shopping at the supermarket. Have at various points tried to shop elsewhere but not much choice round here and at the end of the day the supermarket organic stuff is cheaper than the farm shops round here with less trailling around. If I found the right shop though I would switch like a shot. Our morrisons does do organic chicken but mostly its out of stock. Frustrates me no end - why don't they get more in then - there is obviously a demand.

Hughs programme is great but it is focussing primarily on chicken welfare. There are other things to consider too. Anyone read "Not on the label". Loads of stuff about the processing stage of the chickens life and also the fact that they pump water and pork fat into them to bulk them out. Why pay for water? So an organic bird might cost loads more but you get more meat for your money.

The huge birds Hugh has are not growing that way because of steroids. They have been genetically bread to grow that way. Its called the Ross X or something similar. Can't help feeling that nature will fight back at some point with another BSE style kick up the A*!

totally agree with AMTOMN.

TIQ - I don't know, too hard for my small brain

If you go to Tesco then IMO stick with your butcher! I would ask him if he knows where his meat comes from though - you may be surprised!

I personally don't buy alot of chicken and when I do its a bloody treat,can't understand why ppl HAVE to eat chicken 2 or 3 times a week,I only buy organic food and we are on a tight budget (prob spend between £45-70 a week on my entire shop for 4)-get extremely f*cked off with ppl whinging that they can't afford decent meat (often see their trollies full of crap),it's far more inexpensive to cook simple stable food.We eat far too much meat in this country as it is..

I don't go to Tesco - I avoid it like hte plague - once we started to shop at Morrisons (closer to our house so I can walk there) the only thing we were buying was nappies - and now I've switched to Boots own brand - so nothing "tesco" on a regular basis (DH may occasionally pop in to get something)

I can't believe that his (the butchers) cheap meat is free-range/organic - I'd like to think it is - but I can't see how he can do such big "value" packs of meat, - and put offers on buying the value packs if they're FR/Organic.

It may not be organic but it may be more ethically produced than the supermarket's.

I get beef from a local smallholding up the road - they can't obtain the Soil association label yet because of the land not having been monitored for long enough where the cattle are grazing (or something like that) but to all intents and purposes it is and I know they are treated with kindness and slaughtered ethically at a 'best practice' abattoir - that's enough reassurance for me. You can see the when you go and pick up your meat which is great as the children know from an early age where their food comes from.

I think we should be trying to promote more awareness with the younger generation so they think of the animal when eating their meal and respect it.