# Jamie Oliver and chickens **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 20, 2008, 8:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamie-oliver-and-chickens/434245 "2008-01-20T08:45:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Maastricht](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a88e57/32.png) [@Maastricht](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maastricht)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2008, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamie-oliver-and-chickens/434245/41 "2008-01-20T21:27:07Z")
Well, I guess there’s no accounting for taste. I thought Quorn (the white basic pieces) has exactly the same structure, mouth feel, and cooking properties as pieces of chicken breast. It is perhaps a bit more neutral in taste, but cheap chicken doesn’t have much taste of itself anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2008, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamie-oliver-and-chickens/434245/42 "2008-01-20T21:36:18Z")
I think Quorn is pretty good, but I find it very expensive compared to cheap chicken and still quite expensive compared to free range. I’d buy it a lot more often if it were not for the price - as it is, I generally only buy it when it’s in the reduced cabinet, or if I am expecting guests who don’t eat meat of some, or all kinds. BTW, I think egg is one of the ingredients of Quorn. I wonder how those eggs are produced… ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2008, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamie-oliver-and-chickens/434245/43 "2008-01-20T22:03:18Z")
[QUOTE=Mangetout] BTW, I think egg is one of the ingredients of Quorn. I wonder how those eggs are produced… [/QUOTE] Small amount of egg white and milk. I’m not a vegan so that’s not as much of an issue for me. It’s also a matter of degree and of what matters to you; unless you’re a Jain your life pretty much requires harming other creatures. I’m at the point where being an ovo-lacto vegetarian is right for me, but I buy and cook meat for my husband. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2008, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamie-oliver-and-chickens/434245/44 "2008-01-20T22:10:51Z")
[QUOTE=Savannah] I found [The Omnivore’s Dilemma](http://www.michaelpollan.com/omnivore.php) to be one of the most significant books I’ve ever read about where food comes from, and the ethics of eating. You might want to browse through it, and your answer about the chicken might be found. [/QUOTE] Seconded; I was going to suggest this book until you beat me to it. There is substantial, and rapidly increasing, evidence that industrially-produced chicken (and eggs, and other meat) not only tastes worse, it’s actually nutritionally inferior. So this: > [@chowder](#): > > A chicken is a chicken is a chicken is demonstrably not true. ---
**Author:** ![Marienee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@Marienee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marienee)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2008, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamie-oliver-and-chickens/434245/45 "2008-01-20T22:12:31Z")
[QUOTE=Mangetout] I think Quorn is pretty good, but I find it very expensive compared to cheap chicken and still quite expensive compared to free range. I’d buy it a lot more often if it were not for the price - as it is, I generally only buy it when it’s in the reduced cabinet, or if I am expecting guests who don’t eat meat of some, or all kinds. BTW, I think egg is one of the ingredients of Quorn. I wonder how those eggs are produced… [/QUOTE] Quorn and Valess are, at least here, indeed comparable in price to premium chicken breasts. I do not buy premium chicken breasts as I am cooking for two young wolve- er, I mean, a family. I don’t buy chicken at all since we moved here unless it’s leg quarters, which I use for making ragout or something similar. So I don’t buy the fake meats mentioned at all as they don’t even offer me a second day of eating, nor the stock. I can’t afford them. If I am going to eat veg disguised as meat I prefer tempeh myself. Valess is not a mushroom at all, it’s a fungus mixed with fiber. All mushrooms are fungi but the reverse is not true. Oddly, turkey can often be got around here very cheaply. And I prefer turkey anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Hello\_Again](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/85e7bf/32.png) [@Hello\_Again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hello_Again)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2008, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamie-oliver-and-chickens/434245/46 "2008-01-20T22:30:02Z")
[QUOTE=WhyNot] Probably [Araucana chickens](http://www.araucanas.co.uk/). **Hello Again** , do you use butter when you cook your eggs? [/QUOTE] That’s the breed! I thought she said something like “Americana” but that didn’t google up. Thanks! Yes, I always cook eggs in butter. I cook almost everything in butter or olive oil, and olive oil tastes odd on eggs. I guess that explains it. ---
**Author:** ![Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2008, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamie-oliver-and-chickens/434245/47 "2008-01-20T22:34:57Z")
[QUOTE=GorillaMan] One particular point relating to that post - ‘free range’ in Britain does have a very clear legal definition: [http://www.defra.gov.uk/foodrin/poultry/faq/marketing.htm#freerang](http://www.defra.gov.uk/foodrin/poultry/faq/marketing.htm#freerang) [/QUOTE] No, it doesn’t, and the issue as to what counts as “organic” is muddled, too. I live with two vets. They inform me that chickens labeled so as to imply that the bird had a healthy lifestyle (and hence sell for a premium) are often raised in conditions not much better than battery birds. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2008, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamie-oliver-and-chickens/434245/48 "2008-01-20T22:41:57Z")
[QUOTE=Dominic Mulligan] No, it doesn’t, and the issue as to what counts as “organic” is muddled, too. I live with two vets. They inform me that chickens labeled so as to imply that the bird had a healthy lifestyle (and hence sell for a premium) are often raised in conditions not much better than battery birds. [/QUOTE] …and even intensively-farmed birds aren’t clearly labelled as such, so there’s no winner on that front. Anyway, are you telling me the Defra site isn’t a definition of ‘free range’, even if it doesn’t guarantee that every bird is smiling the entire time? ---
**Author:** ![Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2008, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamie-oliver-and-chickens/434245/49 "2008-01-20T22:45:55Z")
Ah crap. I misread your post and thought you was saying that it didn’t have a clear legal definition. My point stands about organic items, though. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2008, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamie-oliver-and-chickens/434245/50 "2008-01-20T22:49:41Z")
[QUOTE=Dominic Mulligan] My point stands about organic items, though. [/QUOTE] I agree. ---
**Author:** ![Labrador\_Deceiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7c8e57/32.png) [@Labrador\_Deceiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labrador_Deceiver)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2008, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamie-oliver-and-chickens/434245/51 "2008-01-20T22:49:37Z")
[QUOTE=GorillaMan] What it is with the point that most people waste a lot of chicken that is so hard for people (not just you) to comprehend? Now _that_ is cruel. [/QUOTE] Oh, I don’t know. Maybe it’s the fact that nobody has demonstrated this to be the case. Most poor people I’ve run across can pick a chicken clean to the dry bone. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2008, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamie-oliver-and-chickens/434245/52 "2008-01-20T22:52:21Z")
[QUOTE=Labrador Deceiver] Oh, I don’t know. Maybe it’s the fact that nobody has demonstrated this to be the case. Most poor people I’ve run across can pick a chicken clean to the dry bone. [/QUOTE] I guess the producers of the programme in question were very cunning or fortunate then, in finding a whole group of neighbours who didn’t do so. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2008, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamie-oliver-and-chickens/434245/53 "2008-01-20T22:54:59Z")
[QUOTE=GorillaMan] It means that many of the people who say “I buy the two-for-a-fiver chickens because I’m on a budget” could instead be making two meals from one free-range bird. So the decision needn’t be about money, but about culinary knowledge and/or laziness. [/QUOTE] I am pretty typical, I do a chicken, we cut the rest of the meat off for lunch the next day and the carcass goes in the freezer until I have 5 of them, then i turn those into chicken stock, that gets condensed and frozen. Been doing it all my life, I learned to do it from my mom, and mrAru learned to do it from his mum also. Actually one of my favorite things to do is take a whole chook, pop it into a gallon of water, simmer for a while, take the meat out and chop in onion, garlic, ginger, carrots, celery and herbs then half the amount of rice you would normally cook in that much broth and add back the meat and make a batch of congee for the freezer. Bestest stuff when you are sick! Take it out and nuke it, nice cuppa and you are good for a few hours. I practically lived like that for a few weeks when mrAru was out to see and I was hallucinating to badly to drive anywhere. ---
**Author:** ![Labrador\_Deceiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7c8e57/32.png) [@Labrador\_Deceiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labrador_Deceiver)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2008, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamie-oliver-and-chickens/434245/54 "2008-01-20T22:55:36Z")
[QUOTE=GorillaMan] I guess the producers of the programme in question were very cunning or fortunate then, in finding a whole group of neighbours who didn’t do so. [/QUOTE] Must be a UK thing. Either that, or they were looking for folks who would not destroy their premise before they even tried to tape the show. What is it they say about the plural of “anecdote”? ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2008, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamie-oliver-and-chickens/434245/55 "2008-01-20T23:00:28Z")
[QUOTE=aruvqan] I am pretty typical, I do a chicken, we cut the rest of the meat off for lunch the next day and the carcass goes in the freezer until I have 5 of them, then i turn those into chicken stock, that gets condensed and frozen. [/QUOTE] I promise you, that isn’t typical. I don’t know anyone who is in the Kerry Katona chav-eating mode who does anything like this. If they even bother to cook a chicken at all (rather than buying a frozen ready-meal), then that which isn’t consumed in the first sitting goes in the landfill bin. Furthermore, most people I know don’t have a freezer big enough to accommodate two carcasses, let alone five. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2008, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamie-oliver-and-chickens/434245/56 "2008-01-20T23:09:55Z")
[QUOTE=jjimm] I promise you, that isn’t typical. I don’t know anyone who is in the Kerry Katona chav-eating mode who does anything like this. If they even bother to cook a chicken at all (rather than buying a frozen ready-meal), then that which isn’t consumed in the first sitting goes in the landfill bin. Furthermore, most people I know don’t have a freezer big enough to accommodate two carcasses, let alone five. [/QUOTE] actually, i am definitely not chav … i think i would be the female equivalent of a public school [you know, your parents pay a small fortune for you to go to a school with a restricted attendance so the chav like riffraff dont go there] had a governess and my mum had a maid, and my grandfather owned the mills that were the main employ for several towns… the overpriveleged class 🙂 and my dad was an army officer. I did not grow up lacking for anything [although I didnt get everything I wanted. I am still sore about the lifesized raggedy anne doll I wanted when I was 4… 😛] My very rich pedigreed grandmother would have had a fit if her maid of all work wasted the chicken carcass, I can remember Marie saving carcasses and making chicken stock with them. My mom may have married rich, but she grew up on a small Iowa farm back in the depression. She never wasted any food so I learned to never waste anything. ---
**Author:** ![Hello\_Again](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/85e7bf/32.png) [@Hello\_Again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hello_Again)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2008, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamie-oliver-and-chickens/434245/57 "2008-01-20T23:11:22Z")
[QUOTE=jjimm] Furthermore, most people I know don’t have a freezer big enough to accommodate two carcasses, let alone five. [/QUOTE] I think freezers are much larger in the US then. Something like [this](http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_12605_04664802000P?vName=Appliances&cName=Refrigerators&sName=Top+Freezer+Refrigerators) is standard in most homes and apartments. (I have a 1BR apt in NYC and my fridge/freezer is only slightly smaller). ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2008, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamie-oliver-and-chickens/434245/58 "2008-01-20T23:13:06Z")
> [@aruvqan](#): > > actually, i am definitely not chav … I don’t understand, in that case, your use of the word “typical”, since we’re talking about chavs in the UK. 😕 ---
**Author:** ![vison](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/e47774/32.png) [@vison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vison)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2008, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamie-oliver-and-chickens/434245/59 "2008-01-20T23:39:45Z")
This: [Safety concerns in organic food](http://members.ift.org/NR/rdonlyres/A5367812-A6CF-46C0-80B9-B1EF39A0BCC4/0/OrganicFood.pdf) will, I hope, allay the fears that some might have about fecal contamination in organic produce. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2008, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamie-oliver-and-chickens/434245/60 "2008-01-21T06:39:59Z")
[QUOTE=Hello Again] I think freezers are much larger in the US then. [/QUOTE] Both fridges and freezers are on average, I’m sure, larger in the US. However, that’s getting a bit distracted from the main point: many Brits would see the extra space as an opportunity to stash more ready meals, or to have another oven-ready bird in stock. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamie-oliver-and-chickens/434245.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamie-oliver-and-chickens/434245.md?page=4)