I’ll pick up a free-range chicken here in France for about €12 and I’ll easily get 1 whole meal (breasts), lunch (wings/legs) and I’ll make 1L of stock from 1 carcass which results in soup for 4 people.
But I used to eat the cheapest chicken as often as I could until I discovered how they lived. After that I decided to just get free-range, once a month or so as I couldn’t afford it more often than that believing that the more people that refuse to by the factory-chicken the cheaper the free-range will become in the longterm.
I understand the OP’s opinion but would eating chicken half as often as they do now be an option, eating free-range instead ?
I know quite a few people who make stock routinely from chicken carcasses and other bones (and I always do it myself too) - although none of my ready-meal friends do it - only those who, like me, enjoy actual cooking.
But I don’t know anyone who would save up five of them. My freezer in the garage is plenty big enough, but my biggest pan will comfortably accommodate the bones of a single chicken, so ther wouldn’t really be much point stockpiling(pun intended) the bones
we dont call rednecked urban trash/trailer trash ‘chav’ in the US, but the principals are the same. Although i do have an ancient burberry raincoat that I snarfed off my mom once when I needed a raincoat…
I raise free range and pastured turkeys and chickens. The whole “organic” movement has been tainted IMHO. When you can buy “organic” produce at Walmart that is cheaper then regular produce, you just know that someone somewhere is cutting corners. I am a very small producer and will never become “certified organic”. IMHO it is a waste of time and money. I market my product locally, and my farm is open to all to come and see how I raise my animals. I firmly believe that if you offer a good product and are available to your customers you will always come out ahead.
What Dominic says is correct. Factory farmed chickens can be labeld “organic” as long as they are fed certified organic feed.
I don’t believe it is quite so broad in the UK, at least not in practice. Buyers of organic produce are generally pretty savvy and will be looking for something more than the word ‘organic’ on the packaging - such as the Soil Association mark or some other accreditation.
“Organic” isn’t much of a definition in any legal sense. Anyone who is surprised that the FDA isn’t taking care of us, raise your hand.
Still, along with “free-range,” “no hormones,” and other good stuff, it’s about the best we can do in regard to what we put into our mouths, short of growing it ourselves.
Let me be clear - I’m not concerned about fecal contamination in organic food for food safety reasons. My link, which was about data from a study also referenced in your link, is quick to point out that there was not a statistically significant elevated DANGER from the increased fecal contamination found on organic foods. My point was a retort to **Sprockets **'apparent unease with…something still unspecified…that makes him (her?) not want to put conventionally farmed chicken in his mouth. At the time of the post, I thought he was saying that conventional chicken farming is gross, and I found that amusing/ill-informed since (organic) produce is sprayed with shit as part of it’s fertilization process. We know it’s sprayed with shit because we find traces of shit on it - often washed off before the stuff goes to market, but not always, as evidenced by the multiple spinach recalls for e. coli last year.
He has since hinted, sort of, that his comment wasn’t about grossosity, but hasn’t clarified what it *was *about.
Either way, yes, let me also reassure people that there is no indication (at least in those studies linked) that people are at greater risk of illness from organic produce. But they are more likely to be eating shit, a substance that most of us agree we wouldn’t knowingly and willingly put in our mouths. Unlike, say, a nice fried chicken breast, golden brown and delicious!
:smack: <–does that count as a raised hand?
I’m shocked – **shocked **I tell you, that the FDA isn’t doing more to protect us from deceptive farming practices! Especially since farming and food production is under the auspices of the USDA.
And “Organic” is very much a legal definition these days, with pages and pages of regulation defining the term and who may legally use it: Start here.
There seems to be a lot of confusion on this thread about how chickens are raised for meat. They are not “battery” hens. The only chickens that are placed in cages are laying hens for eggs, after reaching puberty. I once worked on a poultry farm, and I have to agree that these conditions are pretty bad for these birds.
Chickens raised for meat, however, are never in cages. They are normally in large buildings, with thousands of their friends and family members. The conditions are not great, but nowhere near what it’s like for a laying hen. There are a lot of birds, but there’s still room for them to walk around and peck at things. They don’t ever get to go outside, something that the ChickenOut! campaign is particularly concerned with. Yes, the free range probably have a somewhat better life, pecking around in the sunshine and in the grass, but the life of a conventionally raised broiler chicken is not as bad as some of you are making it out to be. I’d be more concerned about the eggs than the meat, but there is a significantly greater price difference between the conventional and free range eggs.
This is an interesting comment, since the most virulent forms of e.coli are directly related to feeding cattle exclusively on grain. In other words, these strains can only survive in the stomachs of cattle which are not fed on grass and “normal” pasture, which is to say they are not “free range.” Here’s one link among many:
So in a very real sense humans have facilitated the development of stronger and more deadly strains of e.coli. Hooray for us!
Oh, a poultry family reunion? Do they have sing-alongs?
Like concrete and each other, which is why their beaks are clipped off. Not so they don’t hurt themselves, you understand, but so they don’t damage the other miserable hunks of meat in their vicinity, which would have an effect on profit.
You’re right. The life of a broiler chicken is a lot worse than anyone on this board has detailed. If you want to lose your lunch, Google on.
You know I am reading that definition of “free-range” in the UK to say that each chicken gets 1 meter of space. I don’t think that fits my definition of “free” or “range”, and I don’t think it’s a lot more than the “regular” meat chickens get. And I hear a lot about beak clipping but having visited the Tyson farms and seen lots and lots (and LOTS) of chickens with beaks, I wonder about it…
As far as I know, broiler chickens are not debeaked; they certainly weren’t at any farm I was familiar with. That’s too cost intensive, and unnessary for uncaged birds. Laying hens are debeaked due to the stress of being caged and extremely crowded.
I don’t believe what you are Googling is accurate for meat chickens. Even the ChickenOut! website agrees with what I have said, although they have accentuated the negative aspects of it.
I’m not saying these chickens have a great life, I just want to point out the confusion between living conditions for laying hens and broilers. Conventionally raised broilers are living in luxury compared to the laying hens.
Well I beg to differ. The chickens showed on Olivers show and Double-Barrelled Whatsisnames were most certainly in farting little cages, the only thing they had to peck at was food and they sure didn’t have enough room to go strolling about sightseeing.
The first half showed the chickens used for eggs. They were in cages.
The 2nd half showed the meat chicken. You were shown 3 types:
Type 1: The intensive farm chicken. These were in a building with thousands upon thousands of other birds. They had little room and where in a pretty bad way. They were fast growing which fucked up a lot of their legs due to the weight of the bird. They have very little moving room as well. The birds looked very ragedy and had a lot of feathers etc missing. They also had burns on thier legs due to sitting on the shit on the ground.
Type 2: Birds that were also in buildings but they were a slower growing bird and so didn’t have the leg problems. They also had more space to move around and places to roost. These birds looked a lot better all round. Much healthier meat. The cost of the finished chicken was about 20-40p more with this variety. This was the chicken that the show recomended as it was still pretty cheap. It is also the chicken that most supermarkets are moving towards.
Type 3: Free Range. The birds have a life out in the open during the day. Eat well and provide the best meat. They are also the most expensive.
This picture isn’t what I’d call “typical” but there were A LOT of birds in this state or worse in the report shown on the show. Lifestyle | Stream free on Channel 4
I say this as someone who comes from a family where we do this: no, this is not typical, sorry. “Typical” is "I go to Meijer’s/Walmart/Kroger/wherever and get frozen chicken boobs in a bag. Maybe if I’m feeling fancy I’ll get it fresh from the meat counter.
Typical is fucking lazy, I hate to say. Mashed potatoes are from a box of dehydrated flakes. Spaghetti sauce is from a jar. Rice is from a Rice a Roni box. A fancy dinner takes a whole 10 minutes of prep work.
Again, my fam’s like yours, but we’re the exception to the rule. Convenience rules most families now and to hell with saving money and food.
“Typical” is "I go to Meijer’s/Walmart/Kroger/wherever and get frozen chicken boobs in a bag. Maybe if I’m feeling fancy I’ll get it fresh from the meat counter.