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So who has stopped eating chickens?


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Old 11-01-2008, 15:26
diary_room
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Remember this issue doesn't just affect whole fresh chickens.

To completely avoid battery farmed chicken you will have to stop eating most pre-cooked chicken products, chicken sandwiches, takeaway and most restaurant chicken dishes, chicken ready meals, chicken soup, anything containing chicken stock or real chicken flavouring, plus all cheap eggs, processed egg dishes, most cafe eggs, anything whatsoever containing eggs that doesn't state it uses free range.

I applaud the idea of banning battery farmed chicken but we have to realise that if you this you are going to have to overhaul almost the entire food industry and the diet of the whole country, and that ain't going to be cheap or easy.
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Old 11-01-2008, 15:28
Sloopy
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It makes you wonder what these programmes aim to achieve.

Most people who keep up-to-date with the whole battery farming situation will be aware of it and avoid these food products where possible, but buying alternatives is an expensive process. Many people have to live on strict budgets just to get by.
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Old 11-01-2008, 16:07
Poodledoodledoo
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Remember this issue doesn't just affect whole fresh chickens.

To completely avoid battery farmed chicken you will have to stop eating most pre-cooked chicken products, chicken sandwiches, takeaway and most restaurant chicken dishes, chicken ready meals, chicken soup, anything containing chicken stock or real chicken flavouring, plus all cheap eggs, processed egg dishes, most cafe eggs, anything whatsoever containing eggs that doesn't state it uses free range.

I applaud the idea of banning battery farmed chicken but we have to realise that if you this you are going to have to overhaul almost the entire food industry and the diet of the whole country, and that ain't going to be cheap or easy.
Quite right. It's impossible and it isn't just chicken either is it? You have to look at ALL of your diet and lifestyle. How many of us think about gelatin in sweets? Animal products used to make household items of furniture and clothing? Mass housing and industrial developments that destroy the habitat of many of our animal species (not to mention man induced global warming)?

Scaremongerous programmes are made for ratings and ratings alone. Buying free range chicken will make absolutely no difference to the general standard of animal welfare as a whole. If it eases the conscience of people then fair enough but just bare in mind that the whole modern lifestyle is not animal friendly.
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Old 11-01-2008, 16:33
*Eva*
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Most people seem to be quite keen to eat free range or organic chickens. The main issue stopping them is the price. If consumers bought just 1 free range chicken each then surely this in turn would lower the prices as it does with all products. The Big Food Fight has got everyone talking about the show - mow it's up to us to demand changes. Roll on Fowl dinners tonight.
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Old 11-01-2008, 17:14
adamand
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Firstly I would like to say that I have knowledge of the poultry industry in the UK.

I really do not think that converting the entire UK flock would work. Apart from the cost and space required there would be an increased risk of diseases such as coccidiosis (I think that this was the problem with the bird on one of the episodes where the gentleman was wiping the vent with a glove - a truly novel approach!) and avian influenza.

I think that HFW gave an ideallic view of keeping poultry on an estate in Axminster - this must have been quite a nice estate as round here they would have disappeared the first night!

Just think about prices too. I totally agree with the fact we are paying far too little for chicken (and food in general). We have an impression that the supermarkets have lost leaders - not the case, they just make less profit. On your 2 for £5.00 chickens the producer will have to sell at around of £1.12 per bird. Feed prices are at a record high. Gas and electric to heat and light the sheds have recently increased. The diesel to run the trucks to bring the chicks to the sheds and take the broilers to slaughter are rising. The acutal profit per bird is actually measured in pennys.

I am now approaching 40 and I guess that most people of my generation can remember chicken being a treat rather than an everyday food.

The best campaign HFW could have started was to stop the importation of poultry from countries such as Thailand and Brazil - do you think that these areas have the same standards as the UK? Next time you buy a chicken pie just try to remember that the meat in it has been shipped from the other side of the planet.

Wow first post! Ive never really felt strongly enough to post before.
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Old 11-01-2008, 18:18
Melanie858
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Most people seem to be quite keen to eat free range or organic chickens. The main issue stopping them is the price. If consumers bought just 1 free range chicken each then surely this in turn would lower the prices as it does with all products. The Big Food Fight has got everyone talking about the show - mow it's up to us to demand changes. Roll on Fowl dinners tonight.
For the price to go down there would need to be a bigger supply of free range chickens, rather than greater demand for them.
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Old 11-01-2008, 18:25
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Remember this issue doesn't just affect whole fresh chickens.

To completely avoid battery farmed chicken you will have to stop eating most pre-cooked chicken products, chicken sandwiches, takeaway and most restaurant chicken dishes, chicken ready meals, chicken soup, anything containing chicken stock or real chicken flavouring, plus all cheap eggs, processed egg dishes, most cafe eggs, anything whatsoever containing eggs that doesn't state it uses free range.

I applaud the idea of banning battery farmed chicken but we have to realise that if you this you are going to have to overhaul almost the entire food industry and the diet of the whole country, and that ain't going to be cheap or easy.
Yeah excellent point and definetly one i have not thought of or have heard talked about in this whole debate.

The whole food industry will have to hike up prices if battery farming is scrapped, it does need to be there, even if it is morally wrong, which in my opinion it is.

For the price to go down there would need to be a bigger supply of free range chickens, rather than greater demand for them.
And if you were to, increase the number of free range chickens in our country, where would our farmers be retrieving the loss in profits?? It takes a lot longer for a farmer to make money from a free range bird, also needs more land...there is less money in it for a farmer.

I can't help but think it's all too late to stop this happening now, the way we all live our consumist lives in our country, fast food culture etc it'd be near on impossible for all chicken to be free range. Price wars between supermarkets have unfortunatly used nature in the wrong way, and we the people in a way, are partly the ones to blame for that. Demanding cheaper and cheaper products from our supermarkets, or maybe not demanding them, but embracing the fact that supermarkets are forcing each other to drop prices. It's a shame that animals are a victim of this, or a tool in the 'war' but they are...
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Old 11-01-2008, 18:58
zenith52
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I would rather buy cheaper chicken and give money towards animals which are still alive ie RSPCA - chickens are dumb birds whatever.....and yes I KNOW they feel pain and might taste better but I can make bog standard chicken taste delicious

From one dumb bird about another
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Old 11-01-2008, 18:59
zenith52
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I love eating chicken, no show would stop me, it doesn't bother me if the chicken was living in a shed or was flown in from Barbados where it had been sunning itself on a deckchair on the beach having a jolly old time.
That is nice of you..
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Old 11-01-2008, 19:00
zenith52
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might be ignorant but no will stop the producing of battery chickens - it's just something else to stir up debate and anger.........low income families cannot afford those expensive chickens (£14 for some in Waitrose)...very occasional chicken is the only meat Mr DQ & I eat - the rest of the family is totally vegetarian. We /I would never eat lambs, calfs, cows, pigs etc
So why is a chicken worth less to you than a lamb, calf, cow, pig etc? Does it not deserve its place on the planet as much
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Old 11-01-2008, 19:10
Salbates
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I've only eaten free range chicken for the past year after watching a programme in how chickens are treated.

I couldn't eat a chicken knowing it's come from those kinds of conditions. It's meant giving up chicken pie, KFC among other things, buti feel that it's worth it
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Old 11-01-2008, 20:09
mistygal
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I loathe people with the attitude of well they are going to be killed anyway, so what?
I am a guilty meat eater and would happily purchase free range products, even though it costs you more. So what, I think all the animals deserve some quality of life before they end up on the platter.
There is a difference. It's hard to watch any killed, but I would rather see an animal shot through the brain to having it's throat slit any day.
I would love the old traditional farming to come back, rather than the factory farmed methods you see today.

The last thing a chicken wants to be is a chicken!!
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Old 11-01-2008, 20:35
Flaxseed
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Very controversial and thought provoking programme, i'm a vegetarian and have been for nearly two years now but i quit meat for the reasons which have been highlighted on the programme, eg: the bad conditions, also for health reasons but that's a different matter
Thats the same reasons why i became vegetarian, about 9 or 10 years ago. (i'm 21 now) my parents thought i was crazy and it was just a phase (so when i finally come out to them and they say, its just a phase i can say, well you said that about my vegetarianism and its been quite a while.... ) lol. but back to the point:

I know quite a few vegetarians who don't eat meat simple out of ethical reasons, and who would eat it if they knew an organic farmer well and knew how the meat was actually slaughtered...

I don't think i could ever go back, its been too long so now its just like a habit. I don't think i could take the texture of it, however i do like to have a good sniff in the kitchen when my flat mates cook bacon! lol. I love (vegetarian) Chicken flavoured Snack a Jacks and the fake bacon you get... i don't know if that makes me a fraud vegetarian... i never eat any of the meat....


I would urge everyone to buy free range eggs because i know that organic chicken is so damn expensive so not everyone can afford it, but free range eggs are only about 30p more and they taste so much nicer!!

I'll definitely be watching the programme tonight, just to reconfirm why i choose not to eat meat.
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Old 11-01-2008, 20:37
ProVista
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I didn't watch the programme, but I have been interested reading this thread.

I stopped eating chicken some years ago (including pies, KFC etc.,) unless I could see from the labelling that it was free range, organic or freedom food.

I did notice a difference in the up-front cost. An organic chicken was around £7 whereas a similar sized broiler was around £3.00. But the taste of the organic chicken was so much nicer, much more chickeny and how I recall it as a child but, more importantly, it did more meals. The weight of the organic chicken was made up of chicken and hardly any liquid came out of it during cooking so I got out the oven a bird of roughly the same size I put in. This was in sharp contrast to some of the cheaper birds I had bought previously which seemed consist mainly of water and proceeded to shrivel away to the size of a sparrow and be drowning in liquid when I got it out of the oven.

I also try to apply the same principles to red meat.

It is more expensive to buy ethical meat, and overall I eat less meat than I did 10 years ago, which is probably healthier for me anyway, but I genuinely feel that if we are going to raise animals to eat them then the least we owe them is a decent life in the meantime.

If a domestic animal was treated in the same way that some intensively farmed animals are, their owners would be prosecuted. We do seem to have one rule for a pet and another rule for our food, and I find that uncomfortable.
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Old 11-01-2008, 20:47
_drak
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No way. Chicken is the only meat I eat.
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Old 11-01-2008, 21:18
gamble
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i would love to eat fresh with everything i have but i simply can't always afford this.

it's all very well them hilighting what gross goings-on there are in intensive farming, but how are you gona pay for anything fresh and organic when you can barely make rent??!
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Old 11-01-2008, 21:28
Terry Wigon
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Another cracker I overheard in Primark (I was there under duress) was 2 girls about 15 gabbing on about how inhumane KFC treated their chickens after seeing some film on the news.

Then they both trot off to the cash desk with an arm full of cheap Chinese made fashion and one beautiful observation:

Girl one 'I wonder how they make these clothes do cheap?!'

Girl two 'Who cares!'

*Both girls giggle*

The juxtaposition of showing more concern for a chicken than the Chinese/Bangladeshi women that stitched her top for 5p an hour doing 80 hours a week was laughable.
Shame on you for going in to Primark!

The irony is that 5p an hour is probably quite a decent wage (comparatively) in these areas and helps to boost the Asian economy. These areas are going through an industrial and manufacturing revolution similar to Britain's between 1760-1850.

The industrial growth should allow its population to gradually get a better standard of living.

Back to the main point-the chickens get no choice in their living condition and their standard of living is disgraceful for a so-called civilised country.

The animals v humans debate. For me, it's about treating everything/one with respect. I wouldn't be cruel to a human any more than I would to an animal, unless it was in self-defence. Most of us are the same and don't like to see wanton cruelty and unnecessary suffering-wherever it might arise.
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Old 11-01-2008, 21:30
Shrike
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gamble - I appreciate what you are saying - I've spent time as a student & on the dole.
What you could do is eat veggie more & so be able to spend the bit extra on decent meat when you do have it - and use the carcass to make lovely soup after!
I do have to admit I eat free range more 'cos it tastes better & is less stuffed with nasty chemicals than for ethical reasons though...
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Old 11-01-2008, 21:37
Jimmy Riddle
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Shame on you for going in to Primark!

The irony is that 5p an hour is probably quite a decent wage (comparatively) in these areas and helps to boost the Asian economy. These areas are going through an industrial and manufacturing revolution similar to Britain's between 1760-1850.

The industrial growth should allow its population to gradually get a better standard of living.



The animals v humans debate. Just because you care about one, it doesn't preclude caring for the other. I wouldn't be cruel to a human any more than I would to an animal, unless it was in self-defence. Most of us are the same and don't like to see wanton cruelty and unnecessary suffering-wherever it might arise.
5p an hour for 80 hours a week?

Are you joking?
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Old 11-01-2008, 21:44
Terry Wigon
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5p an hour for 80 hours a week?

Are you joking?
No. Are you? Do you have any minimum wage stats for these countries and conversion rates for Yen/Rupees? I know it doesn't sound much to us, but people will have moved from the country to the towns to work in factories which pay more money.

As in our industrial revolution, people are attracted to industrial areas because of the work and the money. We in this country can afford to say how terrible it is because our society has already been through those times.

That's why we have the luxury of sitting on our fat a*ses, watching TV, typing into a computer, having enough to eat and looking down our noses at other countries who have to go through the same process we did 200 years ago.

Anyway, I don't want to take this off topic. This might be for another thread.
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Old 11-01-2008, 21:48
Randy
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The government announced yesterday that all battery farming (I assume you did mean battery and not broiler) will be ended by 2012 at the very latest.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7180018.stm
Funny how it took em about 3 months to bring in the mobile in cars ban..
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Old 11-01-2008, 21:51
Terry Wigon
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Funny how it took em about 3 months to bring in the mobile in cars ban..
Ha ha. Yes, and 24 hours to put up petrol prices after a budget! It's amazing what the government can do if it's swelling the coffers for the Treasury. They're not so keen to take on big businesses though.
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Old 11-01-2008, 21:54
Randy
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Notice how we are made to pay more for the non-living things in life, petrol, mobile phones, golf balls, council tax.. yet we can get a slaughtered animal for £2.50.

Lets all start eating human babies, see how much they cost.
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Old 11-01-2008, 21:56
mbrealey
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5p an hour for 80 hours a week?

Are you joking?
It's not actually 5p, it would be the local money, which of course would go further, but it's probably about right.

But it's a bit silly to look at in isolation.

You can spend three years to study to be a nurse in Indonesia, and on qualifying the pay would be 500,000rp/month (£27/month), that's for a 10 hour day, 5 days a week, with no paid holidays, etc. Works out 12p/hour.

That's for a trained worker.

In that context, with high unemployment as well, people are very happy to work in textile factories, and it is very stupid to imagine that people should be getting paid £6/hour, which is more than a doctor would get.

A lot of the time, the conditions,while not as good as the UK, are far better than pure domestic work would offer, so why attack it???
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Old 11-01-2008, 21:56
BrideXIII
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Notice how we are made to pay more for the non-living things in life, petrol, mobile phones, golf balls, council tax.. yet we can get a slaughtered animal for £2.50.

Lets all start eating human babies, see how much they cost.
well mine aren't too young and tender anymore, but I bet they would stew up nice! and you can have two for a fiver
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