Re: £2 chickens
 

If we had to shop ethically we would freeze and starve on the park bench because the gods of money and profit rule.

However if I get the opportunity to buy eggs and chicken from a source where the hens live as nature intended then I will do. So thanks to blazey for the Woodland/Sainsbury tip. I only hope that the Darwen branch has Woodland eggs in stock.

Just one tiny point blazey – where do you think that the clothes sold in charity shops come from? Some will undoubtedly come from source of cheap sweat shops in the third world via a normal shop and a customer. In fact by buying from a charity shop instead of a normal shop it could be argued that you are DEPRIVING foreign labourers of the opportunity to sell an item that they make.

A lot of people use the ‘charity shop’ argument to show how they are helping the charity. But if we all bought our clothes from charity shops we would not be buying them from regular stores. They in turn would have no need to replenish their stocks so the third world slave labourers would have nowhere to sell their wares, so they wouldn’t get paid and would starve. I could also argue that charity shops are taking the food out of foreign workers mouths.

Re: £2 chickens
 

sod off i got very good qualifications and couldnt give a toss about the welfare of an animal that is basically going to be my next meal and you will also find that these people walking up and down with clipboards are stuck in that job because they are not better educated and are asking people who instead of been at work are walking the streets answering dumb surveys

dumb surveys asked by dumb people answered by dumb people , if how a chicken dies is so important to you then why not buy your own and wait for it to die of natural causes

people eat cheap food because it is all they can afford but for you to make out that people who eat inferior food are somehow thicker than you is a damn insult to anyone trying to get by and do the best they can with what little they have

Re: £2 chickens
 

This is usually the argument of someone who has, to use the current buzz word, quantity issues.:D But there again, it was Yoda who said "Size matters not.":rolleyes:

Re: £2 chickens
 

I would like to see someone who had eaten nothing but non animal products for the whole of their 70 years of life – if they got that far.

The human being was built as an omnivore. Meaning that we eat meat, fruit and veg. You only need to look at a human’s natural teeth to see that. Crushers at the back and slicers at the front. No veg grinders although the crushers can double as grinders up to a point. And we masticate up and down not side to side like a cow or other ruminants do. Nor do we regurgitate partially chewed food to chew some more.

Even Pandas whose diet consists of just bamboo shoots will eat meat if it is offered.

Re: £2 chickens
 

agree with that totally accyman,n wether intentional or not? think thats a VERY snobbish comment that polly made.

Re: £2 chickens
 

The following were or are vegetarians/vegans

John Wesley died aged 88
Ghandi died aged 79
Yehudi Menuhin died aged 83
Einstein died aged 76
Dr Benjamin Spock died aged 95
Charles Darwin died aged 73
Epicurus died aged 71
General Branwell Booth died aged 73
Henry Ford died 84

There are of couse many more. In general veggies tend to live longer than meat eaters.

Re: £2 chickens
 

People who are better educated (as in watch tv read newspapers all about battery farming etc) still buy the cheap stuff because it saves them money - probably because they dont have the money to buy the expensive (free range, organic etc) as they are paying for expensive mortgages, little johnnys skiing lessons, little pollys horse riding lessons and pony stabling fees etc, or maybe its because they are a one parent family with 2 kids surviving on benefits, or maybe its a pensioner whos surviving on a pension each week deciding which bill to pay this week. Its not a case of better educated people its a case of what people can afford to pay. Why pay more for something when you can buy a chicken that will feed you and your family for 2 days for the price of one that will just about feed your family for 1?

Re: £2 chickens
 

my grannies where both meat eaters and they were 86 and 79, :rolleyes:

Re: £2 chickens
 

I think Polly was making a comment about someone elses research, not her own. I dont agree with the comment wholly though because when I worked in the vegetable shop there were people who were not as well dressed as others coming in and those were more often than not the ones concerned with where the food came from.

I think it may have something to do with the education of food matters, but not education in general.

I prefer eating free range and organic food, and yeh maybe it does make me feel better about myself. Its not a case of spending more makes me feel better, as sometimes I spend less. It just makes me feel better knowing the animal it has come from has had a good life, and it also bothers me that chickens in particular are treated so badly in battery farms.

Anyone seen the Mclibel documentary about mcdonalds where they are hung on a machine and having their throats slit by a circular saw blade one by one?

Re: £2 chickens
 

Sorry that does not make sense, a bag of lentils are still far cheaper than a chicken and the lentils go further and have a higher nutritional value. so if you want to eat cheply pulses win every time over meat

Re: £2 chickens
 

Well maybe a bag of lentils are cheaper....and yes they do provide a good source of protein, but they do not contain all the amino acids that are essential for cell growth.
And I am from a poor back ground and my mother used a lot of lentils, they are horrible........I would never ever choose to eat them as they make me remember the bad times in my childhood

Re: £2 chickens
 

I don't buy cheap meat, I don't buy cheap eggs, not for snobbery, but because the more expensive ones tend to be better quality, I thank god and my own hard work for the ability to make these purchases, I have to agree that there probably isn't much difference in the taste of chicken (unless it is corn fed), but meat in general is poor quality when cheap, I like scotch beef, as for eggs, the difference in taste between battery hen eggs and free range eggs is quite large, given new methods of feeding though (thanks to the eu), even free range eggs don't taste as good as they used to.

Re: £2 chickens
 

I like lentils, especially in soup and broth. I just dont have a recipe for anything like that :(

Re: £2 chickens
 

Uurrrrrgh, lentils should only be fed to chickens......then of course you could eat the chicken.
I'm not keen on chicken either.

My Mum used to make what little meat we had go further by adding lentils......she concocted all kinds of recipes, but I could never eat them. I would rather have bread and dripping.

Re: £2 chickens
 

I guess you'd get bored eating them all the time. My diet consists of spaghetti bolognese or lamb chop and mash or omelette. I do vary sometimes but mainly one of those is my meal :D

Re: £2 chickens
 

I grew up with lentils and love them, we have lentil soup usually about once a month as i do a big pan that lasts 2 days, it is compulsary for them to be in some school dinners now, like pies, stews, lasagne , spag bol, and kids dont even know its there, you can put lentils in alot of food,but i prefer them in soup with onion carrots salt pepper a few herbs and some bay leafs topped off with crusty bread yum, makes a cheap meal and you can freeze it, thats my tip of the day lol

Re: £2 chickens
 

I'm going to buy some lentils, they sound cheap and healthy. Wont be putting chicken in my soups though! Yuck.

Re: £2 chickens
 

Re: £2 chickens
 

They make a damned good, cheap and healthy Shepard's pie. There are many different types of lentils eg. red, brown and green.

Re: £2 chickens
 

and yellow, and blue if you wanna add some food colouring:D

Re: £2 chickens
 

I have had many variations of dishes that had these things put in front of me when I was growing up....and I didn't like any of them.
Sorry, I don't care what colour they are, they taste VILE........and I will never ever let them past my lips....healthy or not, I am not eating them.

Re: £2 chickens
 

Are you a vegetarian Polly or just like your greens and things?

Re: £2 chickens
 

Read all of this lot out to Spug and this is what he says:

If they are that worried about their food go and forage for their own. Very few people would be able to feed themselves if it wasnt for shops and farmers.

Do not pm me - thats spuggiej so dont blame me - blame him

Re: £2 chickens
 

I don't want to forage for my own. I want someone else to kill it in a humane fashion, for it not to have been incarcerated in a tiny cage and for it not to have wee and poo burns on its legs.

Re: £2 chickens
 

How do you know that the chicken you have bought from Asda/Tesco/elsewhere has wee and poo burns on its legs? By the time you buy it from there its been plucked cleaned etc or you are buying breast fillets or legs on their own.

Re: £2 chickens
 

You cannot buy good meat cheaply......there is good meat.....and there is cheap meat......and they are not the same.

I also would not trust the 'organic' label if you buy such produce from Asda........they have poor policies in place to ensure that the produce that is labelled 'organic' meets the organic criteria.
Morrisons, Tesco and Iceland are far more rigorous in their standards for such produce. How do I know this.......well a relative of mine was supervisor of QC for a company that supplies all of these supermarkets with their organic meat.

Re: £2 chickens
 

Organic and free range taste better, and are more nutritious.
They cost more --- so just eat less.
Better to have a small portion of good stuff than a plateful of rubbish.

Re: £2 chickens
 

not when ya got plastic teeth like me they dont,so why waste money?:D

Re: £2 chickens
 

So 9 people reached past 70 before dying. Big deal! Is that supposed to prove that veggies live longer? How many didn’t get to 70?

I doubt if any one of your list were vegetarians from birth. More likely it was a choice later in life. In any case there are many centurions who spent their life tucking into animal products. The queen and Philip eat meat. My mother and uncle lived to well past 80 years of age and they ate meat and fish and dairy products. My father died at 52 but that was because the war was responsible for his death. My grandmother died aged 95 and she not only ate meat she also killed chickens, ducks, geese and turkeys on her farm.

I will be 71 in April and I eat red or white meat and fish, I eat eggs and drink proper milk at least as proper as you can get these days. My vegetable intake is and always has been limited to peas, baked beans, the very occasional lettuce and other salad vegetables. I don’t eat much fruit either.

The point is that longevity is not down solely to diet. Genetics plays a major role, as does life style.

Re: £2 chickens
 

I days of old when men were bold what was the remedy to build up a person after an illness?

Chicken broth!

Re: £2 chickens
 

what a load of betty swollocks !!!, so youre saying because i choose to eat a £2 chicken im uneducated ?...seems to me that your the one thats needs educating luv !!!

as jambutty remarked in an earlier thread...

" SNOB "....but maybe id remove the s

Re: £2 chickens
 

Sorry but it doesn't say that at all. The research polly highlights shows that people who go further in education (college, univeristy etc) are more likely to make choices about their food based on ethical grounds. It doesn't imply that people who aren't in education that far are 'uneducated'; or incapable of making ethical decisions. It's just a social trend. Nothing more.

Re: £2 chickens
 

have you ever been in actual shared student accomodation?

anyone who has will know that the fridge is a very scary place to visit and trust me in all the flats , shared houses i have been to occupied by students not one of the things in their fridges resembled organic food unless you class mould as a stable meal infact if things havnt changed most students use their uni cards to get discount at mcdonalds and live off whatever mcdonalds has to offer

education has jack sh it to do with how you eat , your either a bleeding heart liberal or you dont give damn

edit:

yes i know not all students live this way before somone pipes up on the behalf of the minority that can put a decent meal together:rolleyes:

Re: £2 chickens
 

Yes.

I haven't got a clue why you quoted my post for this reply. I was trying to clarify the research polly offered, not stating my opinion.

Re: £2 chickens
 

I'm not a big fan of chicken soup, never have been.

I would also like to raise my own food but the plucking bit is a bit too tiresome in my opinion and I have no idea how to skin rabbits or anything like that.

What I mean by CHEAP good food is food that costs less due to the savings on packaging, advertising and all that. Its still more expensive than asda smart price but you can ask where its been without being misleading by packaging.

For example, I went to asda this evening and saw a pack of eggs from CAGED hens with fields of wheat on the packaging. The wheat symbolised the wheat pellets they'd been fed on, not where the hens had been raised. I think its wrong to show golden fields and blue skies on packages of eggs that have come from birds that have never seen such things.


I prefer my fresh meat at the butchers rather than something packaged, because the trays cant be recycled from asda, they're made from plastics that cant be distinguished so it has to go in the bin.

Re: £2 chickens
 

I have to admit, the lads I live with eat this way too, ready prepared trays of food and things like that. They do get their minced steak from the butchers but everything else is pretty unhealthy, they even had takeaway pizza everynight one week, and stacked the boxes up on the window sill, looks such a mess and they wouldnt let me recycle them. They did the same thing with beer cans.

I think girls are more caring about where their food comes from too, compared to boys. I know a few lads that buy all organic but it seems to be a more girly thing, I guess because a lot more girls are concerned with their diets and they have more compassion towards animals. This is obviously a broad generalisation but its ther impression I get from my social network.

Re: £2 chickens
 

if were talking nutritional value of foods , someone please explain to me the nutritional value of tripe .......;) ;)

Re: £2 chickens
 

Just Googled this for you -

Nutritionally, tripe has much to recommend itself, being high in protein and calcium and containing little fat and no carbohydrate. However, it does contain cholestrol.

Major nutrients:

(per 90 grm serve, stewed in milk)

energy: 370 kjs potassium: 90 mg
protein: 13 g calcium: 135 mg
fat: 4g phos: 80 mg
cholestrol: 145 mg iron: .6 mg
carbohydrate: . 0 zinc: 2 mg
sugar: 0 niacin: 2.1 mg

Re: £2 chickens
 

It could be the nectar of the Gods , but its still disgusting stuff , I vowed on leaving my parents house to get wed nearly 40 yrs ago that I would never eat that stuff again , and never have , it's as disgusting as that filipino duck (free range or not) egg thing Balut ;) ;)

Re: £2 chickens
 

I have never eaten it either :D
(PM to you)

Re: £2 chickens
 

I think its great to afford to have morals.

I also think that it would be great for every person alive to have the choice of buying a better cut of meat, rather than a cheaper alternative to feed their families.

Unfortunately, life is not like that, and the majority are just grateful to be able to put a meal on the table as oppose to worrying whether the chicken has had a nice life, sat watching a plasma all day whilst eating the 'caviar' of the chicken world.

At the end of the day, its not had a nice life, cos its sat on a dining table being eaten!

And to suggest that its only educated people that are concerned where the food comes from, is, to put it nicely, a load of twaddle.

I think its ironic that we can give more of a damn about the life an animal that is bred to be killed may have had, rather than the people that are eating them. Or is it just me that has, in the past, had to make every penny count to make sure everyone is my household is fed, watered, warm and so on?

Incidentally, I agree the treatment of battery hens is diabolical, and some farming methods are less than to be desired, but I for one, would prefer to lose some morals rather than starve

Re: £2 chickens
 

No, onlyme, you are not alone. I made this observation way back when this post was first started.
Some folk need to get a grip and live in the real world, the world where a lot of people have limited means to feed families, the world where you have to make a choice to be warm or to eat.......and I am not talking third world here......I am talking the UK.

Re: £2 chickens
 

think it would be a good idea for polly to clarify it herself.

Re: £2 chickens
 

just a question....does anyone on here eat smart price chicken??,...I do! I get the fillets and just had some for my tea, and would just like to point out they tasted bloody good:D

Re: £2 chickens
 

I wonder how many people who bleat about the price of chicken and its affordability as a justification for buying cheap birds, actually make the utmost use of the chicken?

Many people buy cheap chicken because they are on a tight budget, then only use the breast and the legs. The rest is thrown away, which is a complete waste of money in itself. There is a lot of meat on the underside of the bird, even more so on a properly reared chicken. The carcass can be used to make stocks, soups and risotto, but how many people do that?

I buy free range chickens and I'd never go back to eating that other stuff. I want food that has been grown/reared ethically and correctly, not some chemically enhanced rubbish that has been created purely for profit. To me, a chicken's life is worth more than £2-50 and if I can't afford it, then I'll do without.

Re: £2 chickens
 

I am not a huge fan of chicken, but when I do buy it I use the carcass for the things you have said......if I only wanted breast or legs then that is what I would buy.....I wouldn't buy the whole chicken.

Re: £2 chickens
 

I don't buy chicken from Asda, I only buy it from the local butcher.

If you do buy battery chickens from the supermarket you can see the red poo burns on the flesh of the legs.

Re: £2 chickens
 

in reply to TM, the "Boss" uses every scorrack, the frame makes chicken broth. but think its more of an "age" thing, suspect most young uns dont.;)

Re: £2 chickens
 

I am glad somebody mentioned asda, the meat at asda has slowly gone downhill, either that, or the meat at accrington isn't as good as the meat at rawtenstall, with minced beef for example, I always preferred the lean minced steak to the minced beef (big taste difference), but the lean minced steak is now no better than the normal mince used to be, off to the scotch beef shop again!

Re: £2 chickens
 

I rarely buy just chicken breast fillets. I buy a whole bird then butcher it myself. The legs and wings get roasted for picking on and if there is any meat left on the carcass it gets used to either make soup or I cut it off and cook it for the cat.

I also tend to buy boneless thigh meat from the chicken stall on Bburn market for use in curries etc as it has more flavour than breast meat but is just as tender when cooked properly. Its a bit like those people making beef curries with Rump steak, its false economy. You want a good tasty cut like shin or shoulder for that. Most of the problem is that people now don't realise what cuts of meat should be used for what.

Re: £2 chickens
 

i try to buy the free range chickens... although i do buy the ready cooked ones from asda.

but i do prefer the free range that you cook your self.

Re: £2 chickens
 

are the cooked ones free range?:rolleyes:

Re: £2 chickens
 

They don't seem to complain :D

Re: £2 chickens
 

oh my :eek:

Re: £2 chickens
 

I like many who buy and cook a full bird always use every bit of it .
once done i boil for the stock then strip the carcus for the dog .
my freezer is full of chicken stock .
Like many i have been a single mum of four and have had to make ends meet so have been thankful for the more affordable birds and other meats for that matter . It beats starving anyday.

Re: £2 chickens
 

well put cherokee!!!!

Re: £2 chickens
 

Well, the £2.00 chicken is no more, I went to ASDA today and bought the worlds tiniest chicken ever, in all decency they should have waited until it was completely out of the shell before cooking it, this one cost £3.00.
I didn't enquire about the cost of a normal sized one, I bet this poor soul was brought up under similar conditions to those back in 2008 nothing has changed except the price.:D

Re: £2 chickens
 

Might have been on a slimline diet and no steriods. They say big things come in small packages but cant explain this. Getting less for more sounds like the sort of tricks high fashion use. Cant imagine Asda chicken being high fashion though unless I have missed something.:confused:

Re: £2 chickens
 

Food price inflation is a global phenomenon.
FT.com / In depth / Rising cost of food

Chickens cost more when the price of the grain they are fed goes up.
We can expect a price rise in may foodstuffs now that Russia has stopped grain exports. (Fires in Russia - drought in N America)
When scarcity strikes, prices rise.

We will have to bear this at a time when wage increases are frozen.
If you haven't already stocked as much non perishable food as you can afford and store, you may well have to resort to browsing for those 'wartime rationing recipes'

Re: £2 chickens
 

Whoa, whoa & thrice whoa, the harbinger of DOOM has spoken.
:D

Re: £2 chickens
 

they sell small chickens at Netto for £1.79, they arent THAT small either, they easily feed 3

Re: £2 chickens
 

We have a roast chicken every Sunday up at Rishton Towers which lasts two of us for three meals (Sunday dinner, Monday's butties and a broth).

I don't agree with battery farming but until it is banned then many people are simply going to go for the cheapest option. I've been on the breadline and it isn't a very nice place.

Re: £2 chickens
 

Don't really like chicken that much Ken, at Mallard Plaza, Turkey is more our line, Joan occasionally picks up a Turkey leg from super markets, cooks it for Sunday, then we probably get enough for 4 more Sundays by freezing the rest in separate potions

Re: £2 chickens
 

I have been there as well, and when that is the place you live, I am afraid you don't have the luxury about worrying about the provenance of your food...this is especially so when you have young, hungry mouths to feed.
You buy what you can afford, cook it slowly and waste nothing.
Many pensioners grew up in this kind of environment, and through no fault of their own, are back there again.

Re: £2 chickens
 

I would raid a chicken coop but there aint any near me. besides I would get caught. :eek:

Re: £2 chickens
 

Foxes don't:rolleyes:

Re: £2 chickens
 

Now how do you train a fox to do your bidding? ;)

Re: £2 chickens
 

Start very young:rolleyes:

Re: £2 chickens
 

I can see a time coming where proper home cooking makes a return to form and reconstituted rubbish from the likes of McDonalds is eschewed in favour of proper meat. Home cooking is also a damn sight cheaper.

Those of us in terraced areas only need take a glance at the chimney stacks in winter to realise that solid fuel fires are making a comeback. This is partially to do with the fact that they're far more homely than a gas fire but I suspect (as is the case in the drawing room at Rishton Towers) there is an element of prudence in there as well.

My fuel bills have dropped dramatically since the switch to smokeless fuel.

Re: £2 chickens
 

:rolleyes:

Re: £2 chickens
 

I have to say that I am one of the old school when it comes to cooking. I make meals from scratch using fresh ingredients where possible...though I do resort to some frozen veg at times......I use up left-overs.....but I won't go back to coal fires.
They are hard work......all that riddling and poking...and fetching buckets of coal down the backyard in the cold and rain isn't my bag at all.

Re: £2 chickens
 

QUIET woman!!!!

Re: £2 chickens
 

i didn't say a word, i was merely pointing out that i have never heard that word before

Re: £2 chickens
 

I'm with you on the frozen veg. There's hardly any difference nowadays and it is much quicker and simpler.

I buy all the cuts of meat from the butchers that no one else wants (such as breast of lamb) and as an upshot get some cracking deals. It wouldn't surprise me to see cuts of mutton reappearing in years to come.

As far as coal fires are concerned, I have a stove which is great for slow cooking casseroles, soups and broths and much easier to look after than an open fire. The heat is also much more even, although can get infernally hot even in deepest winter!

Re: £2 chickens
 

anyone ever had pork cheek? i've seen it in Morrisons but never bought it, i use beef skirt in stews but thats as far as i've got yet, had tongue and the other off cuts but just not cheek

Re: £2 chickens
 

I was in a pub a while back and the guy came in delivering chickens - a box of eight for a fiver!

Re: £2 chickens
 

At one time only if you asked the butcher. Now it seems that the way things are cheaper cuts and "oddities" are wanted.

Re: £2 chickens
 

one legged £2 chickens get what 11 pages ...:D must be a record

Re: £2 chickens
 

Tory fox hunting blood sport Twait!

Re: £2 chickens
 

Oh come on Mancie it was a bit of tongue in cheek humour.

Re: £2 chickens
 

I'll tell Kate Hoey about you:D

Re: £2 chickens
 

didn't know you and Kate were so well acquainted.. but I'm not surprised :D
( Mrs P..you forgot to sign for the karma) ;)

Re: £2 chickens
 

Karma....what Karma. Mancie, when I give Karma I sign it.

Re: £2 chickens
 

Know her Brother well:D