£2 chickens
 

Where do you stand on them?

buy or not buy

Re: £2 chickens
 

Too much pressure on poultry producers, lots more jobs lost in the future probably.
"Every Little Kills".
Really can't abide Tesco.

Re: £2 chickens
 

Definitely would never buy a £2 chicken. If I couldn't pay the cost for one that has been treated kindly during its short life then I wouldn't bother buying one.

Re: £2 chickens
 

I do buy organic free range poultry when I can get it, other wise I leave it. But I have to say that I've seen less in the supermarkets sin the programmes on the box last month.

Re: £2 chickens
 

Children from the current generation are going to be growing up thinking chickens are born in cellophane :rolleyes:
I have great respect for people such as my girlfriend's grandfather who kills every animal he eats himself. There's no responsibility apparent in a 2 quid chicken.

Re: £2 chickens
 

I have said no but in reality maybe i do buy cheap chicken, i buy the ready cooked ones from the supermarket and also the pre packed breast, which probably came from the same stock as the £2 chickens, thing is it doesnt say on the packet, you could pay £5.50 yet still be buying the same stock chicken

Re: £2 chickens
 

If they are organic / free range then it will say so on the packaging.

They don't tend to print 'Battery Chicken' on the packaging of the other ones. They just don't say anything about their origin. :rolleyes:

You know what they are if they cost £2.

Re: £2 chickens
 

Not sure about standing on them, don't you just wring their necks ? :)

Re: £2 chickens
 

I rarely buy chicken but when I do I buy the free range ones. Also buy the woodland trust eggs where the chickens have lived amongst the trees during their lifetime.

Costs more than I'd like to spend but I also wouldn't like to be living in those conditions so the extra 50p - £1 doesnt bother me as much when I think of it that way.

Re: £2 chickens
 

not a chance - i dont eat chicken anyway - so any i do buy is usually at the weekend when the kids are here - would i take my chances and give them chicken that i paid £2 for - not a chance i would rather eat a spider :D

Re: £2 chickens
 

tesco !! huh, asda's yes, but they aint £2, although now i know i may just pay a visit to tesco's, at the end of the day animals are made to eat regardless of how they are bred !!!....iv'e had organic, iv'e had the expensive and the cheap (no pun intended) and i personally cant tell the diff, apart from the price,

your moaning now but if it came down to it and it was THE only thing to eat, i bet this thread wouldn't be here .....:egged:, how many kfc, mcd's chicken burgers, chicken kebabs etc have you eaten,:confused:, gaurante they aint the expensive stuff...

Re: £2 chickens
 

Re: £2 chickens
 

true - but i wouldnt eat it - i cant digest it - but i can digest turkey ( how odd is that ?!?!?) but i dont eat maccy d's etc

wonder if anyone else has the same problem with chicken ??

Re: £2 chickens
 

Re: £2 chickens
 

i buy and eat £2.00 chicken ive i cant find one for a £1.oo .

Re: £2 chickens
 

yeah the thougth of eating chicken makes me feel queezy - i used to go to my mums every sunday and she used to make chicken in red wine sauce - i hated the sauce but could never bring myself to say so - maybe thats what put me off??

Re: £2 chickens
 

Chicken and Red Wine!!!!! Give me a break.I may be common but even I know it's best with White Wine Sauce or failing that 10 pints of beer

Re: £2 chickens
 

You aren't meant to eat chicken with red wine are you, i thought that was breaking the rules

Re: £2 chickens
 

If you are paying $4.00 for a chicken you are getting ripped off .... the cost of living in England must be going thru the roof! Ah well, I remember the days when fish and chips was only a shilling, and they would throw in a couple of dabs.

Re: £2 chickens
 

Only in James Bond movies.;)

Re: £2 chickens
 

I wish I understood the joke...

Re: £2 chickens
 

Chickens 3 for £5 on Bolton Market- best cooked with lemon and garlic, never with red wine

Re: £2 chickens
 

No such thing as 'rules'.

Also Coq au Vin is probably THE classic chicken dish and its RED wine. Likewise Chicken Chasseur.

With regards to my post, as others have said all your takeaway chicken is cheap stuff. When its curried/flavoured can you actually tell the difference, no way. The original point of using spices in food is to disguise the poor quality meat that was available.

Plain roast chuck? I bet no one can tell either by taste alone. By the time its has salt and pepper and been roasted with a little butter and garlic.

So that makes it down to the conditions they are grown in.

Hugh F-W went out of his way to follow the industry standards in rearing them for his experiment and one of the things that upset him the most wasn't the conditions they lived in but the fact that if a bird showed ANY signs of illness or disability it was killed there and then and not left lying around in the muck for days on end to ensure it didn't affect teh rest of teh birds.

I'm maybe fortunate that I can seperate the idea of an animal living for pleasure(Pets) from the animal being raised for food. It doesn't bother me in the slightest that an animal is killed so I can have a nice tea when I get in. If I had to kill it myself I would.
When I've had to have pets put down I get upset and I'm not adverse to shedding a tear but animals for food? they are just a means to an end.

When I bought my full lamb from the farmer it came literally as two halves for me to butcher. We showed it to Siobhan as we have always made the connection between teh food on her plate and the animals in the fields. Look at that lovely Moo Cow and equally, isn't it a lovely Moo cow pie). They are piggy butties etc. She wasn't bothered by it and I hope she continues to understand that food on her table comes from somewhere.

Re: £2 chickens
 

I hope she does not think you can eat cow pies. She might get a shock if she picks one up in a field and takes a bite :eek:

Re: £2 chickens
 

dont know what the problem is, if it looks alright then why not, all chickens taste the same to me, whether its free range or not, I always used to get the £2 ones from asda and they are no different than the ones they stock now at nearly £4.

Re: £2 chickens
 

Sorry not for me I'm more of a beef man myself

Re: £2 chickens
 

to tell ya the truth jaysay, i prefer prawns:rolleyes:....LOL

Re: £2 chickens
 

Thats a COW PAT mate

Perhaps your parents were having a joke on you :D

Re: £2 chickens
 

as someone famous once said- Frankly i dont give a damn, i like it n dont give a rats where it comes from long as it tastes ok. its FOOD were talking about, ya EAT it. theres far more serious issues in life to bother about.

Re: £2 chickens
 

exactly:rolleyes:;)

Re: £2 chickens
 

Re: £2 chickens
 

Whether a chicken costs 20 quid or 2 quid, once its on a plate with mash and gravy i couldnt give one. Might sound horrible but animals are our food. Thats the way it is, and how its always been.

Re: £2 chickens
 

Being a single person I don’t buy whole chickens unless I want to have chicken for several days on the trot.

It may be that my memory is playing tricks on me or my taste buds have died but it seems to me that the chicken that we buy today is totally tasteless compared to the chicken that I used to eat many years ago.

I guess that’s why we have chicken gravy – to give the meat some taste.

Re: £2 chickens
 

I think you must be cooking it wrong, that or ya taste buds are gone:p

my chickens taste 'bootiful' as my kids say:)

Re: £2 chickens
 

Your chicken might taste ‘bootiful’ to your kids but they don’t have anything to compare it with. We doddering old goats do.

I accept that as a person gets older and older there is deterioration in the efficiency of the old taste buds but then I wouldn’t be able to taste steak, apple pies and all sorts of other things, would I?

It is the same with the so called wet fish. It too is tasteless but then it has been lying about half frozen for several weeks before being sold as wet fish.

I’ve eaten cod, hake, halibut, trout, salmon etc within a couple of hours of it being caught and they all had taste. Today the only taste that you get is from the various sauces that can be poured over fish.

50 years ago we could take a trip to Fleetwood and buy fish that was caught that day. Cod tasted like cod and hake like hake. Plaice had its own unique taste.

Re: £2 chickens
 

After watching a programme about battery chickens a few weeks ago,, i now only buy free range,,, same with eggs,,,,,

Re: £2 chickens
 

It irritates me how it takes tv programmes to make people think. No offence to you Grannyclaret, but I assume you had enough knowledge and intelligence before any tv programme to associate the words 'battery farm' with cruel treatment to animals and harsh living conditions.

Where would some of us be without television eh?

Re: £2 chickens
 

It certainly made me feel guilty....the chap in that programme was non caring ,,and as long as he got his wages .diddent bat an eyelash..

Re: £2 chickens
 

Just like most people dont think twice when they buy a pack of eggs or a cheap chicken. Yet its strange that most people dont care as much when they surely must be fully aware of the conditions chickens are kept in in those types of places. KFC is widely known for its battery farming and most of your youngsters will probably have some idea of what battery farming is.

I think its like the Holocaust for chickens.

Re: £2 chickens
 

There are a lot of people in this world who cannot afford to get ethical about what they eat......a lot of them in this country too.

In an ideal world it would be good if everyone could choose ethically reared food......but until then, there are always going to be people who put the feeding of their families before the welfare of the animals that are killed for food.

Re: £2 chickens
 

well said,something those holier than thou would be well advised to think on.;)

Re: £2 chickens
 

There was a woman on one of the programmes about battery chickens that she didn't mind paying 50p more per head to eat 'ethically' after her visit to the battery farm. Even if it means giving up something else to eat one thing more ethically it'd make a difference.

I don't think there is any excuse, and as I posted in a previous thread on this issue, the government are talking about banning battery eggs, which would mean your going to be forced to eat ethically whether you like it or not.

Maybe you'll have to walk somewhere instead of using car/bus/taxi, maybe you'll have to leave the biscuits and cheese on the shelf in the supermarket, but there are very many people who live on such a basic diet that they have absolutely nothing they can change in order to order a packet of free range eggs.

Smartprice medium eggs are 73p
Asda Free range medium eggs are £1.19

For 46p difference, one chicken is living a happy and healthy life whilst another is living amongst its crap, and it you look at those cheaper chickens in their wrappings you can sometimes actually see where their skin has burnt and been damaged from walking through their own filth.

Cross referencing to the other thread about care homes, would you send your elderly relative to a care home where they'd live in dirty conditions and made to lie in their own filth because it's £50 cheaper? No, you'd find a way to make up the extra money, whether it meant you have to give up something or change something else you did.

The difference is that you don't know the chicken, and its only when its shoved in your face, as Grannyclaret has experienced, that it will make you change your ways. It shouldn't need to be put in front of you to make you see though when you already know its happening.

Re: £2 chickens
 

Blazey, I think you are missing the point of Margaret's post.

There are many people who simply can not afford to spend any more money on food. They are on such a limited budget, that they have nothing to give up. I know that you are a student, and probably consider that you have a very small income. But you try feeding, clothing and paying all your household bills for a family of 4 (or more) when you have a very small income and your ethical ideas might go out the window.

I speak from experience - when my children were small, we had a low income and were not entitled to any state help. (We had 50p too much a week to be entitled to Family Income Supplement).

Also consider the postion of single pensioners, anyone with an income of more than £119.05 a week, you have to pay all your household bills, feed and clothe yourself, pay for dental care, and if you own your own home, be able to pay any repair bills for your home. Try turning down a £2.00 chicken on that sort of income.

I think you have a lot to learn about life.

Re: £2 chickens
 

£119.05 a week to feed, clothe and maintain your own home? I have £40 a week to do that. OK i dont have to fork out as much as a homeowner on maintenance, but I have insurance for things like emergencies. As for dental care, well I have to grin and bear it because very few students have money for that sort of thing. I would do without chicken if I couldn't afford an 'ethical' one. I rarely eat chicken, i'm more of a chop person, but I can afford to eat ethically even if that means I don't do anything else all week.

I have known some very poor people in my short time, but none have lived on such a tight budget that they can't spare 50p. When I meet someone who lives in that situation maybe I will think twice, but until I do I will still not agree with anyone who buys cheap produce, even my own mother. Its just not right.

Re: £2 chickens
 

Thankyou for clarifying my point Claytonender.
I too have been in that position......choosing whether to pay a bill or put food on the table.....you can guess which won.
Choosing ethically reared produce is a luxury that some families just cannot afford....and as you say, they have nothing to give up....all of their finances being spoken for.
Some pensioners will fall into this category.....having to choose whether to eat or to stay warm as they cannot afford to do both.

Re: £2 chickens
 

So perhaps Blazey you would choose to starve???

Re: £2 chickens
 

Pensioners in this country are the poorest in Europe.

Re: £2 chickens
 

lol oh dear i do see you two in a new light now :D

anyway - i think they can be called pies/patties/cakes. Knowing my sense of humour somebody lent us a book called "who shat that" funny title but a very informative book :rolleyes: and it had several names for cowpats.

Re: £2 chickens
 

You can live without chicken. So no I wouldn't starve.

Re: £2 chickens
 

That will save me £15 next time you decide you want to go to the kfc :p

Re: £2 chickens
 

It wasn't KFC, it was Caledonia.

And yes people I do still eat takeaways although it isn't necessarily free range chicken. Just not too often!

Re: £2 chickens
 

Blazey, why do you always think that your opinion is correct and everyone else is wrong?

Maybe in 20 years time when you have more experience of life you will, possibly be more qualified to comment about whether people, can or can not afford to spend more on food.

Your example of the cost of eggs , does this refer to the price of 6 eggs or 12 eggs. If it is 6 eggs 50p difference might not seem very much, but if you have a family you might go through 24 eggs a week, meaning that you woyuld have to find an extra £2.00 per week - which would mean you had to cut back on your spending for something else. Maybe you would like to suggest what they could save the £2.00 on.

And in case you want to know, I buy free range eggs from a local farm (which is why I have no idea how much eggs are in shops), costing £1.50 for 12 at the moment.

Re: £2 chickens
 

Would this be a clue?
Snob • noun 1 a person who has an exaggerated respect for high social position or wealth and who looks down on those regarded as socially inferior. 2 a person who believes that their tastes in a particular area are superior to others.

Re: £2 chickens
 

Just because I dont agree with something doesn't make me a snob. Also i'm from a socially inferior group, so definition number 1 can't be true. I dont HAVE to agree with buying cheap, eroded chickens and their nutrition starved eggs.

Re: £2 chickens
 

So you are all batting that we must pay extra for ethically produced chicken. But wouldn't you then be a hipocrite to by say Nesle products or buy Shell fuel or spend a penny on non fair trade coffee or ....

You see the whole thing about 'ethical' products are you take one step and its a slippery slope to rack and ruin. If you want to start spouting ethical make sure ALL your food investments/fuel/clothes/ in fact EVERY part of your life is ethical or your just paying lip service to the whole ting which in my book makes you worse than someone who stands up and says they can clear it in their conscience.

So stand up and be counted or shut up and put up, are you 'ethical' or not

Re: £2 chickens
 

I dont buy fuel, cereals or tea/coffee, I dont even use sugar or salt. I shop for all my food at the butchers or at the market, and if I cant buy what I need from there I will reluctantly spend more money at the Spar. The thing is, shopping costs me more at the supermarket, so I cant understand the price problem.

I obviously buy clothes and I dont research into wear it came from, but I am disgusted by companies like Topshop that have their clothes made by cheap foreign labour abroad for unfair prices. Most of my clothes have come from the charity shop.

Re: £2 chickens
 

I specifically go to Sainsburys to buy my eggs because they sell Woodland trust eggs which come from hens that have been brought up amongst trees and natural surroundings.

The Woodland Trust

They cost quite a bit more than ordinary eggs but I believe you can taste the difference in the yolks.

I also used to work in the vegetable shop that used to be on union road, some of you may have been there. We used to sell natural eggs brought in from locals and we got goose eggs once, absolutely gorgeous.

Re: £2 chickens
 

I do not and would not buy chicken full stop. I certainly would not buy two pound chickens.

Whilst so much of this country is obese and overweight I can see no justification for exploiting animals. Mos t of us would benefit from eating less, therefore we can afford to spend more on food that has been responsibly produced and consume less.

Re: £2 chickens
 

Thats fine now whilst you haven't got 40 hours work then to come home to run a house and kids etc. If you can honestly put your hand on your heart and tell me that you will only buy electricity from ethical comapnies, buy petrol etc from ethical companies, buy clothes from ethical suppliers FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE then fair enough. I do however reserve teh right to not believe a word of it as its not going to happen. I happen to know a lady who went massively out of her way to shop ethically for everything and even she admitted she could probably only hit 50-60% of what she would like to. Its just not possible.

Re: £2 chickens
 

yer much more eloquent than me ian, i call it bullsh1t its easier.:D

Re: £2 chickens
 

Perhaps I could loan you some Brasso for your halo Blazey.

Ian has put the case for ethical products very succinctly.

In the real world, the world which most of us inhabit, we buy the food that our budget allows, with personal taste and cultural(maybe even religious) constraints taken into consideration.

Re: £2 chickens
 

Yes exactly, and I prefer to eat something that hasn't lived its life walking in its own waste. My budget allows it and it tastes better.

I think what most people really mean is that they couldnt give a damn what sort of life the animals had.

Re: £2 chickens
 

I'd bet you couldn't tell £2 chicken from £10 chicken if I cook them equally.

Re: £2 chickens
 

I probably couldn't because I am not a chicken fan, I prefer chops. And I dont pay a lot for meat as my butcher sells quality meat at good prices. I haven't even ever paid more than £2 for chicken because I only buy a few diced pieces to put in curry.

More of a red meat fan.

Re: £2 chickens
 

So it tastes better but you only eat it in curries. make your mind up love. either you buy it for its taste or you cover its taste up with spices.

hole and digging, me thinks

Re: £2 chickens
 

can you actually buy chickens for £2?

Re: £2 chickens
 

yes, Tesco have dropped teh price of their 1.4 kg birds to £1.99.

Re: £2 chickens
 

I was referring more to the taste of eggs, but the more expensive chicken tends to have a better texture, though I have only bought one portion of chicken at university and that was diced. Good chicken can be tasted through spices though.

Re: £2 chickens
 

asda are even cheaper apparently

Re: £2 chickens
 

Rubbish. I'm a qualified chef and I guarantee you can give me the best chicken in teh world and the cheapest and curried you won't be able to taste a diference even in texture. Its how you cook it that counts.

I also love quality food but I'm not snobby enough to pretend there is a difference in teh real world.

get over it and move on. It makes no difference to me that you are happy to spend more to feel comfortable inside but as I posted before take a long hard look at teh rest of your life as well

Re: £2 chickens
 

Is 1.4kg actually classed as a chicken ? Sounds more like a sparrow :)

Re: £2 chickens
 

I dont spend more on chicken, and I only spend a bit more on eggs. The majority of the poll have also said they wont touch the cheap chicken with a barge pole. You shouldn't have to be a qualified chef to get the best out of cheap chicken. Its lived in its own filth which is the main problem, it doesnt really matter how it tastes, I wont support it.

As for the rest of my life, there's nothing wrong with my life. What would you know.

Re: £2 chickens
 

lancsdave, its ~3 lb in weight which is enough for a decent meal

Blazey, you live your live as you like but I bet its not anywhere near ethical like you keep spouting.

Re: £2 chickens
 

The only thing bad is the amount of paper I get through. But it all gets recycled so I guess it isn't all that bad.

Find me something really unethical that I must do and I will apologise, but until then I will stand by my opinions. Just like the other 20+ people who dont eat cheap meat.

Re: £2 chickens
 

What you should say blazey is that they say they don't eat /wouldn't eat £2 chickens......and one of those has said he dislikes the seller so maybe that is why he won't buy them.......and I bet those folk who say now that they wouldn't buy cheap food, would do if their circumstances were such that they could afford nothing else.

Re: £2 chickens
 

EXACTLY...so long as the meat is edible and free from disease (which it is because they remove the unhealthy and the dead) i couldnt give a monkeys chuffer....well in my opinion anyway !

they are bred to eat, we dont eat, we dont survive, simple !!!

get over it, accept it and stfu ffs :mad:

ps.
this doesnt involve household pets (give you something else to pick up on now) !!!

Re: £2 chickens
 

so why not have beef or lamb curry :confused:

Re: £2 chickens
 

I wouldnt buy cheap meat -ever no matter what the circumstances.But i dont eat meat much anyway, so i wouldnt miss it.

i have lived on pittance buying a 10p loaf from kwik save and a few tins of the cheapest beans in the world hoping they would last me all week, for a bit of a change i might treat myself to a 9p pack of noodles but i paid my bills and my dog had good food even if i had to do without- but i would never have bought cheap meat i am not saying it is less tastey it may even be as good quality as the more expensive - it doesnt bother me. i am not taking a stand against cruelty i just dont buy meat that often. the factories that produce the more expensive carcasses can probably afford better lawyers and so the tv companies dont expose them who knows.
all i know is even if my income was low - i wouldnt buy cheap meat

Re: £2 chickens
 

Richard paid nearly £5 for a chicken at th'asda yesterday and it still wasnt free range, but he reckoned it would have had a better life than the cheaper chickens, i think the poor lad needs certifying

Re: £2 chickens
 

going to Bolton Market in the morning -chucks 3 for a fiver,not sure of their life history but they have been plucked and stuffed just need killing and cooking

Re: £2 chickens
 

plucked n stuffed ? just need killing, give me some of what yer on.:drink::rofl38::rofl38:

Re: £2 chickens
 

most tin dog and cat food is made from cheap meat, we let them eat that :rolleyes:

Re: £2 chickens
 

yeah but i am sure the standards are a bit better varying from say winalot - to an own brand in a super store to the really low cost brand in a superstore (which is mostly cereal)

and dont even get me started on those tubes of meat that are sold ...:P

Re: £2 chickens
 

nowt wrong with brawn

its good for them as it contains loads of vitamins etc

Re: £2 chickens
 

this is round about when i actualy start to give a thought about a chicken and believe me none of my thoughts are related to its past

http://www.lisburncity.gov.uk/filest...ed_chicken.jpg

Re: £2 chickens
 

What is brawn ?

Re: £2 chickens
 

i think they make curling tongues and straightners ?

Re: £2 chickens
 

lmao ya nutter

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Re: £2 chickens
 

Personally I'm a king prawn girl but they dont sell them fresh round here and so if I make my own curry its normally chicken. To be honest I've never had a beef or lamb curry, but I do know that lamb curry is the worst thing you can eat on the weight watchers diet. Not quite sure why I know that though!

Re: £2 chickens
 

I love those tubes of meat, I love the smell and the look of it haha. My mum thinks I'm crazy.

Re: £2 chickens
 

Its usually all the bits of teh animals we won't eat but often includes livers, kidneys, stomach etc. Its alos whatever falls off teh carcasses as they boil them

It might not look nice but nutricially its full of minerals vitamins etc

Re: £2 chickens
 

LOL...isnt that braun?

brawn, i thought was muscle:D

Re: £2 chickens
 

UKTV Food: Recipes: Brawn (Jellied Pig's Head)

Pigs head brawn is an old recipe.
If you ever visited The Four Alls Inn at Higham and ate 'stew 'n 'ard', you got pigs head brawn on an oatcake.

Re: £2 chickens
 

8 inches of brawn a day keeps the doctor away :eek:

Re: £2 chickens
 

:eek:...........whatever do ya mean?Attachment 10789Attachment 10790

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those chewsticks they make for pets :)


wash your filthy mind out :rolleyes:

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Attachment 10791:o.............i did ask what ya meant!

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depends on quality not quantity!!!! :D

Re: £2 chickens
 

I think a lot depends on education, research shows that the better educated a person is the more likely they are to care about animal welfare and food quality. Basically the more knowledge you have and the more one is able to process the information the more likely you are to make a conscious decision not to exploit other creatures for your own wants.

Notice I say wants as there is no need for chicken or any other animal product. Humans can live, some would argue more healthily without any animal products.