My mother was of Northern stock so I have no quarries with eating offal. Sadly I think in the last decade or so people think that they are getting better food through 'choice cuts' from supermarkets, which brings us back full cicle to the topic we started on:P

Hugh and Guys - congratulations! It's about time the public understood how our food ends up in the supermarket. I know there is a cost issue here for families with limited funds but people should be given a choice and maybe if enough people bought free range then the prices will come down.

When I grew up, which wasn't that long ago, we had a joint of meat for Sunday dinner and my Mum gave us the leftovers on Monday. We only had Chicken at Christmas and Easter.

Now with a family of my own I buy free range chickens for Sunday dinner (because the other options are tasteless) for a few pound extra it goes a lot further - with leftovers for sandwiches and the bones boiled up for a tasty stock to make soup.

Lets bring back the old traditions as if we carry on eating mass produced poultry and other items then I fear the long term effects on our health - most non organic meat and poultry are fed with growth hormones to produce a bigger product. Who knows what the effects of these are in our food chain.

Keep it coming Hugh!

I personally for one will be watching the programme tonight and visiting here in the ad breaks to see what people are saying.

Firsty great work channel4 and HFW! outstanding.

On the topic - It is so upsetting to think that our nation has "evolved" into eating cheaply produced meat.

Why did our forefarthers bother fighing for our freedom when really we live trapped in a capitalist prison?

Iv just been on a major supermarket website to check the price of chicken and 500g of so called "free range" is just over £8 organic is even more, yet 1kg of processed is £5, no wonder people choose the latter.

I think another problem is the packageing of the cheap chicken looks so fresh and inviting - eg light blues, white labels and clear polythene - that combined with a big red buy-one-get-one-free sticker is just to good for a budget shopper to refuse - this is not even the T***** Value stuff god only knows what those chickens have to endure.

The govenment needs to step in here and take control, force the supermarkets to conform to a regulation, just like ofcom does with the phone industry.

Reading the last posts about Scottish land rasied birds and eggs - and how our parents used to get eggs and farm gates upsets me how this is no longer the case.

Unfortunately I get the distinct impression the people who run the country are Director of the companies that own the supermarkets so they have no vested interest.

quote:

Originally posted by riverghost:
Unfortunately I get the distinct impression the people who run the country are Director of the companies that own the supermarkets so they have no vested interest.

I dont doubt that the supermarkets are given a huge voice in what happens within the uk produce & legislation wise. These market conveyor belts have far to much power & an over loud voice within the politics of food.

So if you grow your own veggies, what do you do for things like tomatoes? Do you have a poly tunnel?

quote:

Originally posted by riverghost:
So if you grow your own veggies, what do you do for things like tomatoes? Do you have a poly tunnel?

we have a 15ft wide by 35ft long tunnel which WILL be recovered this year (thanks to the last gale ! meant to do it last year but didnt get the time & the cover wanted to go visit our neighbour last friday) and just under an acre of garden ground, growing everything from Aubergine to tatties for us, fodder veg for the animals & patches of chickweed as a winter boost for the chickens.

Well something you could always do is off courses. Free B&B for all the labour you want:P

What I meant to add was doing it in the planting season when you don't have the tourists there.

quote:

Originally posted by riverghost:
Well something you could always do is off courses. Free B&B for all the labour you want:P

We have National Trust for Scotland work camps for that.

We find more than a few of our guests get drawn into the workings of our croft & the island. They come for 2 weeks just to chillout, or bird watch & before they know it, they are knee deep in mud making a wallow for the pigs & showering them off, or out in the field helping to bale the silage or helping to stook the bere (native shetland barley).

Yeah pigs don't need much encouragement to frolick in the mud with someone. I gained a lot of knowledge of farming as a child. We used to go up to Wales for the school holidays as the folks had a cottage there and all there was within twenty miles were farms and hamlets.

quote:

Originally posted by riverghost:
Yeah pigs don't need much encouragement to frolick in the mud with someone. I gained a lot of knowledge of farming as a child. We used to go up to Wales for the school holidays as the folks had a cottage there and all there was within twenty miles were farms and hamlets.

It always delights me when I go out to find someone in the field with the pigs (we dont have signs up saying keep out) who has never had contact with pigs before closer than supermarket shelves. No matter what age they are, they become delighted kids as they discover just how social & fun pigs are, honestly, folks faces when our boar presents ears for scratching are just a picture to delight in. I dont know where it comes from, but far to many people view pigs are violent & anti social & I love seeing this frame of mind dissolve in the space of 10 mins & a lump of carrot.

We've had guests here who are chicken phobic too ! but after showing them incubation right through to POL & polite little bantams who love to come and say hello if you sit in the garden, they leave wishing they had space to keep chickens. Education people about the true facts of animal husbandry can do wonderful things indeed, the message just needs to be allowed to get out there.

After today I have been begining to think that maybe they should have advertised the forum more as an accompanyment to the series.
I think discussing it is just as important as watching the programme.
I think with the advent of mass internet access it puts a whole new dimension to these programmes. It probably wouldn't do any harm to have the guys involved maybe doing an online discussion at some point too.

It probably wouldn't do any harm to have the guys involved maybe doing an online discussion at some point too.[/QUOTE]

Topping idea ! we can only hope that the mods pass the idea onwards & upwards do something about it. Or even get hugh to log onto the forum for a chat. Having so much positive forum contribution can only be good for the mans stress levels & enthusiasm to continue onwards with his campaign.

Oh! he looked like he was about to lose it and to have to go against all his ethics just to prove a point! That can't be hard.

Glad the show has proved such a talking point.

Would any of you like to share your views on Hugh's Chicken Run and the other programmes in Channel 4's Big Food Fight season with the makers of The TV Show, Channel 4’s monthly discussion show about what’s on TV? Would you like the chance to have your views aired on Saturday’s show?

Has Channel 4 succeeded in changing the way you think about food, or just help to turn your stomach?

If you’d like to get in contact with makers of The TV Show, please email: thetvshow@channel4.com. Tell them I sent you.

The Big Food debate is now the bookie’s favourite for the main debate on The TV Show this Saturday 12 Jan at 4.15pm and we’d like to hear your opinions of this week’s shows: Hugh's Chicken Run (7, 8 & 9 Jan, 9pm), Dispatches: The Truth About Food (10 Jan, 9pm) and Jamie's Fowl Dinners (11 Jan, 9pm).

To keep-up-to-date with what’s coming up in the next programme on Saturday January 12th, please see [URL=http://www.channel4.com/interact/viewfinder/tell-krishnan.html ]The TV Show website[/URL].

PS Riverghost, Chookwoman, I’ll pass your comments (above) on to the programme makers.

Well you have my email. let me know if there's anything I can contribute through the net as I have little time for any other method.

I wish Hugh would state the obvious in response to the constant harping from the hugely overweight contributers to this show that they could not possibly afford to pay 7 pounds for a free range chicken and suggest that they really shouldn't be stuffing the amount of food down their throats that they obviously are... it would appear that they aren't starving....

Maybe it's not the quantity of food but the quality that is causing that. Crappy processed, reclaimed foods with transfats!

I don't disagree Riverghost. Less food and better quality wouldn't do any of them any harm...

I found the attitude of the "Mother Hen" from the allotment group, when faced with the horror of the intensively farmed chickens, absolutely staggering.
What "reality" was she talking about? The engineered reality of the supermarket price war? If you'll excuse the pun, it's all a bit chicken and egg. The fact that she can only afford 2 for £5 chickens is down to Tesco and its policy of artificially deflating the value of the chickens, which in turn determines the nature of the industry. Have the supermarkets always had this offer? No. So, what was she eating before? More expensive chicken? Or an alternative?
Unfortunately, however well-intentioned this series of programmes might be, with only 33000 or so pledging to change their buying habits thus far, I don't expect the supermarkets are worrying too much.

Me too. I found someones open acceptance of keeping anything in those conditions totally appalling. It takes a right hard neck to walk in those sheds & come out saying so what, whats wrong with it.

i would just like to say that after watching tonights chicken run that if the people on the estate grew thier own veggies on the allotment as well as raising chickens the money that save could be put towards better quality food that they have to buy!!
plus it gets them outside in the fresh air and gives them a bit of exersise it looks like some of them could do with it

I do have to say that the words 'battle' and 'axe' both sprung to mind in quick succession!