I love meat, chicken, beef, pork, it's gorgeous and I'm not giving it up, but I didn't realise the conditions were so bad. I wasn't happy about all the chickens going on the production line!
I think they've made a good point on this programme. It is ok to kill an animal for food, but there must be a good deal of respect so the animals have a comfortable life and are killed humanely.
I'm definately not buying any of the cheaper intensive ranges now.
One criticism, putting the programme out at 9pm on a Friday night? Surely you'll be missing out on a lot of viewers there..
Yeah it wa san open and frank show. Most people are hypocrites; they don't want to know where thier foods comes from but are happy to eat a southern fried chicken. I get the feeling that McDonald chicken nuggets are made from MRI (if that is the right spelling).
On the plus side, i have eaten a wild chicken; in my opinion they are much and leaner than free range. On the downside the cocks crow too early in the morning for must of us..lol
Originally posted by San Miguel: Yeah it wa san open and frank show. Most people are hypocrites; they don't want to know where thier foods comes from but are happy to eat a southern fried chicken. I get the feeling that McDonald chicken nuggets are made from MRI (if that is the right spelling).
On the plus side, i have eaten a wild chicken; in my opinion they are much and leaner than free range. On the downside the cocks crow too early in the morning for must of us..lol
Not just nuggets, burgers, fingers, kiev's.
We have 14 roosters running around at the moment & all the new lads have now found they're voice. You know when its 7am on this croft ! D Day soon, only 5 of them will be kept for breeding, the rest will find themselves in the freezer.
A brilliant programme, fronted by a person, Jamie Oliver, who is passionate about the way food is produced, and the availability to the public. It certainly opened our eyes, and for one thought I was quite up on the production of our foods. We all learn. Well done Jamie.
This programme was great as was Hugh fearnley-Whittingstalls. I have been trying to buy chicken reared in a more humane way for some time. My one query on the programmes is the quoted price of Freedom Foods. A standard chicken is priced at £2.50 to £3 and its been said Freedoms are only £1 dearer. How come Morrissons sell these at £8. That really is above my means
I agree with Janin168, that the price difference quoted was only £1, but in reality the difference is at least £2 (depending on size of bird etc). However I would still rather have free range everytime. A 2kg bird cost me £7.32 today, but between 2 of us we will have a roast tomorrow, then I'll make a pie with some of the leftovers on Monday (a 3rd of the pie will go in the freezer for emergencies) & Tuesay the last of the leftovers will go into either a curry or risoto.
It's a personal choice, I don't just buy free range becuase I feel it's my moral duty, I also find it tastes better. On taste level it's the difference between buying Tetley tea & supermarket own brand. The own brand is ok if there's nothing else, but it doesn't hit the spot quite like the real thing.
I do hope FR chicken comes down in price as more people demand it, so that those who feel it is out of their price range can experience it.
Originally posted by JonnyJP: This programme is brilliant!
I love meat, chicken, beef, pork, it's gorgeous and I'm not giving it up, but I didn't realise the conditions were so bad. I wasn't happy about all the chickens going on the production line!
I think they've made a good point on this programme. It is ok to kill an animal for food, but there must be a good deal of respect so the animals have a comfortable life and are killed humanely.
I'm definately not buying any of the cheaper intensive ranges now.
One criticism, putting the programme out at 9pm on a Friday night? Surely you'll be missing out on a lot of viewers there..
I used to be just like you. Don't worry it's not a 'I turned veggie and now I'm going to give you grief as I'm up on a soapbox' post.
I was lucky enough to share a house for a couple of years with a master butcher. He even did TV and radio stuff. The brought home meat that was all either free range or organic and after tasting that I never wanted to taste the intensely farmed stuff again.
I have always been pro animal welfare and haven't eaten MacDonalds etc for well over a decade so it was fortunate, years later, when I discovered what exactly the processes involved were that I was eating the good stuff anyway.
Originally posted by janin168: This programme was great as was Hugh fearnley-Whittingstalls. I have been trying to buy chicken reared in a more humane way for some time. My one query on the programmes is the quoted price of Freedom Foods. A standard chicken is priced at £2.50 to £3 and its been said Freedoms are only £1 dearer. How come Morrissons sell these at £8. That really is above my means
You can get at the moment at M&S two three packs of shoulder/leg joints for three squid
After seeing the appalling conditions chickens have to endure, surely there cannot be a question in any decent human being's mind, that there is only one right thing to do - don't buy chicken or eggs unless they are free range. If we all stand against the supermarkets and restaurant and buoycot the consumption of chicken and eggs which are not free range, the supermarkets and restaurants will have to change. The human being is the most powerful living species and with that comes the duty of stewardship and to take good care of other species whose lives and fate are in our hands. We should behave like the higher species that we are. How can any human being who buys caged chickens or eggs have any self respect for such disgusting abuse of animals for the sake of pennies? It's down to all of us - together we do have the power to stop this horrific abuse of animals.
The facts of life are as follows. If you are a single parent, living on the pathetic amount the government gives you,and then of course they are useless at tracking down the father to get him to help, the amount I have to live on just doesn't give me the choice. Tesco sell me 2 chickens for £5. Vegatables including potatoes for £2.50. So for £7.50 I can feed me and the 2 kids 4 meals for £7.50. His show talked about better housing for the birds. I would love to be able to afford them, just can't. And by the way. He spoke of the bird costing £3.99 It didn't. If you looked closely the bird he offered as an alternative was £5.85p That's more than double the cost and I only get half the number of meals for my kids. My kids health and healthy eating comes first and if that means buying 2 for £5 then bugger the birds.
What a fantastic programme - well articulated and understandable even to the youngest veiwer [my 9 year old watched it].
I always felt that I was well informed and made choices based on my knowledge. We live in the country and raise our own chickens, one of my best friends runs an organic farm from which she sells organic boxes which include chicken and eggs. So all my chicken related products are either organic or free range. I always thought I was a bit of an obsessed stickler for 'free range' products.
What really surprised me was the inclusion of 'wet eggs' eeuugghh! in things like mayonnaise etc. I just had never thought about it - so for this I was thankful to see this.
It really has changed my shopping habits with regards to cakes, biscuits, and all egg products.
Thankfully with farmers markets and local producers our choices of shopping venues are changing, where we can buy products with confidence, knowing where they are from, who made them and what is in them - and you can literally get this from the horses mouth so to speak!
Originally posted by mpitt: The facts of life are as follows. If you are a single parent, living on the pathetic amount the government gives you,and then of course they are useless at tracking down the father to get him to help, the amount I have to live on just doesn't give me the choice. Tesco sell me 2 chickens for £5. Vegatables including potatoes for £2.50. So for £7.50 I can feed me and the 2 kids 4 meals for £7.50. His show talked about better housing for the birds. I would love to be able to afford them, just can't. And by the way. He spoke of the bird costing £3.99 It didn't. If you looked closely the bird he offered as an alternative was £5.85p That's more than double the cost and I only get half the number of meals for my kids. My kids health and healthy eating comes first and if that means buying 2 for £5 then bugger the birds.
Having spent 8 yrs in the past being a single parent to 2 children & also being mucked around by the shambles called the child support act & living on what little money single parents get I know first hand that it is possible to take a higher quality food option.
You sit back and look at your priorities.
Id walk to the shops with 2 kids in the double buggy rather than waste money on public transport (3 mile walk each way).
I used one of the best butchers in town who even then (5yrs ago) dealt in free range & naturally reared meats, bought the cheaper cuts of meats which more often than not, made tastier dishes.
We didnt waste money on having dvd players, wii machines, nintendo's, playstations, nights out with the girls etc, heck my kids didnt have any of that until recently (said 2 kids are now 15 & 14)
Find ways of keeping your fuel bills down. Dont waste money chatting on the phone. etc etc etc. If you put a mind to it, you can put the dietry needs of your children first.
We still live more or less the same way but we no longer live near a city. Now we are on an island that is a 4hr 30 min ferry ride from the nearest supermarket & full time employment. My husband & I work part time but finance wise, things are still tight, but we are comfortable. Raising our own livestock provides us with good lean meat & animals to put out to the sales which does little more than cover the animal feed costs.
Its a choice you as a parent make, you either keep up with technoligy/fashion/trends or you opt for a healthy diet for all of you.
Btw. My 2 kids who spent 8 yrs as deprived children of a single mother have faired really well. 15yr old is a year ahead at school and about to head off to collage to study towards becoming a vets nurse. 14yr old already has been offered a carpenters apprenticeship to walk into when he leaves school, they both care little for console game playing & are wonderful polite caring young adults to be around. Not bad considering they spent 8yrs is a really crap area of the town daily subjected to foul mouthed little (enter word of choice) that rather to many children in deprived area's have become.
I thought the programme was excellent. I have one question. If the producer only gets 3p per bird for 'factory' farming how much does he get for free range? The costs thereafter would appear to be the same so I would have to assume the free range farmer gets over £2.50 per bird! Seems unlikely so are we being ripped off over the high quality birds?
We have been watching all the food fight programmes, and didnt eat meat all week! I love meat, i love to cook, and am concerned what we put into our bodies. having watched the 'fowl dinners' programme on Friday, whilst holding the indian takeaway menu! we felt we couldnt eat the chicken becasue of what we were witnessing, so plumped for vegetarian, and prawns, and we are now addament never to buy any chicken again unless it is free range and organic. We went to sainsburys on saturday and the selves were full of ordinary chicken, but all of the 'taste the difference' and the 'so organic' chicken had gone and we managed to get one of the last packets.(also this applied to the eggs, and we bought free range, organic too). It looked so much different, no redness, no amonia smell, it look leaner and a different shape. It was fantastic, so delicious, it actually tasted of roast chicken! so from now on if we will be eating meat once or twice a week, as we are on a budget, but will pay the extra for organic free range, much better for us and the chicken, rather than eating pumped up, false, cheap chicken. Theres no excuse not to even on a budget, you dont have to eat meat every day, or cheap ready meals. thanks jamie x
Don't have kids if you can't afford to feed them. Get a job and let a childminder look after them whilst you contribute something to this country instead of taking.
At the end of the day, an animal loses it's life to supply a person with a meal. Regardless of how the animal is brought up, IT'S STILL CRUEL AND UNECESSARY!!!
Many of you should actually try to live without meat for at least 7/14 days to see how easy it actually is. There are loads of meat free alternatives out there and you'd be hard pushed to tell the difference to be honest. If you cared that much about the welfare of animals, you'd embrace a meat-free lifestyle and, if it agrees with you, take up a vegan lifestyle. Animal explotation needs to stop and the ignorance that people show towards where their food comes from is a disgrace.
I agree with all that stuff about not having kids if you can't afford to feed them but I know it's not always that easy for everyone and who are we to judge!! I live on a tight budget due to the hike in mortgage rates and Council Tax; even though I work full time. It's hard for everyone and we need to get our priorities right. I'm not a veggie but always try to eat healthy food. I must admit that after watching all these programmes on T.V about animals I am starting to loose the taste or desire for meat. I only really ate chicken, fish and occassional red meat anyway; but I always loved chicken and fish. I would have said that I never would get tired of chicken; but now I think it's different and I could probably do without. I bought my first Free Range Organic chicken last week. I found the meat very filling and we didn't need to eat as much but I was disappointed with the flavour. Everyone has said that it's tastier but I didn't think so. The texture was firmer and more muscular; think that s why it was so filling. Has anyone else experienced this?
Congratulations to Jamie & Channel Four for this informative programme, I try to buy organic and free range but had no idea about where the sneek caged eggs into , I .e mayo etc.. industry/money grabbing/heartless giants whom just want our money.
I am now In favour of cooking , in the real sense, ie. like what the rest of the these c4 programmes are saying like eat to live.
Since watching dispatches last week on the processed food all of this wekk I have cooked from sratch, I will continue to do so and can never look at a chicken nugget in the same light again. I was a fast food junkie , these programme's have changed my views and therefore my lifestyle , Thanks c4 & Jamie for exposing the truth about our food.
i don't eat meat and i find it is healthier and better but i won't go into that. as somebody who doesn't eat meat i am happy to see at least that if an animal has to die for somebody to eat it, that it is treated properly and that people can realise where their food comes from. people who eat meat from supermarkets ect are so ignorant about meat and so out of touch. it's not a magical food that comes from nowhere. animals die and go through great pain so they can eat more meat than they'll need. if you're going to eat meat too, go and kill it yourself and then decide if you want to eat it. snap its neck, skin it, remove the organs. look at its face while you take its life. humans have a sense of empathy for other lives. if you can hurt an animal and feel something for it then you aren't human.
