NACRO

following on from kill it, cook it, eat it

A well conceived and executed programme on CH4 9ish UK time.

Hugh's Chicken Run | 4Food | Channel4.com

I watched this yesterday and was amazed at the number of people who seemed to have no idea what sort of conditions their economy chickens were being raised in.

The only problem I have with the angle the show takes is that they are trying to play on the animal welfare side of things too much. I think there are a proportion of people out there (like that obese sow on last nights episode) who don't give a flying fork if some animal suffers in the production of their food and trying to play on their conscience isn't going to work.
What I believe would work is informing them of the reality that they are eating diseased, sick and unhealthy animals that literally live in their own ****. Nobody want to eat ****. Neither does the idea of a scab and sore infested bird tickle the pallet.
There is a reason to only buy free range poultry and associated products and it's purely selfish, to avoid eating **** and puss. That's what they should be emphasising.

I can't imagine even the stupidest, cruelest most ignorant person would want to eat a tumour for dinner?

edit to add if CH4 had any ***** it would have been called turkey run and the final programme would have been on Christmas day.

Geezer

That's a rather niaive view. Just because the animals live in their own **** and **** does not necessarily translate into bad meat.

I'm not saying that free range may not be better, but there is not any real proof that the meat is bad. You get what you pay for after all, like most things in life, and what that poncy get and nobjockey Oliver don't appreciate is that the majority of people in this country are on low income and can't afford more expensive food.

After all, if it's acceptably tasty, and meets govt standards, why should they?

The scene when that old guy was pressing the woman about what she would choose if she were a chicken was particularly stupid. Chickens wouldn't choose anything, they don't care, they would probably choose what fed them most, ironically that being the crowded shed.

Geezer

davegtt

Nice counter argument

mamoon2

He didn't put the argument across very well, i watched expecting to see extreme conditions with thousands of birds crammed in to a tiny space but they looked fine to me, clean shed, warm, fed regular, water.

If i was a chicken i wouldn't mind staying there (i've stayed in hotels worse )

He looked after those economy chickens quite well and they didn't look diseased and unhealthy. And i doubt a diseased bird would make it to the shelfs.

NACRO

I think the 'poncy get' rather neatly illustrated that many people waste their food with his chicken carcass cook out and that they can in fact afford to buy free-range. They just don't need to buy or waste as much.

It may well be that eating an animal that is forced to live in a world of **** doesn't translate to 'bad meat' but I can't help thinking that something that's covered in pressure sores and burns from the ammonia in it's own waste isn't something I want to put into my body.

Anyone who relies on government standards when it comes to anything is playing a very risky game IMO. I wouldn't trust those *******s one iota. It wasn't that long ago that they were feeding cows sheep brains and poisoning us with beef that met government standards but was riddled with BSE.

Mark's Theory - The cause of BSE

Common sense tells you that something that doesn't move, is covered in sores and lives in it's own filth isn't something you want to put into the food chain. It's these type of practices that encourages the spread and development of disease.

Agreed Oliver is a nobjockey however and his comments almost made me want to go out and buy a 'standard chicken' although I obviously wouldn't eat one...

Likewise the old fella you quoted, his argument was very weak. The real way to get people away from eating this sort of mass produced meat is to make them realise it's in their own self interests.

Tiggs

why do people really care what they eat? tumor, scab, meat.....its all a bit of animal thats now dead....is eating a lump of muscle "nicer" than some other part? If it taste good people will eat it...hence why burgers exist.

are there any other meat eating animals on the earth that give a toss.....you dont see a lion eat a zebra but avoid the bit of sunburn! .... in fact, its normally the sick and old animal that go first.

Chip Sencurry

Yet they are able to spend £50+/ week on cigarettes?

I have problems at all eating meat and would be quite happy to kill for it if I needed to. What I won't do, however, is torture an animal and then kill it .

I think the important point that is not obvious in this show is that intensively farmed birds are often surrounded by dead animals rotting and birds that cannot walk and drag themselves around in their pi55 and ****. I've also watched another program on this subject which showed the hock burns on chickens in most supermarkets, which are from sitting or crawling in the urine.

At least the free range birds are not subjected to this. These birds are fed on hormone feeds, which ultimately end up inside us, instead of being fed on organic seeds, worms etc. I would rather eat something natural whatever the cost instead of eating something potentially harmful to me and beneficial to the profits of supermarkets and chicken farmers.

Also a worrying factor is the fat and water content of these chickens. It's all down to greed and some people will do anything to make a quick buck.

The Zohan

Agreed, we buy organic or free range meat (and veg), it costs more but feel it is worth it. It is the food we feed our kids as well as oursleves and i think it important to give them the best we can (and afford). the cost of a free range chicken to feed 4 of us is maybe 30-50% more, some £ 3.00 extra maybe.

even when we have been on 'hard times' we have strived to buy the best that we can afford, by best i mean organic/free range.

we are by no means rich or wealthy but feel that this is impportant and a priority, certainly over **** and going out/sky tv, etc.

oh and i do think you can taste the difference!

davyboy

If you put 2 slices of chicken brest on a table...

1 Free Range
1 Battery

......would you be able to tell the difference?

Dracoro

Those chickens were NOT economy ones, they are "barn" chickens producing barn eggs.

There was a local battery egg farm near where I grew up (i worked there one summer when I was 16) and it's not surprising no battery farm let Hugh etc. get in with cameras. These places are disturbing.

The only solution (if that is what is really desired) is to ban battery farming to force people to buy barn or free range (and subject to higher costs etc.)

Most people don't (and won't) give a toss so you can only force their hand.

C4 also shown Lie Of The Land which was also interesting.

Geezer

Thing is, organic food is just a con. There is no proof that it is any better for you, yet costs twice as much in many instances. It has become yet another trend that is a cash cow and is perpetuated by the people who benefit from it the most.

As for BSE, the animals were fed organically, it just so happened that the food stuff gave them BSE! It's not as if loads of chemicals made it happen

Personally, I can find little difference in the taste of organic stuff. Some yes, but not enough to justfy the cost.

The same is true of these chickens. Chicken is by it's nature, a fairly bland meat, and the preparation and cooking method make more difference to it's taste than how it was reared, so why pay so much more?

I'm not really into animal cruelty, but breeding animals to kill them to then eat is exploitative in itself, so the time leading up to that is much of a muchness. It is said that the time from birth to slaughter has been greatly reduced since the end of the war, so the birds have less time to 'suffer' anyway.

The price of everything comes at a cost I'm afraid. The UK wants cheap, and it don't come cheap! Someone or something has to pay, whether it be kids in sweat shops in Asia, or chickens in sheds in the UK.

Geezer

OllyK

I'm not sure about taste the difference, but certainly the texture is very different. We have tesco chiken breasts as well as those from the local butcher in the freezer, I can always tell which I'm eating even when the other half has cooked it and the first I know is when I eat it.

druddle

Dont agree i'm afraid. I would rather eat meat or veg that hasnt had something added to it to "enhance" its taste/colour/size or whatever. I wouldnt go out and choose to ingest chemicals like that so why should I be happy with it added to my food.

Dave

Jay m A

iTrader: (2)

I gather there is a difference between free range and organic? I assume you can battery farm organic chickens depending on what is considered 'organic'

Also what defines the boundry between free range and battery?

As you can see I didn't watch the program!

OllyK

I hate to break bad news to you, but everything is made of chemicals including your food.

Organic does not mean "no chemicals" are used, it doesn't even mean "no man made chemicals" are used it just means that only certain man made chemicals are used.

Also you have to consider with veg, what is it in the manure that the plants use. Well once it's all rotted down etc, it's nitrates, so what't the difference between waiting for horse poo to rot to nitrates and just using them directly? Except of course that poo is full of bacteria and I'd rather have sterile nitrate from a bag on my spuds than horse ****, but then maybe I'm just not in to scatology.

OllyK

Organic, for the most part, is to do with the chemicals, pesticides, herbicides etc etc that are used in the production of the product.

Free range means the birds get to spend some time outside. Barn (AFAIK) means they are kept in a barn but can roam (in the little space they have) and battery (certainly when it comes to eggs) involves having up to 4 birds in 12" cube cage stacked in rows 3 or 4 high.

davyboy

Those birds didn't even want to come out of that barn yesterday.

Of course they might have done later but I was watching that stretchy bird on Big Brother.

Geezer

Well, you don't know what process has happened to make your food 'organic', so it's a moot point. As I said in other post, albeit slightly jokingly, cows were fed perfectly organic stuff in your eyes, but it caused one of the biggest disasters in the UK food industry's history. And may yet cause the deaths of several people.

The program also pointed out that the labelling was misleading on the barn hens. So what makes you think you can trust the labelling on 'organic' food any more?

As OllyK has pointed out, it's all chemicals at the end of the day, and there is plenty of naturally occuring stuff in nature that will harm you if it gets into food, and plenty of chemicals that will do you no harm when added to food artificially. Also, you don't know what is in the ground water or soil on these farms. Just because they ain't spraying the crops doesn't mean that harmful substances are not getting on the food chain.

Still, you pay double, it's your choice after all.

Geezer

fivetide

iTrader: (1)

Sadly have to disagree with this. Firstly they are not surrounded by dead and rotting birds. Hugh's walks to remove anything that looks slightly sickly is something that happens several times a day in a real shed, anything ill is taken away asap.

The 'free range birds are also wandering around in their own **** etc, the floor is the same and isn't changed during their life, they just have a slightly bigger area to spread it in.

Free range birds, with outdoor access are at a higher risk of disease like bird flu simply because of the increased outdoor contact.

They are not fed hormone seeds, they are fed regular, high quality feed. They are given vitamins and other medicine in their water exactly the same as the free range lot. the food etc is the same.

The reason they get so big is purely genetics. Once people realised that you could breed disease resistant birds that grow fast they bred for it. Any water added is done by the supermarkets and they do it to all meat. Fat content is the same.

The development of the 'factory' chicken has brought a low cost high protein food to millions of people across the world. It is the fastest expanding farm product because poor countries are now eating it in the millions where they couldn't before.

The farmers get 2p a bird, yet Tesco bang them out at £2.50 each and call it cheap. Essentially if supermarkets paid more and didn't fuss about their profit and had a bit of conscience the farmers wouldn't be obligated to work to the limits of the regulations.

5t.

OllyK

Can you back that figure up? That's £200 for 10,000 birds, nobody is going to keep 10,000 birds for 1 month and only get £200 gross, that won't come close to covering basic costs never mind paying the guy a salary.

fivetide

iTrader: (1)

technically they aren't paid by the bird they are paid by the kg of meat from the bird. That's why they keep saying the birds are top heavy. The great British consumer demands breast fillets so they have birds that grow a lot of breast meat very quickly to maximise the price they get. Even then it isn't a lot.

5t.


http://www.thepoultrysite.com/articl...ken-what-price

Summary: Real costs to business on downward price pressure
Since 2004, energy prices have gone up by nearly 70%
The price paid to farmers in 2004 was 50p/kg.
In April 2006 it was 48.5p/kg, but production costs average 54.69p per kg.
Most poultry businesses will be making a loss of 6.2p/kg.
Although, these differences may seem marginal, this has huge implications for farming businesses. A chicken farmer normally rears 6.5 flocks per year. Farming businesses can operate from very small enterprises (mainly organic and free-range) to large scale sites built to provide the optimum rearing environment for the bird. A middle sized grower may rear 140,000 birds on one site in a number of houses.

Most growers supply chicken to processors that supply the retail market (around 85%), whilst others grow for processors supplying the wholesale and catering markets (15%). Taking a medium sized grower as an example, based on these costs as previously discussed, the reader can now begin to appreciate what effect this will have on a business. With a loss of 6.2p/kg based on NFU figures and a production of 280,000 kgs: 280,000 x 6.2 pence equates to: £17,360 per flock or £112,840 per annum LOSS These costs are being incurred by individual farmers and integrated company owned farms alike. In the loss of price rises, which is difficult to quantify but is estimated to be between 2p - 6.2p per kilogramme (over the course of the year), or between £31.7 - £98.3 million per annum, based on 1.586m tonnes (Defra, 2006) of production in 2005.

OllyK

OK so you meant 2p profit per bird (I know the article suggests many are running at a loss). The confusion arose, it would seem, from discussing profit for farmers verses revenue fo supermarkets.

fivetide

iTrader: (1)

Yes, they make (if they are lucky) 2p per bird so you have to slaughter thousands of them to make anything at all.

I think it is something like £1.16 per bird and a cost of £1.14 raising it in the first place so at £2.50 that is still a fair margin.

Make sense now?

5t.

EDIT on your orginal point and using the figures above a farmer has to slaughter 1000 birds to make £200

A medium farm has 140,000 in a flock so 14 x 200 = £2800 and they raise 6 flocks a year total £16,800

Long hours all day everyday wandering about in bird ****. I wouldn't do it for £16,800 a year.

5t.

OllyK

I'm not one for standing up for supermarkets, but that £1.34 difference isn't all margin, there will be costs associated with transport, packaging etc. No doubt the supermarkets still make considerably more profit than the farmer.

That't 20p per bird not 2p. They need to do 10,000 for a £200 profit. Or have you missed a 0 out there?

I think you missed a 0 out in the initial calc!

I used to work on a battery egg farm for a lot less! Wouldn't want to do it now I have to admit.

Geezer

You would if it was your farm and it meant you not going bankrupt. It can't be easy to switch farming types, alot of these farms will have been like this for years. It's only relatively recently the real squeeze has been put by supermarkets.

Geezer

fivetide

iTrader: (1)

Did miss the zero but still, makes the situation worse doesn't it? It is a wonder that anyone bothers.

I'm not saying it is a good thing to have birds treated in this way but at the end of the day it is a chicken which really doesn't have a lot of interest in things! If Hugh was that bothered he wouldn't care if it had spent it's entire life on a sun lounger in the costa del sol, he wouldn't eat it.

It is just reality i'm afraid. Lot of wrong info in here on feed, chemicals etc though which was what made me post in the first place

5t.

MooseRacer

Of course, all meat has added to it to make it a pretty colour, acceptable texture, familiar taste and last for weeks is some naturally occuring harmless chemicals.

Locally grown/reared produce from my local farmshop is not only tastier, not much more expensive and provides a fairer income for local farmers.

There is a (big) place for mass market food, but don't try and pretend it's just the same as (proper) organic food.

Geezer

I haven't said it's the same, but it isn't that different, and certainly not worth the premium you pay for it.

Geezer

OllyK

Just because it's from a farm shop does NOT mean it is organic. Yes there is quite a difference between the mass produced stuff in the super market compared to that direct from a local farm, organic or otherwise.

You would however be hard pressed to tell the difference between non-intensive organic and non-intensive non-organic.