cheap chickens

[bluemoon]

I read once that a three and a half pound truly organic chicken should, by rights, cost around £16. (in a supermarket). No-one would pay those sort of prices and this was a couple of years ago now, long before feed costs rose by more than 50%. I'm assuming that this would mean for a slow growing 'normal' bird. I believe that organic farmers have had to compromise and keep the fast maturing type, but under organic conditions, to make it even vaguely profitable. My mum can remember a time when all chickens were all the slow maturing ones, kept under fairly natural conditions, but chicken was considered a luxury food. Perhaps we need to return to those times.

[Hashette]

And worse still - our 'caring' government is proposing to increase the housing density of battery reared chickens to 21 per square metre!! This follows an EU directive although the British government could set a lower limit. It's barbaric!

Couldn't agree more.

What really got up my nose was when someone I was talking to said that he thought the new conditions would be "much more humane" Let's just say that was a long conversation......

[Bephlam]

I too only buy organic free range chicken....it's really expensive, but it does two meals and it tastes sooo much better. No comparison!!

As a result of the price, we hardly eat chicken now...for a treat we buy a whole one, have a roast and something else the next day with the left overs. For day to day cooking, I buy organic free range thighs and take the meat off the bone...brilliant for curries, risottos, etc!

Breast is over rated...!! (how dodgy does that sound...but you know what I mean!!)

[HayleyB]

I'm a leg girl myself...

[matthew2riches]

I bet they're not as tasty as my cockerel was a few weeks back.

[PAULW]

We had one yesterday best tasting chicken I have had in a long time if tesco wants to sell a four and a half quid chicken for two quid who am I to argue

[Two_Sheds]

chicken was considered a luxury food. Perhaps we need to return to those times.

It's a luxury in this house!
I cook from scratch (aside from jars of curry sauce) and I eke out all meat dishes with lots of beans, pulses and veggies.

One of the reasons chicken is so popular is that it's been promoted so hard as healthy, low-fat, healthier-than-red-meat protein.
Obviously kidney beans don't have as much profit margin

[HayleyB]

Roasted £9 chook last night and the other half tonight with salad

[Flummery]

When I was a kid (get the violins out!) we only had chicken at Christmas or special occasions. It WAS a luxury then. It still should be. Never mind the £2 - each chicken costs a life. That should be valued more highly than that.

[blackkitty]

We only eat organic chickens or good free range ones that we get from the butcher, we only have about two a month. I sometimes buy organic legs as they're better price wise and snap up any organic chicken on the mark downs. We accept that good meat with reasonable provenance costs money (and it should). We also never buy Danish pork as their farmers are allowed to keep pigs in conditions that are illegal here but can then undercut our farmers. The government is all ready to rattle on about the obesity crisis and the environment but they never seem to point out that if all meat had to be raised to high welfare standards and we all had to pay the full price, it would do a lot for both.
Okay off the soap box now...

[Hilary B]

We only eat organic chickens or good free range ones that we get from the butcher, we only have about two a month. I sometimes buy organic legs as they're better price wise and snap up any organic chicken on the mark downs. We accept that good meat with reasonable provenance costs money (and it should). We also never buy Danish pork as their farmers are allowed to keep pigs in conditions that are illegal here but can then undercut our farmers. The government is all ready to rattle on about the obesity crisis and the environment but they never seem to point out that if all meat had to be raised to high welfare standards and we all had to pay the full price, it would do a lot for both.
Okay off the soap box now...

I think there are a few of us would like to borrow your soap box.
I do occasionally buy 'cheap' meat, but only when it is reduced to ridiculously cheap, because that means it must be sold NOW or thrown away, and throwing it away would be worse. This especially applies to chicken. We simply don't eat chicken unless it is either free range, or ridiculously cheap as above.
I haunt the 'reduced for quick sale' sections anyway.....

[blackkitty]

Please Hilary, help yourself to the soap box, the more of us on it the better
I also think that we've become so keen on buying 'expensive' foods at cheap prices that we've lost track of the food that are genuinely cheap such as cereals and seasonal vegetables. I know that on the vine I'm preaching to the converted but I teach Home Economics at a high school in Warwickshire and the pupils clearly live on sausages, chicken breasts etc. We do lots of one pan (or one wok in the classroom) dishes such as cheats paella and biryani which can be vegetarian or use a small amount of meat to feed several people. Once they get used to using lots of flavouring ingredients like garlic and onion they love it, but the constantly tell me how different it is to the food they eat at home.
We're hoping to get funding soon to offer some afternoon parent and children / grandparent and garndchild etc cooking classes and we'll definitely be doing a lot of this type of food.

[Hilary B]

Please Hilary, help yourself to the soap box, the more of us on it the better
I also think that we've become so keen on buying 'expensive' foods at cheap prices that we've lost track of the food that are genuinely cheap such as cereals and seasonal vegetables. I know that on the vine I'm preaching to the converted but I teach Home Economics at a high school in Warwickshire and the pupils clearly live on sausages, chicken breasts etc. We do lots of one pan (or one wok in the classroom) dishes such as cheats paella and biryani which can be vegetarian or use a small amount of meat to feed several people. Once they get used to using lots of flavouring ingredients like garlic and onion they love it, but the constantly tell me how different it is to the food they eat at home.
We're hoping to get funding soon to offer some afternoon parent and children / grandparent and garndchild etc cooking classes and we'll definitely be doing a lot of this type of food.

I love doing one-pot meals, and I learned from my Mum how to make a small amount of meat into a filling meal (but I have taught myself a lot more ways to do so). I do a pretty good 'my way' paella. It is quite difficult to get a small enough amount of the protein ingredients (and the colourful veg) to make paella for 2. Mostly I could double the rice, onion and garlic and make it feed 4! I also do a 'rainbow curry', with as many differently coloured veg as possible, to 'disguise' (for those who need it disguised) the fact that there is not much animal protein in there (I used to use about 4oz frozen prawns to make it feed 4 of us, and we were big eaters, especially since we only ever had one course, and it would usually be a long time between meals).
My store cupboard specials include red lentils and Bulgar wheat, used to mop up excess liquid in stews, curries etc (lentils take longer, so the bulgar is handy when time is limited).

So many people have no idea how to make meat go further. My 'ideal' would be an 'agricultural balance'. If we can work out just how much dairy produce we use, what proportion of one cow's annual yield that would be (not the ultra-high yielding ones, something a bit more smallholderish) and for every cow being milked, there is one calf per annum, which can be grown into beef.
To get the best out of grazing you need sheep as well as cows, say 2 ewes per cow, which will give 3 meat lambs a year (1½ per ewe). Then you get to pigs. Pigs are great recycling machines. They can turn all sorts of spoiled food and other 'waste from food' into 2 good products, manure (for the vegetable patch) and meat. I reckon a large family can use up 2 pigs a year.
If you want eggs, there will be cockerels hatched, and not all the hens will be good layers, etc. I reckon each 'eg per day' is equivalent to 2 'meat chickens per year'.

By the time you've worked all that out, I reckon you can have a Sunday roast every week, get at least one meal from the leftovers, and SOME meat 3 more days a week, if you don't insist on large portions. That would be healthy eating, healthy for the planet, and for the production systems.
Look what you get when you invite me onto a soapbox!

[Flummery]

Look what you get when you invite me onto a soapbox!

Lots of soap - and it's good stuff too! I agree with every word me-dear!

[bluemoon]

Lots of soap - and it's good stuff too! I agree with every word me-dear!

Me too!