Free range or not?

[Classic Tabby]

I earn about £120 a week and I will only buy freerange/organic meat etc. As has been said you just eat les of it, which for me as a carnivore has been a big step to take but I can't buy cheapie meat as I know what awful conditions the poor animals are raised in!
Also the taste is different. Cheap does not usually = taste!
Becky

[Alan77]

Originally Posted by nursecroft

If they are locked up they are literally on top of each other! Pooing on eachother and lying in their own faeces, thats not disease free. Bird flu can still be spread to birds inside.

As for the debate i could not touch an industrial chicken, im not well off and have to count the pennies, i personally believe a healthy diet is one of the most important things and if you can eat those awful fatty birds stuffed with artificial rubbish well i think you're mad! I would not feed them to my cat! You get much more for your money with a free range bird, these cheap birds are full of water, no-where near as fleshy. I wont even start on the welfare issues.

just my opinion though

They taste just fine to me! Most of this 'organic/free range' labelling is a promotional scam IMO. About as organic as a nylon coat! It's like vegetarians, where there are about 24 different types. "I'm a vegetarian, but I eat fish".

What did fish do to inspire such hatred in vegetarians?

[nursecroft]

They are not scam, that would be fraud! If they taste good to you then you obviously dont appreciate good food. Its got nothing to do wth being vegetarian i have no idea how you brought that into this. I am a country girl and a realist when it comes to animals and farming. Intensive battery farming is cruel and unnecessary for the sake of an extra couple of pounds. You get more good quality meat for your money.

As for fish and vegetarians well thats a whole other debate

[dandysmom]

Alan, I'm afraid I disagree with you about organic being a scam. Here in the States to be certified Organic farmers have to undergo rigorous inspections to met the standards and get the seal; am sure it must be similar in the UK. And I'm sorry that you are unable to tell the difference between free range and battery chickens.

[nursecroft]

Originally Posted by dandysmom

Alan, I'm afraid I disagree with you about organic being a scam. Here in the States to be certified Organic farmers have to undergo rigorous inspections to met the standards and get the seal; am sure it must be similar in the UK. And I'm sorry that you are unable to tell the difference between free range and battery chickens.

Yep same in the UK and completely agree

[Kim]

Originally Posted by nursecroft

They are not scam, that would be fraud! If they taste good to you then you obviously dont appreciate good food. Its got nothing to do wth being vegetarian i have no idea how you brought that into this. I am a country girl and a realist when it comes to animals and farming. Intensive battery farming is cruel and unnecessary for the sake of an extra couple of pounds. You get more good quality meat for your money.

As for fish and vegetarians well thats a whole other debate

Good post, well said, I completely agree with you.

I am vegetarian now, amd will only buy free range eggs and organic wherever possible. I buy free range chickens for my OH (both my children are also vegetarians). I think battery farming is appalling, so is dairy farming, but that's another topic. I try and use soya milk as much as possible too.

[dandysmom]

I'm not vegetarian, but eat very little red meat: primarily fish and chicken, although I do love ham, bacon and meat balls; buy only the naturally cured bacon without nitrites/nitrates. The non-organic beef and chicken are loaded with yuck like antibiotics and growth hormones which are getting into the ecosystem as well as our bodies. The waterways have all sorts of toxic substances, and male fish right here in the Potomac are producing eggs because their endocrine systems are messed up....

[Alan77]

Originally Posted by dandysmom

Alan, I'm afraid I disagree with you about organic being a scam. Here in the States to be certified Organic farmers have to undergo rigorous inspections to met the standards and get the seal; am sure it must be similar in the UK. And I'm sorry that you are unable to tell the difference between free range and battery chickens.

Don't be sorry, dandysmom, I'm not. The labeling of products has already been shown to be a scam in the UK, several times:

"Sorting the truth from the lies is very difficult, and certainly not something the consumer can do. It's usually the job of Trading Standards Officers, who have to follow a paper trail to fully determine the origin of the food. That takes time and money - it's often more expensive to prosecute someone than the fine they'll have to pay.

But with a growing number of organic producers (there were some 4000 in 2004), the policing becomes harder, especially if retailers misrepresent produce. Add in some 500 farmers' markets and all the box schemes around the country, and it becomes exceedingly difficult. On top of that, more than half of the organic food sold in Britain comes from abroad."

More here: http://www.safefromscams.co.uk/OrganicFoodScam.html

[nursecroft]

Originally Posted by Alan77

Don't be sorry, dandysmom, I'm not. The labeling of products has already been shown to be a scam in the UK, several times:

"Sorting the truth from the lies is very difficult, and certainly not something the consumer can do. It's usually the job of Trading Standards Officers, who have to follow a paper trail to fully determine the origin of the food. That takes time and money - it's often more expensive to prosecute someone than the fine they'll have to pay.

But with a growing number of organic producers (there were some 4000 in 2004), the policing becomes harder, especially if retailers misrepresent produce. Add in some 500 farmers' markets and all the box schemes around the country, and it becomes exceedingly difficult. On top of that, more than half of the organic food sold in Britain comes from abroad."

More here: http://www.safefromscams.co.uk/OrganicFoodScam.html

You're missing the point, we are not talking about organic we are talking about free range, very big difference!!

[Alan77]

Same goes for both, IMO. On TV recently, a test was done where organic tomatoes were tested against a non-organic tomatoes and there was no definitive proof that anyone could actually tell the difference.
I've bought and used both and I couldn't tell the difference. Same goes for free-range. I'm convinced most people find it tastes different because they want it to.

As regards free-range, that can be 3 hours a day outside. I used to go regularly to a farm where they had free-range turkeys. That never went outside. I'm not knocking you for trying to be positive, but it doesn't work as simply as people would like it to.

Not only would you not have the land in this country to split between cereals (for both bio-fuels and general consumption), vegetables crops, free range poultry, cattle, etc. It'll never happen (again IMO, because that's all it is).

Then there's the issue of what it costs the farmers to produce animals in this environment. Another farmer I know very well is always in debt. He certainly doesn't make much, so he has to get by on what he can. Whereas ideally, the answer would be that the customer just pays a bit more, in most cases, the supermarkets skim as much as they can, so for all the extra work the farmer puts in, he stills gets the same rate as he got before.

This is because after producing animals to this standard, the farmers are left with the option of competing with imported chicken (from Poland, for example), where there's isn't going to sell, or getting in the supermarkets, who (excuse the pun) want their pound of flesh.