Hugh's Chicken Run (Merged Discussion)

A question about : Hugh's Chicken Run (Merged Discussion)

Anyone been watching this??
He was showing how you can get more meat off a chicken than most people think and there was one woman watching that said she bought a whole chicken, ate the breasts and threw the rest away - is it any wonder rats are thriving when there's people like this! But when you can get a whole chicken for Ј2.50 then I suppose a lot of people don't give a second thought to throwing half of it away. Bet they then complain they've got no spare cash :rolleyes:

Best answers:

• It was a bit of a eye opener. The most shocking things, for me, wasn't the conditions the chooks were kept in but peoples' attitude to food (wasting so much food, not realising you can make at least another meal out of a chicken)and the supermarkets' attitude to its customers( they're happy to sell this product but won't discuss it on telly. Shocking really.
• I've been buying free range for a while as I am lucky enough to afford it. However I had not realised the situation with Freedom Food and seeing it had the RSPCA endorsement had been treating it as free range. I would like to buy organic meat (as I do veg) but pricewise my MSE head fights with my heart! I do have friends who cannot afford the free range as now meat is in many households assumed to be an every day necessity whereas if it was eaten less frequently then free range can be afforded. It is difficult as I know many MSE ers are so strapped for cash that it is a struggle to buy food.
• i have to admit when watching this and HFW said he was going to show people how to get more out of the chicken i thought "yay, rubber chicken time!". i was quite shocked by what the woman said too. i really hope they learn.
  I'm on benefits so money is very tight.. i'm currently experimenting with eating veggie food during the week, in order to be able to afford better meat at the weekend, like freerange chicken. If i can do it, living with a committed carnivore of an OH, then anyone can.
  BTW. if you're appalled by the conditions in which they keep battery chickens, you also need to consider eggs, pork, beef, lamb, and so on. This article has more information on all of them. Ironically, veal would seem to be one of the more ethical choices of meat eating, in the uk, at least, and yet its the one most people turn their noses up at for ethical reasons..
  keth
  xx
• i am afraid we only like the breast meat in our house so i will only by chicken breasts rather than a whole chicken .... but i NEVER buy farmed hens .... I have been on at my mother for years .... after watching it she is now going to by free range chickens (proper free range ... as there can be a very grey area on free range which i would still class as caged!!!!) sorry .... love the site!!!
• I've been watching with interest as I've been toying with switching to free range local meat for a while, I think HFW's experiment has been the deciding factor in making me go for it. I'd rather eat a mainly veggie diet and have good quality meat as a once or twice a week treat. Better for the diet anyway and will be easy as I've only just recently started eating meat again after 12 years off it.
  When Hayley came out of the intensive shed and bluntly said "well that's how it is, that's reality" it made me remember a philosophy gym exercise about animal welfare I read a while ago which went something like this (please stay with me, it may be long winded):
  She's saying that those chickens don't know any different than the life they've been given so they can't be unhappy with it and we shouldn't show any sympathy or remorse to the fact. But what if it was a shed full of children? What if 2000 children had been shut away from the outside world given an A4 paper's worth of room to move about on, and given only 1 hour of darkness in every 24 and at 5 years old were sent off to be slaves or the such? Would she still approve then and say "well they don't know any different so it's acceptable"?
  No, didn't think so.
  I'm looking forward to Jamie Oliver's "food fight" adventure on Friday too.
• I've been watching the Chicken Run avidly, followed by Kill It, Cook It, Eat It on BBC3 at 10.30pm. In fact last night there was also another programme on C4 called The Lie of the Land, so I ended up feeling somewhat emotional last night after seeing all that killing and wondered why i couldn't sleep!
  Still, I found them all to be very interesting, and a real eye-opener to the farming and food industry in the UK today. I think it's something we should all be sitting up and taking notice of and voting with our feet to show supermarkets we can't be manipulated in this way
  PS Am I the only one who feels like slapping that Hayley when she starts going on?
• It annoys me that a free range chicken from Tesco is still cheaper than one from my local butcher though. I don't want to encourage Tesco but everyone on here is trying to save money ultimately.
• I too watched Kill It, Cook It, Eat It and got very cross!!
  It was very reassuring for everyone to see how much time each animal was given as they were brought in and how slowly and quietly everything happened until they were stunned. All very nice.....
  .... now think about how many animals are slaughtered in this country each day and do the maths. How much time will be given to each one when the cameras aren't there? These guys are very skilled and most will be as caring as they can be given the time constraints, but I find it hard to believe that what we watched watched was the 'norm'.
• I'm quite glad HFW has encouraged people to think about where our meat comes from. It is something that concerns me more and more. I love eating meat - but am finding it hard to eat when I don't know where it comes from or how it was treated. I cannot afford to go all out free-range - but have cut down on my meat eating. If I can eat free-range meat then I will. It'll be interesting to see how things go in the near future - I wonder if it will have a minor knock-on effect on the supermarkets. Will they sell more free-range meats?
• I hope that at some stage there will be a blind taste testing to see what the difference is taste-wise.
  I too would rather eat better quality meat less frequently than cheapo stuff all the time.
• Yes I have been watching and I hope it jolts the nation, not only because of the cruelty to the chickens, but because of the vast amount of food waste involved. The reality is that we currently live in a time of plenty. If we lived in a time of food rationing (and we may one day have to return to a rationing regime because of climate change and population growth) every scrap of food would be used and one wouldn't dream of wasting anything. But surely it's about Education, and the responsibility of every parent to ensure their children know how to cook. The lady concerned who just used the chicken breasts probably learned from her mother that food comes in a pre-chilled plastic container from Sainsburys. In our house, every scrap of chicken meat is used, and the carass turned into stock. But my sister-in-law who is the same age as me, didn't even know what "chicken stock" is, and was appalled by the way it was made, saying "I couldn't possibly eat anything revolting like that" and yet she thoroughly enjoyed the soup which was actually made with it. Which illustrates what a huge amount of ignorance exists around the way food is prepared.
• It's so true though that chicken has become an "everyday" meat where it was once an occasional treat. The same can be said for all meats though really.
• I watched last night and was shocked to see the waste you can read more and sign the campaign on:
  https://www.chickenout.tv/
• Anyone else get a letter from sainsburys today with a lot of chicken related information??
  Shame they didn't use their nectar card records to weed out the vegetarians
  Was disappointed, not a voucher in sight...