I’ve been watching the new series of The River Cottage Treatment on Channel 4 in the UK. Hugh is taking on groups of people each week who all have a bad habit in common when it comes to food such as living off takeaways, living off ready meals, loving chicken but eating it from the worst possible source etc. It’s already been an eye opener for me and up until now I wouldn’t have put myself in the same category as most of these people when it comes to cooking habits.
The first week was about Chicken. People who were on there adored chicken and would eat meals from KFC, chicken nuggets, chicken ‘poppers’ and other sources. I’d been put off eating any of this years ago, however despite these people being at the extreme end of eating ‘bad’ chicken the program showed how the cheap chickens on the shelves in the supermarkets are also not good to eat, and how they’re factory farmed and the exceptionally bad conditions that these chickens are farmed in. I never thought about the fact that the chickens we bought from the supermarket, the 2 for a fiver ones, were the factory farmed ones, but now I don’t know why I didn’t think that! However after watching this program I’ll definitely be insuring that in the future I’ll only be buying free range and if I can afford it, organic chickens.
Despite not being vegetarian, I still don’t want to be eating meat or poultry that’s been reared in such an ugly way. If you want more information on this or want to see what I’m talking about for yourself then visit the Clucking Disgusting site.
Damnables, I wanted to see that programme! Agree with you about the terrible way we treat animals that nobly lay downtheir life for us
I’ve aften considered just how we can get chickens in the supermarket and two for a fiver, already cooked. Perhaps time to add a compulsory ‘Humane Practical Slaughtering’ module to the school’s National Curriculum?
It’ll be on More 4 soon I’m sure
I must admit I was quite naive about the cheaply cooked chickens and the cheap deals. They actually went into Tescos and you could see them standing by the precooked hot chickens and Hugh making a face. My stomach started to turn at that point!
Thursday, Channel 4, 8pm. Then More 4 at 10pm for the F Word repeats
Bought my first free range Chicken today – £5 from Sainsburys. Normal size so we’ll cook it up one weekend and see how it tastes. At the same time bought a boneless leg of lamb for £8 so to be fair the Chicken was cheap!