Food ‘n Drink

Recently in the UK we’ve had a few programs going a little more indepth into what’s in your food, where it comes from and also in the case of Chickens and Eggs, how they’re produced. We’ve been buying free range chicken since watching The River Cottage Treatment, after seeing intensively reared chickens and learning about how most of the chicken on our shelves were from these birds. After the latest shows, again from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall from the River Cottage, I’ve learnt even more (for example a farmer is paid around 3p per chicken, yet the supermarket sells it for £2-3!). Have people been made aware from these programs? Whilst the programs themselves didn’t seem to show much change in thought (in my opinion), I definitely believe a change has been made simply because I’ve not been able to buy a free range whole chicken since! Our local Tesco is pretty big (2 floors, Tesco Extra) and whilst they’ve had a few free range pieces (thighs and legs), no chicken breasts or whole chickens have been seen on their shelves for a while. Apparently they’ve sold out. So whilst it’s frustrating it also shows the power of television and how much of a difference has potentially been made. Plus we found some free range turkey breast and the free range chicken legs were a good buy.

A lot of people are saying that it comes down to cost. A free range chicken is around £5-6, compared to about £3 for an intensively reared chicken. But, do you get everything out of your chicken and make the purchase worthwhile? Beside the obvious reason as in the concern over the conditions these chickens are reared in (do you really want to eat a chicken that’s spent the last 39 days (it’s max life-span) walking around in the 1000s of other chicken’s waste?), a FR chicken will also taste better, have a leaner meat from the exercise it can get, and I’ll say it one more time, it won’t have spent its day sitting in its own waste.

So, how to get the most out of your FR chicken. For the two of us (and we probably eat more than an average person) we get the following out of it:
1. Roast dinner, between the two of us 2 legs, a wing perhaps, half a breast and the meat off the back.
2. Half a chicken breast does for a couple of sandwiches - nothing like fresh roast chicken sandwiches.
3. The remaining breast goes great in a Risotto
4. The carcass will make a gorgeous soup the next day for 2-3 people, perfect for a warm lunch.

Besides the fact that sandwich meat chicken from shops is nothing like the one off your roast bird (well I’ve not found it to be) and it’s extortionately expensive (and who knows if it’s free range or not?), and that I’ve never bought a soup that tastes as good as home made, the above list is what we get off 1 £5-6 bird - 4 main meals, a couple of sandwiches and gorgeous soup!

Okay, so maybe Free Range is still too expensive for some, so at least move to the other option of barn chickens - those that have been reared indoors but have 25% more space, 25% more life-span and have more to do than just sit down and eat all day long. They’re around 50p-£1 more but will at least make a difference (usually marked ‘Freedom Foods’).

So, do you still eat intensively reared chickens? Or have you just given up Chicken fullstop?!