The Free Range Chicken Campaign
An update on an earlier post….
Having participated in the recent River Cottage Chicken Out Campaign which I know many of you kindly signed up for, I have been sent an update from the great man himself in a bid to maintain the momentum to force a change in poultry production.
This ties in well with the recent, very interesting and worthwhile debate on this blog about the production of foie gras which was always going to provoke strong opinion from both sides of the fence. Regardless of wether you agreed with any of the comments or not what pleased me most was the fact that people feel strongly about these matters and will take part in sensible debate, more information from each other allows us to form a better, more rounded opinion.
Foie gras production fuels mixed opinions, no doubt about it. What I do believe the majority of people would agree on is the fact that the business of rearing chickens for human consumption under quite horrific conditions needs to be stopped and a basic change of mindset about eating cheap chicken needs to be adopted.
Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall has come up with a fun way to keep this subject in the spotlight….
http://dont.chickenout.tv/index2.html
Have a look for yourselves….
Miles,
I’ve been buying free range chickens and eggs for years now and if my local shops don’t sell it, I don’t buy the battery equivalents. Recently I was tempted by lack of time, to buy a ready prepared meal which had chicken in it but since it did not say free range, I put it back.
On the foie gras subject … what are the livers like when the animals are not force fed?
Cid
April 17, 2008 @ 10:21 am
Cid,
Goose and duck liver is quite a treat, they do not posess anything like the fat content of a liver produced for foie gras but they make a good snack when pan-fried and served on buttered toast.
Miles
April 17, 2008 @ 3:42 pm
I’m going to throw a spanner in the works here… I think. Ok, so free-range chicken, foie gras, etc etc all come under a general heading of animal welfare in the food industry. PETA have come up with an interesting concept - they’re offering $1 million to the first scientist to come up with a marketable ‘in vitro’ meat. No joke, the offer is actually out there in the public and scientific domain now. Would anyone here eat it? If it tasted the same and meant saving the lives of billions of animals? Anyway, you can read more about here http://blog.peta.org.uk/2008/the-race-is-on-to-create-in-vitro-meat
April 21, 2008 @ 6:09 pm
Alexia,
An interesting proposition which I believe would require the mother of all marketing campaigns to win over the general public. I am not sure why it has to taste like chicken when so much of the chicken we eat is tasteless and, most especially the basterdised version of ’southern fried’ that nobody in the US would recognise.
Personally I believe we should all do our bit to ensure our food comes from a reliable, sustainable source where the welfare of the animal and/or land is paramount. We can all do something, a little is better than nothing and I need educating as much as the next person but do I want to eat or serve virtual reality meat? No. Eating ‘food’ created in a laboratory has all the appeal of southern fried battery chicken to me, but that’s my opinion.
Perhaps this blog’s readers have a different point of view?
I welcome a debate, it’s what freedom of speech is all about!
April 21, 2008 @ 10:20 pm