As a long-term veggie and seasoned believer in animal welfare, it came as no surprise to me to see the carnage and mayhem in a shed of intensively farmed chickens last night on Hugh fearnley-whittingstall's Chicken Run on Channel 4. And what's the betting that Hugh's mock-up barn was practically the Ritz compared with the far larger real sheds that don't get shown on TV?
But that familiarity didn't stop me from feeling a sense of sadness and resignation at the fact that some people I've talked to afterwards (even one of those taking part in the show) will continue to buy intensively-farmed chicken because it's so much cheaper -- as much as one third of the cost -- of free range. With this in mind, how has the show affected your choices? Fill out our poll, and be honest!
Chicken Run was an excellent program, it taught us things that we never new about what we are eating, Free Range Chickens from now on.
Posted by: Mrs A Green | January 9, 2008 10:08 PM
I only ever by free range meat - it's more important to me than buying organic, but the problem comes when you go out or get a takeaway. I try to just eat veggie when I go out, but I have to admit that I do quite often just order the meat dish and pretend it's all ok.
What I don't get is why people think they should have cheap meat. All this talk of people not being able to afford it misses the point - we shouldn't be eating so much meat anyway. The poor in Italy are responsible for some of our favourite italian dishes and they are usually meat-free.
Meat should be a special treat, not a daily requirement.