Setting aside the ethics, is there any difference in the nutritional content of a chicken running free in the field behind my house and a chicken cooped up in the nastiest battery farm?

They don’t have battery farms any more. That’s why the price of eggs has just gone stratospheric.

The advantage, as a chicken, of being couped up is that you’re unlikely to be patronised by Hugh Fearnly-Twattingstall. A price worth paying in my book

That’s why the price of eggs has just gone stratospheric

Bit of an eggsaggeration.

When is a chicken not a chicken

when it gets to the other side of the road?
EDIT: Both of those are a poultry excuse for a yolk

Dunno.
IIRC there’s no difference in organic vs other veg.

I guess they’d be a difference in fat/protien proportions and maybe the enymes associated with them. But once dead the nasty chicken will have had water pumped into it to make it look buff along with a variety of proteins from other animals to keep the water in it. So by this time it will be a chicken/beef/pork hybrid thing.

So in answer the intensively farmed chicken ain’t a chicken but a soggychickypigcow.

TBH “free range” isn’t much better, that just means 10,000 chickens that can go out side a bit. The only real advantage for me of organic is that they tend to be happy chickens with varied meal.

I would have thought that the caged bird may have more fat to its frame as is isn’t able to exercise and grow its muscles.

That’s why the price of eggs has just gone stratospheric

Not if you’ve always bought free range they haven’t.

The Halal chickens from my old local extremely-dodgy-hygeine, jihadist, Osama-looky-likee, backstreet butchers tasted way better than even the poncy-est, The Finest Range, corn-fed, organic, lavishly entertained chuck.

Maybe Allah really is the one true god, and this is how its manifesting itself. In nicely textured chicken. Hmmmmmmmm

Even ‘free range’ chickens aren’t necessarily ‘natural’

My father-in-law (in Brazil) has a large number of chickens that are free to roam and are fed grain/corn or whatever.

They’re nothing like what you see in the supermarkets over here.

Proper ‘natural’ chickens are far leaner than the plump things we generally buy.

Free range only means the chicken coop has a window!

Not if you’ve always bought free range they haven’t.

Yes they have. Wholesale prices have doubled in the last 12 months.

happier chickens, pricier eggs

soggychickypigcow

Would you like chips with that?

I’ve always assumed that allowing them to find their own food is better and the ‘working the muscles’ argument is interesting, but I’m talking with a dedicated Tesco Value fan and being accused of snobbery.

It’s not as clear cut as I hoped!

That’s why the price of eggs has just gone stratospheric.

25p per free range egg still seems pretty good value to me 🙂

They’re all the same

A chicken is an egg’s way of making more eggs

Unitl you’ve choked your own chicken you can never really appreciate how good meat can taste.

Free range only means the chicken coop has a window!

Not quite true but close, there are less per shed as well.

Here…

So… for the chickens, its still like living on a council estate? But a nicer one in a less dodgy area? Perhaps where some people have bought their houses and put some hanging baskets up? Maybe even had some hardwood, faux leaded windows instead of UPVC? That kind of thing?

When is a chicken not a chicken?
When you find a collar in the black bean sauce.

I guess they’d be a difference in fat/protien proportions and maybe the enymes associated with them. But once dead the nasty chicken will have had water pumped into it to make it look buff along with a variety of proteins from other animals to keep the water in it. So by this time it will be a chicken/beef/pork hybrid thing.

Is that really true or an urban myth? (Not trolling, genuinely interested). I find it hard to imagine that a supermarket would be allowed to sell chicken with all that crap in it…

I find it hard to imagine that a supermarket would be allowed to sell chicken with all that crap in it…

Alas they are. Though supermarkets may limit themselves to soggychickychickens rather than soggychickypigcows which seem more likely to be served at pubs and restaurants.

http://www.food.gov.uk/multimedia/pdfs/chickenstudyoverview.pdf

I think the banning of the injecting water and water retaining substances would be a good start.

I think the banning of the injecting water and water retaining substances would be a good start.

+1

At a minimum it ammounts to false advertising surely?

And it’s a PITA trying to make tandori chicken when it always comes out steamed.

IanMunro – Member

Ah, some science! Well played.

Interesting reading – so it can contain this stuff but must be labelled accordingly. Does the water count as an ingredient or do you have to infer the presence of water from the presence of other ingredients like salt?

what i have noticed is if i buy chicken breasts from waitrose a lot less water comes out than if i buy them from tescos. When i bought some from the coop in Verbier no water came out.

It is disheartening when you realise how much crap is in our food and how hard it can be to avoid.

Does the water count as an ingredient

Uaualy they get arround it with things like “as cooked”