[Closed] Pre-cooked/packaged chicken - is it bad for you?

jees those images are big?? must be all the water pumped into them.

Yummy. I think a good deal of the UK processed chicken market comes from Thai poultry farms that you just know have outstanding animal welfare standards and wotnot....

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What are the ingredients?

I don't see how it can be bad for you per se, just becuase it's cooked en masse and packaged - no doubt some anxious type will disagree.

Stoner that is grim. Truly grim.

Stoner 😀

Home-style goodness, apparently!

They are usually battery chickens, never seen a free range option. Maybe not that bad for you but not great for the chickens.

Doubt that it's bad for you but it would be nice if it tasted of chicken once in a while.

There's a fair bit of salt in that Mexican chicken. Luckily it's all in half of the pack.

What makes you say it's overpriced? It's underpriced, largely why we have such utterly appalling animal welfare conditions to satisfy the meat-hungry wallets of this world.
Is it bad for you? Probably. Cheap, processed, thoughtless rubbish.

I love - love - pre-cooked chicken thighs. Mmm, chicken....

I don't buy them personally. As above, low-grade chicken from unknown sources. You have no idea how old/fresh it is, no doubt it is full of preservatives. I wonder if they fill the packet with nitrogen to keep it "fresh" the same as they do with fruit salads. Not a big fan of pre-packaged salad for similar reasons.

I always have take a tin of tuna when I want something extra with my salad. Fresher, plus you know where it's come from & what's in it.

I always have take a tin of tuna when I want something extra with my salad. Fresher, plus you know where it's come from & what's in it.

Hope thats Line caught tuna? Not overfished, trawled in dolphin killing nets, full of mercury tuna? 🙂

Just be selective about where it comes from. Buy british at the very least, we do have *some* standards, and welfare will be higher than the eastern european chicken.

Pork/Bacon too, EU pork can mean awful awful conditions for the pigs, where they don't even have room to move, and their legs waste away so they can't stand up. It's horrific. Again buy British if you can, and free range even better. Pigs are super intelligent. 🙁

As for it harming you, I guess it's all about salt content and suchlike etc. I can't see the chickens being fed the best of foods if they're battery birds so that will filter through the food chain...

I get some chicken breasts, cut into strips and marinate overnight with:

Juice of a lemon
Juice of an orange
Chilli powder
About 5 crushed garlic cloves
Pinch mixed herbs
Pinch oregano
Pinch turmeric

Grill and you have got some tasty chicken to take in your lunch box for most of the week.

I tend to avoid the pre-cooked stuff.

What makes you say it's overpriced? It's underpriced, largely why we have such utterly appalling animal welfare conditions to satisfy the meat-hungry wallets of this world.
Is it bad for you? Probably. Cheap, processed, thoughtless rubbish.

It's overpriced by volume. You could get far more for meat for your money by buying a chicken and roasting it to add to your salads at the start of the week. You could also buy free range. However, when you add in the producers labour, cooking costs, packaging etc it's probably not.

Doesn't the mercury levels of tuna remain the same due their diet; irrespective of whether it's trawled or tickled vigorously out of the sea?

I wonder if they fill the packet with nitrogen to keep it "fresh" the same as they do with fruit salads.

That's certainly a worry, I only breathe using 21% of my mouth to avoid the nasty, nasty nitrogen.

That's certainly a worry, I only breathe using 21% of my mouth to avoid the nasty, nasty nitrogen.

😀 I'm not saying nitrogen is a bad thing! Just that it might be another trick to serve up "fresh" food that could really be months old.

Doesn't the mercury levels of tuna remain the same due their diet; irrespective of whether it's trawled or tickled vigorously out of the sea?

I think it depends on the type of tuna. Skipjack (which is the most common tinned tuna) has the lowest. Not even sure it's possible to buy non-dolphin friendly tuna in a UK supermarket these days. If you are really bothered you could have tinned salmon instead!

Did no one see that hugh FW program trying to get ppl to eat free range chicken? The standards of some british farms are horrendous too. I think its on netflix.

Imo life gives life..if you know what I mean. Theres not much life in them chickens sat in there own crap all there "life".

If you are really bothered you could have tinned salmon instead!

Wont somebody think of the bears!!! cant be stealing their dinner

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I wonder if they fill the packet with nitrogen to keep it "fresh" the same as they do with fruit salads. Not a big fan of pre-packaged salad for similar reasons.
I always have take a tin of tuna when I want something extra with my salad. Fresher, plus you know where it's come from & what's in it.

Wrong on so many levels, packing in N2 doesn’t make something out of date “fresh”, it’s not colouring mechanically reclaimed meat pink for example - it just massively reduces the ability of bugs to start decomposing stuff due to the lack of oxygen. In a similar way to freezing stuff straight away.
It’s a preservation technique, not a reverse/hiding degrading technique. N2 is literally all around you all day and does nothing bad to you (excludes deep sea diving) what with it being very inert and all that.
As for picking tuna for freshness… I’m sure that factory ship way out in the seas races back at high speed with its first and only catch to keep it fresh, and then the tin is raced from the factory to your supermarket shelf where you pick it up and use it quicker than you would with pre-packed chicken.
Same issues for salmon as tuna, except you have more chance of a mass farmed fish from S.America that is pumped full of antibiotics and troubled with lice.

Christ, I’ve bitten haven’t I – Troll.

Interesting points. Personally I am happier with canning as a preservation technique, I will look into it in more detail though!

I would far rather have stuff packed in Nitrogen than just about any other technique. Canning can introduce metals from the can or that nasty cancerous stuff from the lining plastic, forget its name. BPA is it?

Nitrogen could not be considered nasty by even the most paraniod hippie, surely?

Anyway, to answer the OP, you do realise they print the ingredients on packs of food don't you?

I thought the problem with eating vast quantities of tinned tuna due to the effects of bioaccumulation, being as they are high up in the food chain and long lived?

If you've ever seen footage of a canned tuna factory you wouldn't be quite so keen on it, though I still eat it occasionally.

That chicken will be horrible low welfare muck pumped full of antibiotics. Buy freedom food rated free range meat as a minimum.

And if you enjoy 'fish sticks', well they are made from the fish that has too many parasitic worms in the flesh to sell whole, so it gets mashed up into fish sticks. Mmm mmm! They are still quite tasty though.

Is there a problem eating parasitic fish worms?

And if you enjoy 'fish sticks'

Do you like fishsticks?

That program of Hugh FW isn't exactly the truth. It shows him killing chicks in his system due to lameness. He blames it on the commercial system but he actually caused this by not drying the poultry shed out before the chicks arrived. He states while washing it out he only has an hour until they arrive.

Two possible solutions;

a) Have cheese instead.
b) Have chips.