Hen or chicken

[netibiza]

Please can someone tell me what is the difference between a hen and a chicken.

[nickmo]

Shaneystar - and just think how eco friendly buying locally is as well - food miles do have an impact, so the best thing we can do together is to use the local facilities. The globalisation of goods and services is well under way, but having seen the bottled water from Fiji in a supposedly health store in the west country last week, it makes you wonder, whats the point, but we really should all do a bit in the end.

[gessoo]

Discovered a new farmer's market only yesterday in a very rural setting - and I mean very rural. Just saw a sign for a new local teashop and ended up going down a little lane to a farm who host a farmer's market every fourth week.

I too eat very little meat these days. It wouldn't take a great deal of effort to become a veggie, but the men in my life love meat. (They don't seem to notice how much I have cut down on meat though - I fill 'em up with loads of veg and pasta!)

[gessoo]

Enjoyed your Website Nickmo!

We have a real ale shop fairly local to us - again in the middle of nowhere that only sells beer from breweries using the barley, etc. grown from very local producers. The breweries are all in Norfolk and Suffolk. It's my son's favourite shopping trip!!

[netibiza]

Before Spain entered the Common Market all the chickens on sale were fresh and a lovely yellow colour from eating corn. Now they are mingey and white. We are not allowed to buy the local "pages" (peasant) ones as they have to be certified by Barcelona. Of course there are many sold "under the counter" and delicious they are too.

[gessoo]

Oh Neti, that is dreadful - soon your wonderful fruit and veg will have to conform as well, I suppose. I just love buying all the irregular shapes and tasty fruit and veg on the Mediterranean. Call this progress?

[gessoo]

What a good thread you have started here Neti. Just 'cos you didn't know your hens from your chickens!!

[netibiza]

I have to own up gessoo it was asked by one of my coffee mates whose Ibicenco boyfriend wanted to know the difference. None of us knew so I said I'd ask this brainy lot, cos you can always get an answer on the AnswerBank.

[shaneystar2]

I think your website is great Nickmo. i really don't want to buy runner beans that have been flown thousands of miles around the world to end up on supermarket shelves devoid of any taste or vitamins. I really do think that the government should clamp down a bit on all this out of town shopping and encourage more local shopping..as we used to have in "the old days". But..that's progress for you.I lived in Germany for a number of years and still visit regularly.They have the same culture as most European countries..local markets etc.Farmers bringing their goods into town to sell.
They don't have these big supermarkets controlling every aspect of our lives.I love going there and being able to buy fresh eggs and locally grown produce.Also when holidaying in places like Greece and Italy ..all the lovely fresh produce.
Even our little market in Great Yarmouth
still has smallholders bringing their produce in from the outlying villages .We always get lovely fresh eggs there for the ridiculous price of 80p a dozen and they taste delicious.A cauliflowerfor 50p and really tasty.Huge bags of carrots for 50p . What more could you ask.
They also have a lovely fish stall and more chip stalls than you could mention...but I am banned from chip stalls at the moment !

[gessoo]

Chips, chips, chips, chips chips. He he!!!

[shaneystar2]

Oh yes....pleeeease..with loads of salt and vinegar and a nice dollop of mayo !!

[nickmo]

Hi guys, many thanks for the comments re FreeRange site and I am glad you have the same sentiments.

I am not a tree hugging whale kissing eco warrior activist, but as I like food - so much so that it is all I will ever eat now - and once you start to dig around the food production processes you realise very quickly that here is something very wrong with the food culture in the UK.

There are about 400 - 500 chemicals present in the human body that were never there 50 years ago, and now we have more alzeheimers, early onset puberty, a rise in breast cancer, colon cancer and all the rest of the health issues like obesiety and diabetes. Surely it isn't rocket science to see why some of this has come up!!!

Local shoppoing helps put money into the local economy - everyone benfits, and if we look for local goods - and neti, I'm sure you are aware of the depletion of the soil in Southern Spain that is causing concerns about viability to the future economy as we can not expect land to give 3 crops a year without huge dumps of chemicals and wrecking the water sources - the concept is not hard to adopt.

The UK has some of the best produce on the planet. Eat seasonal and fresh and there are so many benefits so I'm glad there are like minded ABers too. Spread the word guys!! Now a quick chant and lets hug.......oh, where are you going??......

[netibiza]

*** by yar, *** by yar oohh ooohh *** by yar.

[netibiza]

It's getting ridiculous all I typed was * * *

[nickmo]

Yes well you see, if you had put on the arran sweater and stuck a finger in your ear and gone 'Micheal row your boat ashore......' you wouldn't have these problems.

Maybe your beard hasn't enough twigs in it, thats why you get bleeped....

Wonder if there are any other hairy songs people want to mention?

(Hums 'I'm gonna follow a moon shadow....' to self then ....HEY,YOU...GET OFF MY LAND!...in comedy west country accent - thats better.....returns to the real world)

[gessoo]

I never noticed our Neti had a beard Nickmo!!

Neti?

[nickmo]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAArrrghhhhhhhhhhhhh.......file under too much information, QUICK!

Anyway, facial hair obligatory if you are going to be humming that bleeped out song........(diddly diddly dee my lord, diddly dee, diddly dee my lord, diddly dee....etc etc)

[JRB]

I asked my class of inner-city 7 year-olds this same question. The most popular answer was that hens had 4 legs but chickens only had 2. How sad that they had only seen chickens poly-wrapped in supermarkets!

[netibiza]

JRB it is incredible to realise that some children haven't seen country life. What shop sells hens with 4 legs, must be a bumper offer.