organic chicken

[hobsonbear]

after seeing a report on farmed chickens, i bought and roasted an organic chicken tonight.  apart from being more expensive i thought the breast meat very dry and the legs very tough and sinewy.  i suppose that comes from it being able to run around and not being pumped with water or fat?  i don't think i'll bother again, after all at the end of the day it was just as dead and roasted as any other chicken!

h

[khana]

I know what you mean hobsonbear, I caught the documentary to and when I did my weekly shop tried to buy organic. As you say it was very overpriced and bloody small to, tatsed ok but then maybe I'm a better cook :-)

I wonder if you can buy free range chickens rather then organic free range as a compromise ?. I do feel guilty eating normal chicken and other meats after seeing how they live, still as you say dead is dead and unless I go vegetarian then theres not much else I can do.

[kick3m0n]

we saw the feature on Full on Food a few weeks back, and have only bought corn fed or free range chickens since.  not sure where you guys got yours, but I noticed a big improvement in flavour in our free range bird (from Asda) and will definitely buy them from now on.   Quite apart from the improved taste, I felt better eating "real" chicken, not one that was higher in fat than a McDs, or artificially pumped full of crap to make as big a breast as possible.  Our 2 year old eats the same as us, and after watching that show, I wouldn't want to feed him the other stuff that masquerades as real chicken.

[boobesque]

after seeing the said program i went on the hunt for good fair priced meat, my local butcher was pants, so i now  get my meat in waitrose, its roughly the same price as the bad meat, and although it isnt free range it has been reared in a nice environment and isnt fed its own bi-products and is kept in high standard farming environments. i buy all my meat there now and it tastes gorgeous!

[Eels]

Butchers or poulterers are hard to find these days but if you can get to a good one they'll be able to find you something decent. I'd definitely recommend farmers' markets - not just for poultry but for beef and lamb which is melt-in-the-mouth and superb vegetables, usually really reasonably priced and the crack is great too!