Chicken bald back

[The Dogmother]

Did anyone else see this article yesterday?

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=451320&in_page_id=1770

 

There's a series to follow on Channel 4, called The Lie of the Land. 9pm on Thursday May 3. Not for the squeamish I understand.

 

The article was a bit of an eye opener, and I railed at the waste of that calf's life, especially when there are so many people starving in the world; couldn't the meat be frozen or dried and exported by a charity to a famine zone?

[Rhapsody]

We have all created these problems by buying cheap imported intensively-reared products. I now only buy British meat, free-range when I can get it, I will be watching the series with interest.

[Cate in NZ]

I've got the paper, but didn't get chance to read it yesterday. I'll have to find it and have a read later. Thanks for telling us about it.

[Egluntyne]

Yes I read it. Not for the faint hearted. Will try to remember to watch the programme.

[The Dogmother]

We have all created these problems by buying cheap imported intensively-reared products. I now only buy British meat, free-range when I can get it, I will be watching the series with interest.

 

Me too Rhapsody. I, for once, will plug the TV in.

[Guest]

Horrendous, especially the poor male chicks. I actually shouted out loud.

 

I agree whole-heartedly though with the message. Our food is artificially made cheaper and the real costs are hidden. That is why I buy organic as much as possible. I feel I am paying the real price of my food.

[ubereglu]

Sadly I can believe it.

 

I'm so glad we only buy meat from local sources. With our beef we could even find the field where the cows lived as it's a nearby village. I'm used to going to the butcher's too, only the best meat from there and Mum's been going there so long most of the butcher's know her by name!

[Cate in NZ]

I'm used to going to the butcher's too, only the best meat from there and Mum's been going there so long most of the butcher's know her by name!

 

I'm just the same Liz, I have a fabulous local butcher and his meat is all sourced locally, free range although not organic. He thinks that he knows my name too, and it's dead embarrassing when he cheerfully greets me each time as Carol I haven't got the heart to tell him that actually I'm Kate, especially as it's mainly my fault that he's got the name wrong. My first initial is actually C, and one year I went there in December and paid by credit card. He read the initial on the card and delivered a sentence, ending in Carol? I'd not been listening at all, but heard Carol? and thought that he was talking about the music playing in the shop, so I just went "yes"............ and then realised he was playing guessing games with my name, having got my initial off the card.

That was years ago............... and I'm still Carol in the butcher's, much to the bafflement of the friends who've witnessed exchanges between us

[Lesley]

Kate! - poor butcher!

 

I haven't had time to read it yet - but will make time tonight - and watch the programme.

[Louise]

farming in the UK is a dreadful plave for the male of any given species

[The Dogmother]

I am appalled by the article, but want to try to watch the programme (I'll have to record it and watch another time) without any preconceptions.

 

We get practically all our meat from the farmers' market now, where you can question the producers about their animal welfare. The rest I get from a little butcher in Banbury, who is an independent retailer who sources all his meat carefully, is aware of their welfare standards and can talk knowledgeably about his sources. I feel happy about that.

 

On a positive note, I hope that the programme will encourage more people to think long and hard about the provenance of their food. Unfortunately, the people who most need to watch (KFC eaters) it probably won't.

[Louise]

The problem is for all farmers the male animal is useless and valueless

 

The options are usually send abroad for veal trade etc now live exports are allowed again, taken round the back and dispatched as in the case in the article and there are another couple of options but I don't want to upset anyone so I won't go there

 

Even with other meat animals there is a value on the females as they produce better meat and can be used to reproduce and very few males need to be kept

 

welfare can be at the highest levels and these sorts of things still have to happen

[The Dogmother]

I can see that it will still have to happen, and I'm not upset about the males being culled (so long as it's humanely done), but I am annoyed by what seems to be a waste of perfectly good meat when there are so many people starving in the world. I don't know the answers, but would it be possible to preserve the meat so that 3rd world charities can ship it to famine zones?

[Guest]

Good idea Clare - and also why are we so fussy? I'm sure that the male meat would be reasonable, even if females have the edge. If the meat isn't so flavoursome, maybe casserole cuts or even pet food? Waste seems outrageous to me.

[Louise]

With dairy cattle there is no real meat on them they are leggy and very bony and with pigs the males have to be zapped before they get too big as the testosterone taints the meat

[Rhapsody]

Its crazy- producing cattle that are only useful as milkers with milk prices at rock bottom and a surplus being made back into animal feed. Surely the way forward on this is to encourage farmers back to breeding dual purpose animals with a lower milk yield and to educate people that British rose veal is NOT the flesh of a crate-reared prisoner (as in Holland) and lives a longer life than a meat chicken!

[chelsea]

I wont be watching the program. I saw the trailer last friday where a farmer was holding a gun to a calves head and I couldnt stop thinking about it all weekend.

 

I know this goes on....but I dont wish to witness it,....im extremely sensitive with regards to animals/cruelty/death etc

 

My whole family are involved in agriculture and my hubby was a butcher for 19 years before becoming involved with poultry. His motto/word on the state of food/farming in Britain is -

 

People in Britain will continue to buy food from anywhere/any country with out regard to how it is produced/farmed/butchered because it is cheap....he doesnt think it will change.....most other europeans will carefully buy their produce but britains public on the whole will buy ANYTHING .

 

(I dont mean you guys on here by the way )

 

Until attitudes change and eyes are opened ....nothing will change.

[Cate in NZ]

Sadly Chelsea I agree with your hubby, a great swathe of the British population seem to have scant regard for what they feed themselves and their families, as long as it's cheap and tastes OK they don't seem to care about where it comes from or how it's been reared. Nor do they seem to want to cook, cheapness and convenience seems to the most important factors for some.

But that's precisely why programmes like this are important, they may make uncomfortable viewing and I suspect that the majority of the audience are going to be people who already have strong opinions on this subject, but slowly and surely if programmes like this are aired, as well as the cooking and good food messages from TV chefs like Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall et al, maybe the message will seep though and make a few more individuals think again. Big changes take time, generations even, but maybe there is a glint of light at the end of the tunnel

I hope so.

[Louise]

But the thing the great british public will do is campaign for the tightest animal welfare laws for everything which by their very definition make it so expensive to farm in britain which pushes the british orice up which makes the great british shopper buy foreign imports

[The Dogmother]

I had this very argument with my mother... she watched the Jimmy programme about battery pork farming in Holland and was outraged about the conditions that they were kept in, but couldn't make the connection when I pointed out that it was her insistence on buying cheap pork that helped to perpetuate this trend in farming.

 

If only more people voted with their shopping trollies, then we might have some success.

[Louise]

I just wish they would outlaw importing anything that comes from a country where they have lower welfare standards than here

 

Mind you we would all starve as the state of the UK farming industry is so bad it couldn't sustain us

 

Lets hope we don't have another world war anytime soon

[Tom and Barbara]

at the risk of sounding COMPLETELY ignorant - what's the best alternative on the milk front?

 

we have started to buy our meat from our local butcher and obviously eggs we have covered but i'm still buying the supermarket milk

[Jools]

I don't think it's necessarily any better from the calf's point of view, but I buy all my milk from one of two local producers. They produce and sell their own organic milk - it's more expensive but at least I know it's not imported, so the food miles are low and they get the right amount of money for their product.

 

One of the issues with supermarket milk is that they nail down the price paid to the farmer, which, if you believe what you read, means they are losing money on every pint of milk they produce. Mad or what!!!

[The Dogmother]

Try googling around - I have found a supplier of organic food locally and they supply non-homgenised, pasteurised organic milk by the litre. Unfortuantely I can only get it when they are at the farmers market in Deddington, so I don't have aconstant supply. It's gorgeous, and at 90p a litre, it's only 4p more expensive than the organic milk I get from Tesco.

[Guest]

I have recently started buying all my milk from www.Riverford.co.uk with my organic veg box. They only deliver once a week so I order a week's supply and freeze some of it. It is organic milk from Devon and costs 93p a litre. I know it's coming from Devon to Surrey, but they're bringing my vegetables anyway and deliver to a lot of people around here.