Will You Pay For Higher Standards In Food Production?

[Esfa]

Honestly, I don't think that any person who claims to be an animal lover, can eat at places like McD's and KFC.

 

[CFC]

I'd like to see who ever it was who said you can feed a family for 3 days with a medium sized chicken actually produce realistic sized meals from it and not some poncy alacart type rubbish, in our house there is rarely anything left from a large chicken after a Sunday dinner for 4.

We don't buy the cheap supermarket chickens but there is also no way i'm going to fork out nearly a tenner for a skinny free range chicken when i can get the middle price range birds (barn raised?) for £7 for a large chicken, with the prices rising as they are we are already spending over £100 a week in the supermarket and really can't afford any more, and I do prepare nearly all our meals from scratch right down to the grinding of my own spices and making stocks from bones and trimmings so its not like the money is going on ready meals. The same goes with beef and lamb, the free range and organic meat is just too expensive to have as every day food but i don't buy the cheap "economy" stuff either. There is no way i could only eat meat a couple of times a week, i dislike the taste of nearly all fruit and vegetables on their own and only eat them as sides with my dinner because i have to.

Is there any hard proof that KFC use meat from caged chickens? I'm pretty sure i remember reading that they are kept in barns where they can move about freely, not quite free range but better than being caged. KFC is my favourite treat food as its about the only thing i cannot produce with an authentic taste at home, that and the sauce that goes in Big Macs, to be honest i don't care if its the missing Trafalgar Square pigeons they are frying up, I enjoy a KFC and i get a night off from cooking and washing up for less than £20.

At the end of the day people are going to buy what suits their pocket best and the only way to get everyone eating free range is for the price of free range meat to come down, its ok for a couple who both work and have no kids to be fussy about what they buy and pay that little bit more but for those that are feeling the pinch with rising fuel costs, household bills , interest rates and shopping bills being able to save a few pounds here and there makes a big difference to peoples quality of life, and no matter how bad it is for the chickens I'm sure most people would rather that their children are able to have a holiday and some nice presents for their Birthday.

 

[afireinside]

Honestly, I don't think that any person who claims to be an animal lover, can eat at places like McD's and KFC.

I don't think anyone that eats meat can be a true animal lover. The animal is still killed either way. It sounds hypocritical to me.

"Oh, I love animals, but I'll still eat them if they are killed in a way I find humane."

How is it humane? How is killing humane?

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

I'd like to see who ever it was who said you can feed a family for 3 days with a medium sized chicken actually produce realistic sized meals from it and not some poncy alacart type rubbish, in our house there is rarely anything left from a large chicken after a Sunday dinner for 4.

We don't buy the cheap supermarket chickens but there is also no way i'm going to fork out nearly a tenner for a skinny free range chicken when i can get the middle price range birds (barn raised?) for £7 for a large chicken, with the prices rising as they are we are already spending over £100 a week in the supermarket and really can't afford any more, and I do prepare nearly all our meals from scratch right down to the grinding of my own spices and making stocks from bones and trimmings so its not like the money is going on ready meals. The same goes with beef and lamb, the free range and organic meat is just too expensive to have as every day food but i don't buy the cheap "economy" stuff either. There is no way i could only eat meat a couple of times a week, i dislike the taste of nearly all fruit and vegetables on their own and only eat them as sides with my dinner because i have to.

So basically, no matter how you dress it up, you eat battery farmed food because you like to eat meat a lot and would rather eat battery farmed chicken all the time rather than cut down on your meat eating habits so you can afford free range. I see, price before ethics.

I know the credit crunch and all that is depressingly real stuff (and trust me, its affecting me too), however, the fact remains that UK household income has doubled in real terms over the last fifty years and that people spend less on food than they ever have done;

<a href="http/news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7213462.stm" target="_blank">http/news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7213462.stm</a>

Its not that you can't afford the better option, its that you want what you want and at the end of the day don't have much compassion over the poor mistreated battery chicken if it means that you can eat meat all the time. You have complete and utter choice over what you eat, and what you currently eat is what you've chosen- no-one is forcing you to eat battery farmed food and you don't actually have any real excuse to eat it from a moral/ethical stand-point.

Is there any hard proof that KFC use meat from caged chickens? I'm pretty sure i remember reading that they are kept in barns where they can move about freely, not quite free range but better than being caged. KFC is my favourite treat food as its about the only thing i cannot produce with an authentic taste at home, that and the sauce that goes in Big Macs, to be honest i don't care if its the missing Trafalgar Square pigeons they are frying up, I enjoy a KFC and i get a night off from cooking and washing up for less than £20.

KFC uses broiler chickens for its meat which are barn range, however barn range really isn't any superior to battery range chickens- in fact the chickens tend to have an even poorer quality of life. KFC is very reluctant to shed any much info on where it sources its animal products from, even if you visit their main website the info is very scant indeed and says nothing on exactly where is sources its products from. However its not unlike Mcd's in its running, so;

"In 1991 McDonald’s initiated a lawsuit against two defendants in England for libel. The defendants had distributed a pamphlet that claimed, among other things, that McDonald’s was responsible for cruel farming practices. The case, commonly known as the “McLibel” case, took seven years to conclude, and although McDonald’s technically won the case, it was is generally considered a public relations disaster for the corporation. To read more about the McLibel case, go to www.mcspotlight.org.

In England, (unlike in the US) defendants accused of defamation must prove that their potentially libelous statements were indeed true, and there is no first amendment right to free speech in the UK. Therefore, the court had to determine not whether McDonald’s had violated an anti-cruelty statute, but whether or not the defendant’s statements (that McDonald’s was cruel to animals) were true. The defendant’s lost the case only because they could not prove that everything contained in the pamphlet was true, although the Judge did rule that McDonald’s was responsible (through its enormous buying power) for cruelty to some animals, especially chickens.

The court found a multiple of cruel practices were taking place in the chicken producing industry, including the battery cage, overcrowding of broiler chickens in the broiler barns, and the feed restrictions placed on the breeding stock for broiler chickens. As this was a libel case, the Judge’s ruling did not have any effect on the legality of the farming practices, but the case did mark the first time an “objective court closely examined the farming industry and found it wanting.” See David Wolfson, McLibel, 5 ANIMAL LAW 21, 48 (1999).

Today, McDonald’s, which claims to want to become “an ambassador for change in the industry” has implemented a host a voluntary reforms, including its own set of animal welfare guidelines. See McDonald’s website: <a href="http/www.mcdonalds.com/" target="_blank">http/www.mcdonalds.com/</a> . In 2001, McDonald’s issued its Laying Hen Guidelines for egg suppliers which prohibited forced molting of hens, and increased housing space for hens to 50 percent more than the U.S. industry average. (However, this would only likely raise the amount of space per hen to about 465 cm2, which is still below the EU standard of 550cm2/ /hen.)

McDonald’s established its own Animal Welfare Council, and its Animal Welfare Guidelines state that “treating animals with care and respect is an integral part of an overall quality assurance program that makes good business sense. . . animals should be free from cruelty, abuse and neglect while embracing the proper treatment of animals and addressing animal welfare issues.” However, exact details on the changes implemented by McDonald’s are hard to come by, thus making it difficult to compare McDonald’s own corporate reform efforts to the animal welfare laws instituted in other countries.

Likewise, the fast food giant, KFC, (a Yum! Brands company), perhaps indeed following McDonald’s lead, has instituted its own animal welfare guidelines. Unlike McDonalds, KFC prohibits its suppliers from debeaking its chickens and from using any growth-promoting substances. However, other than the same corporate pronouncements of “concern” for the “welfare of animals,” specific details on their animal welfare program is hard to find. See the KFC website: <a href="http/www.kfc.com."" target="_blank">http/www.kfc.com."</a>

<a href="http/www.animallaw.info/articles/dduschick.htm" target="_blank">http/www.animallaw.info/articles/dduschick.htm</a>


So basically, while the two companies pretend on the outside to have a caring animal image, McD's still fails to even meet EU standards with its chicken welfare and KFC remains suspiciously silent about where exactly it sources its animal products from. To me, its obvious that their products are battery and barn range. To reverse the question, can you find any solid proof that KFC doesn't use meat from caged hens? No? Is this willing or unwillingly ignorance on this aspect?
If a company isn't clear on its animal welfare ethics and info about where it obtains its animal products from, you can only realistically expect the worst rather than the best.

At the end of the day people are going to buy what suits their pocket best and the only way to get everyone eating free range is for the price of free range meat to come down, its ok for a couple who both work and have no kids to be fussy about what they buy and pay that little bit more but for those that are feeling the pinch with rising fuel costs, household bills , interest rates and shopping bills being able to save a few pounds here and there makes a big difference to peoples quality of life, and no matter how bad it is for the chickens I'm sure most people would rather that their children are able to have a holiday and some nice presents for their Birthday.

Considering how fat people are becoming these days, and that food actually comprises the lowest portion of the family budget these days than it ever has done in 50 years, i don't buy all of this "i can only afford battery food" reasoning. Again, why not just eat meat a little less? You don't want to? Then that must mean that you care more about your food cravings than the welfare of animals such as battery hens; which must also mean that at the end of the day, you only actually really care about animal welfare if it is of convenience to you- when actually put into practice, you seem less concerned about certain aspects of animal welfare if it costs you some of your desires.


Here's an analogy for you: Say someone is keeping an 8inch Shovelnose catfish in a 10gallon tank. You would obviously be against this, yes? So you tell this person that they should get a much larger tank for it. But then they tell you "I want a Shovelnose catfish but i can't afford a 100gallon tank for it, so i am going to keep it in this 10gal because if i did get it a proper size tank i wouldn't be able to go on holiday this year. At the same time, even though i know it is cruel to keep the fish this way, i don't want to get rid of the Shovelnose catfish because i really like it and can't settle for any other fish."
Now how is this persons justification for this supporting of animal cruelty any different to you justifying your support for battery farming? You say "well i really like chicken and want to eat it, but i don't want to pay for the chicken to have a decent quality of life because then it means i won't be able to afford other stuff as easily, but at the same time i don't want to give up chicken"?? Tell me how your justification is essentially different from this? How much do you really care about animals like chickens?

 

[Esfa]

Honestly, I don't think that any person who claims to be an animal lover, can eat at places like McD's and KFC.

I don't think anyone that eats meat can be a true animal lover. The animal is still killed either way. It sounds hypocritical to me.

"Oh, I love animals, but I'll still eat them if they are killed in a way I find humane."

How is it humane? How is killing humane?

....

if the killing is painless (like co2) then it is totally humane. Everything dies sooner or later.

Edit: Also, if the animal in question has had a comfortable life, I have no problem with eating it.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Honestly, I don't think that any person who claims to be an animal lover, can eat at places like McD's and KFC.

I don't think anyone that eats meat can be a true animal lover. The animal is still killed either way. It sounds hypocritical to me.

"Oh, I love animals, but I'll still eat them if they are killed in a way I find humane."

How is it humane? How is killing humane?

"Humane"= marked or motivated by concern with the alleviation of suffering. Killing an animal is not necessarily an inhumane action- the humanness is judged by your concern over the animals suffering during the process and how you attempt to reduce the suffering.

If we completely stopped farming animals, such semi-domesticated animals would be sure to go extinct in the absence of the need for their farming (cases of this has happened many a time). So you could say that by supporting farming (which is the raising of animals, which inevitably end up at the slaughterhouse at some point), you are supporting the animals existence- if we had no need to kill and eat these animals, they wouldn't exist. So basically a real animal lover would have nothing against farming- however the farming would have to be of a sort where the animals have a good quality of life during their lifetime etc.

But anyway, whats the point of your point here? Are you trying to say that, since we (according to you that is) are incapable of being true animal lovers, there is no point in placing emphasis on the welfare of animals because we are trying to achieve an unrealistic ideal or something?

Would you call yourself someone who is against the cruel treatment of animals, yes or no?

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Not hypocritical at all. I buy free range (eggs in particular) because I like the taste, same as McD and KFC etc. I'm in now way dictating that everyone else should stop eating them there for not being hypocritical at all.

Don't hold your beath waiting for me to stop I like the taste of them and will continue eating them if and when I want to. Now if they start using free range ingredients I will be happy about that, but it is not and will never be the deciding factor in my choice of what to eat.

If you buy free range purely for the taste, then do you actually have any concern over the welfare of farm animals at all? Seriously- How much do these issues really concern you? Do you only apply animal ethics at convenience?

No offense, but that looks like £37 worth of composting material to me If I was really hungry I might eat one or two of those meals, but they are not what I like.

I'm not saying you have to eat stuff like that, i was merely giving a practical and real example of the cost saving powers of home-cooking; if you do such a thing yourself, you would not have to cook all the meals i did to save money.

Not mine I don't like cooking in the slightest, if I had the cash I would eat out every night.

To be honest i view the skill to make food as one of the most basic skills in life, akin to being able to know how to use a credit card or how to make a fire or being able to work etc. If you can follow instructions, then you can cook- that is all cooking is about, if you mess up, it means that you didn't follow the instructions properly etc. There is nothing to stop you from making good food or enjoying cooking, you simply need to do something about it if you want to achieve this.

Partially, but the "right choice" for you may not be the same choice for everyone else.

If you are happy to put all that time and effort into researching all your ingredients and their ecological impact and paying the higher price for them or restricting your diet, then good for you. I am not and I can live with that.

Arfie

The right choice: put into basic terms, let me ask you this then: Is it right to buy animal products farmed in a cruel manner over ones which have not, when you have the choice over to buy or not to buy such things?


You can pretend to really care about something and support it when you only do so at your convenience. You pretend to care about the quality of life that animals like chickens lead, however when faced with cravings of a McD meal, you exercise no self-discipline over your ethics/morals and intentionally forget them and give into your baser physical food cravings and buy and eat the McD meal. This isn't ethics/morals- this is letting your body get the better over what you know is right and wrong, and then trying to justify your actions. There is no excuse/decent reasoning for eating battery farmed chicken- you don't need chicken to eat, if you eat it it is down to choice. You might try to dress this up otherwise, but this is the harsh reality i'm afraid.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

The "It's in mayonnaise etc" argument is a good one however it would be wrong for someone to have the attitude "It's in mayo so I'll buy these battery eggs anyway".

It's just about reducing demand for it, there is no way one person or even a whole group of people can make a difference and we won't be able to immediately make a difference about battery products being in mayo and cakes etc, but taking money out of their pockets is the only way to have any hope of changing anything.

It's also not much excuse to say "it's in kfc", because, yeah maybe it's not so obvious in cakes or anything else, but kfc blatantly uses battery products.

It's mainly about stopping buying things that you know are battery products, obviously not everyone can do everything, but it's about doing what you can. If people go and buy ordinary "mayonnaise" then no ones going to see what people's opinions are but if next to the ordinary mayo there is mayo advertised as having free range eggs in it and it is obvious to shop keepers that free range is popular then they know that this could bring more money in and that they are not making as much money in the regular product.

At the end of the day people have got to face up to where it came from and ask themselves if they really want to support that. It's just ignorance, it's obvious that people can't face up to it because otherwise these so called "animal lovers" who go all soppy when they see a lamb in the field would probably be vege. For the rest of the population I can't believe that many people would carry on buying tesco value eggs if they stopped ignoring where they came from. I have no issue with people eating meat but if I see those packs of "tesco value sausages" on the tv adverts or when I go past McDs and see people eating burgers in there I can't believe that people can be so ignorant.

I'm sorry but with alot of people it is ignorance as even if for some reason they didn't know that the popcorn chicken came from a battery farm (I'm not sure alot of kids even realise it comes from a chicken) then why don't they show any interest in where the food comes from?

I totally agree with you there . You might not be able to realistically change everything about your diet/lifestyle, but wherever you can you should make the effort to do so.

When it comes to eating meat, my view is this: It has been proven that we do not need to eat meat to lead a healthy diet. So eating meat is not a necessity- because of this, if we do eat meat, it remains a fact it is purely down to personal choice. Due to this, the excuse "I know battery farm products are cruelly produced but i'm too poor to eat free range" is not a viable excuse from an ethical/moral standpoint.
If you don't buy any chicken products, you are not really affecting the current sate of events either way. But as soon as you buy free range or battery range etc, you are making an ethical/moral statement (as long as you are aware of what is involved in these different farming methods of course), or at least an effect in support of either industries. So IMHO if someone is truly against battery farming, and is truly in favor better treatment for chickens, then they will buy free range over battery range whenever they realistically can- if they can't buy free range, then they will still avoid buy battery range if they have the choice too.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Luckily for me, I live in farmerland (Wiltshire). There's 100s of farm shops to choose from, so we always eat free-range foods.

We're actually thinking of getting our own chooks for eggs

Good luck with getting the chooks, chickens are great and make awesome pets, once tame they are surprisingly affectionate animals and will like having their "ears" stroked etc . Of all the things i miss the most of living on the farm, is being able to keep chickens- i would totally have them again, but unfortunately my garden is way too small for keeping chickens, meh.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Just some further thoughts on this;

If you are a religious person: If you consider yourself a Christian, does god not say in the Bible that it is man's duty treat animals well because they are also gods creations?
If you are a Buddhist, then if you learnt anything about Buddhist teachings at all, then it will become plaintively clear that it is important to treat animals well and not to support animal cruelty of any kind.
Even if you are not of the religious sort, then the ethics/morality of treating animals well is still a strong and logical ethical/moral case.


Human beings and animals: If you cannot expect man to treat animals well, then how can you really expect him to treat his fellow human beings well? It is most likely no coincidence that all the countries that have the some of the worst human rights records, like China, Zimbabwe, N.Korea etc also happen to some of the worst animal rights records as well.
Countries like Sweden have good human rights records ( http/www.manskligarattigheter.gov.se/ext...ow&navid=15 ), and also coincidentally a good animal rights record as well (for example Sweden prohibits beak trimming in chickens, and banned the use of battery cages for laying hens after January 1, 1999. Switzerland, although not an EU member, has its own Animal Welfare Act that prohibited the use of battery cages systems beginning in 1991. Finland will ban all battery cages 2005, seven years earlier than the Laying Hen Directive required. To read the Swedish Animal Welfare Act, click here. To read the Swiss Animal Protection Act click here (pdf. file), and to read the Swiss APA Guidelines in Table Form, click here.(pdf. file)- http/www.animallaw.info/articles/dduschick.htm ). Not just that, but the fact that it banned battery cage systems many years ago and is doing fine, means that it is completely possible for a modern, wealthy and western country to ban battery cages and more and do fine.

Rising fuel prices: Some people here have quoted rising fuel prices as a contributing factor to their lack of money and thus lack of money to buy free range. Battery farms cost more fuel/energy to run, so you can actually help alleviate the fuel problems yourself by not supporting high fuel/energy costing un-environmentally friendly forms of farming like battery farming. Every little bit helps, ne?

 

[CFC]

I'd like to see who ever it was who said you can feed a family for 3 days with a medium sized chicken actually produce realistic sized meals from it and not some poncy alacart type rubbish, in our house there is rarely anything left from a large chicken after a Sunday dinner for 4.

We don't buy the cheap supermarket chickens but there is also no way i'm going to fork out nearly a tenner for a skinny free range chicken when i can get the middle price range birds (barn raised?) for £7 for a large chicken, with the prices rising as they are we are already spending over £100 a week in the supermarket and really can't afford any more, and I do prepare nearly all our meals from scratch right down to the grinding of my own spices and making stocks from bones and trimmings so its not like the money is going on ready meals. The same goes with beef and lamb, the free range and organic meat is just too expensive to have as every day food but i don't buy the cheap "economy" stuff either. There is no way i could only eat meat a couple of times a week, i dislike the taste of nearly all fruit and vegetables on their own and only eat them as sides with my dinner because i have to.

So basically, no matter how you dress it up, you eat battery farmed food because you like to eat meat a lot and would rather eat battery farmed chicken all the time rather than cut down on your meat eating habits so you can afford free range. I see, price before ethics.

I know the credit crunch and all that is depressingly real stuff (and trust me, its affecting me too), however, the fact remains that UK household income has doubled in real terms over the last fifty years and that people spend less on food than they ever have done;

<a href="http/news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7213462.stm" target="_blank">http/news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7213462.stm</a>

Its not that you can't afford the better option, its that you want what you want and at the end of the day don't have much compassion over the poor mistreated battery chicken if it means that you can eat meat all the time. You have complete and utter choice over what you eat, and what you currently eat is what you've chosen- no-one is forcing you to eat battery farmed food and you don't actually have any real excuse to eat it from a moral/ethical stand-point.

Is there any hard proof that KFC use meat from caged chickens? I'm pretty sure i remember reading that they are kept in barns where they can move about freely, not quite free range but better than being caged. KFC is my favourite treat food as its about the only thing i cannot produce with an authentic taste at home, that and the sauce that goes in Big Macs, to be honest i don't care if its the missing Trafalgar Square pigeons they are frying up, I enjoy a KFC and i get a night off from cooking and washing up for less than £20.

KFC uses broiler chickens for its meat which are barn range, however barn range really isn't any superior to battery range chickens- in fact the chickens tend to have an even poorer quality of life. KFC is very reluctant to shed any much info on where it sources its animal products from, even if you visit their main website the info is very scant indeed and says nothing on exactly where is sources its products from. However its not unlike Mcd's in its running, so;

"In 1991 McDonald’s initiated a lawsuit against two defendants in England for libel. The defendants had distributed a pamphlet that claimed, among other things, that McDonald’s was responsible for cruel farming practices. The case, commonly known as the “McLibel” case, took seven years to conclude, and although McDonald’s technically won the case, it was is generally considered a public relations disaster for the corporation. To read more about the McLibel case, go to www.mcspotlight.org.

In England, (unlike in the US) defendants accused of defamation must prove that their potentially libelous statements were indeed true, and there is no first amendment right to free speech in the UK. Therefore, the court had to determine not whether McDonald’s had violated an anti-cruelty statute, but whether or not the defendant’s statements (that McDonald’s was cruel to animals) were true. The defendant’s lost the case only because they could not prove that everything contained in the pamphlet was true, although the Judge did rule that McDonald’s was responsible (through its enormous buying power) for cruelty to some animals, especially chickens.

The court found a multiple of cruel practices were taking place in the chicken producing industry, including the battery cage, overcrowding of broiler chickens in the broiler barns, and the feed restrictions placed on the breeding stock for broiler chickens. As this was a libel case, the Judge’s ruling did not have any effect on the legality of the farming practices, but the case did mark the first time an “objective court closely examined the farming industry and found it wanting.” See David Wolfson, McLibel, 5 ANIMAL LAW 21, 48 (1999).

Today, McDonald’s, which claims to want to become “an ambassador for change in the industry” has implemented a host a voluntary reforms, including its own set of animal welfare guidelines. See McDonald’s website: <a href="http/www.mcdonalds.com/" target="_blank">http/www.mcdonalds.com/</a> . In 2001, McDonald’s issued its Laying Hen Guidelines for egg suppliers which prohibited forced molting of hens, and increased housing space for hens to 50 percent more than the U.S. industry average. (However, this would only likely raise the amount of space per hen to about 465 cm2, which is still below the EU standard of 550cm2/ /hen.)

McDonald’s established its own Animal Welfare Council, and its Animal Welfare Guidelines state that “treating animals with care and respect is an integral part of an overall quality assurance program that makes good business sense. . . animals should be free from cruelty, abuse and neglect while embracing the proper treatment of animals and addressing animal welfare issues.” However, exact details on the changes implemented by McDonald’s are hard to come by, thus making it difficult to compare McDonald’s own corporate reform efforts to the animal welfare laws instituted in other countries.

Likewise, the fast food giant, KFC, (a Yum! Brands company), perhaps indeed following McDonald’s lead, has instituted its own animal welfare guidelines. Unlike McDonalds, KFC prohibits its suppliers from debeaking its chickens and from using any growth-promoting substances. However, other than the same corporate pronouncements of “concern” for the “welfare of animals,” specific details on their animal welfare program is hard to find. See the KFC website: <a href="http/www.kfc.com."" target="_blank">http/www.kfc.com."</a>

<a href="http/www.animallaw.info/articles/dduschick.htm" target="_blank">http/www.animallaw.info/articles/dduschick.htm</a>


So basically, while the two companies pretend on the outside to have a caring animal image, McD's still fails to even meet EU standards with its chicken welfare and KFC remains suspiciously silent about where exactly it sources its animal products from. To me, its obvious that their products are battery and barn range. To reverse the question, can you find any solid proof that KFC doesn't use meat from caged hens? No? Is this willing or unwillingly ignorance on this aspect?
If a company isn't clear on its animal welfare ethics and info about where it obtains its animal products from, you can only realistically expect the worst rather than the best.

At the end of the day people are going to buy what suits their pocket best and the only way to get everyone eating free range is for the price of free range meat to come down, its ok for a couple who both work and have no kids to be fussy about what they buy and pay that little bit more but for those that are feeling the pinch with rising fuel costs, household bills , interest rates and shopping bills being able to save a few pounds here and there makes a big difference to peoples quality of life, and no matter how bad it is for the chickens I'm sure most people would rather that their children are able to have a holiday and some nice presents for their Birthday.

Considering how fat people are becoming these days, and that food actually comprises the lowest portion of the family budget these days than it ever has done in 50 years, i don't buy all of this "i can only afford battery food" reasoning. Again, why not just eat meat a little less? You don't want to? Then that must mean that you care more about your food cravings than the welfare of animals such as battery hens; which must also mean that at the end of the day, you only actually really care about animal welfare if it is of convenience to you- when actually put into practice, you seem less concerned about certain aspects of animal welfare if it costs you some of your desires.


Here's an analogy for you: Say someone is keeping an 8inch Shovelnose catfish in a 10gallon tank. You would obviously be against this, yes? So you tell this person that they should get a much larger tank for it. But then they tell you "I want a Shovelnose catfish but i can't afford a 100gallon tank for it, so i am going to keep it in this 10gal because if i did get it a proper size tank i wouldn't be able to go on holiday this year. At the same time, even though i know it is cruel to keep the fish this way, i don't want to get rid of the Shovelnose catfish because i really like it and can't settle for any other fish."
Now how is this persons justification for this supporting of animal cruelty any different to you justifying your support for battery farming? You say "well i really like chicken and want to eat it, but i don't want to pay for the chicken to have a decent quality of life because then it means i won't be able to afford other stuff as easily, but at the same time i don't want to give up chicken"?? Tell me how your justification is essentially different from this? How much do you really care about animals like chickens?

The shovelnose in a small tank analogy doesn't really work as since i stated before i DON'T buy battery farm chickens, the ones i buy are the corn fed barn reared chickens so if you wanted to compare it to fish keeping you could say the shovelnose is being kept in an adequate sized but over stocked tank; still not ideal I'll give you but provided sufficient care is given its not the end of the world. I don't eat Mc Donalds chicken products because if i want chicken i go to KFC and to be honest if i want a burger i go to Burger King so i don't even eat much Mc Donalds.

With everything else being so expensive these days surely the public deserve a little break in their weekly shopping bill?
If food can be produced and sold for less than it was 20 years ago then that is a good thing as it means the average family can have a better quality of life than the same family 20 years ago, i know that I as a child never had a family holiday ever but now we manage a week at the south coast once a year and can just about afford to send our son on a weeks holiday with the school as well. We are also able to indulge in our hobbies where as my parents never had the money to do anything they wanted as every penny went into feeding the family and putting a roof over our heads; would you really prefer that our lifestyles went back to the way they were 20-30 years ago?

You may call it selfish but i like thousands of other people work damn hard for the money i earn so if i can stretch that money a little further by buying meat from animals that have been reared on commercial farms rather than being able to roam free in a field then so be it, we do consciously avoid the cheapest products like economy (battery farmed) chickens and eggs and buy sustainably sourced fish but I'm not going to put us in financial stress buy spending extra money on free range products when reasonably good alternatives are available without supporting cruelty.

 

[Arfie]

If you buy free range purely for the taste, then do you actually have any concern over the welfare of farm animals at all? Seriously- How much do these issues really concern you? Do you only apply animal ethics at convenience?

I would like all animals to be well treated, however it's not an overruling factor in my life, there are far more important things in my life than chickens. So if you want to call that convenience, then yep, that's me.

To be honest i view the skill to make food as one of the most basic skills in life, akin to being able to know how to use a credit card or how to make a fire or being able to work etc. If you can follow instructions, then you can cook- that is all cooking is about, if you mess up, it means that you didn't follow the instructions properly etc. There is nothing to stop you from making good food or enjoying cooking, you simply need to do something about it if you want to achieve this.

But I don't "want to achieve this" and I'm not particularly bothered whether you or anyone else thinks I should be able to cook I can cook (basic stuff) but I don't like it.

The right choice: put into basic terms, let me ask you this then: Is it right to buy animal products farmed in a cruel manner over ones which have not, when you have the choice over to buy or not to buy such things?

If the "free range" stuff makes the cost too much, then I will choose the cheaper option rather than abstain.

however when faced with cravings of a McD meal, you exercise no self-discipline over your ethics/morals

They aren't my ethics, they are yours you need to spot the distinction. The fundamentalist (PETA style) attitude is more likely to push people in the opposite direction, I for one fancy a McD's right now which I didn't before I got lectured.

Arfie

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

The shovelnose in a small tank analogy doesn't really work as since i stated before i DON'T buy battery farm chickens, the ones i buy are the corn fed barn reared chickens so if you wanted to compare it to fish keeping you could say the shovelnose is being kept in an adequate sized but over stocked tank; still not ideal I'll give you but provided sufficient care is given its not the end of the world. I don't eat Mc Donalds chicken products because if i want chicken i go to KFC and to be honest if i want a burger i go to Burger King so i don't even eat much Mc Donalds.

As said before, barn kept chickens are not any better than battery chickens, even for space. They might have the roam of a whole barn, but considering the astronomical numbers barn chickens are kept in, they actually have as much or less free space around them as battery chickens. Not just that, but the waste disposal is not as good as battery cages (at least battery chickens are kept off their waste to some extent) and because of the stressful conditions, cannibalism (brought about by stress and unnatural environment) presents itself as a big problem.
You tell me, does this look humane (this is the barn range);

to you..?


Also, i remember you said free range chicken cost £10's- where did you pull this number from? Free range chicken from Waitrose costs £4.49/kg and Marks and Sparks free range chicken costs £5.24 (and the River Cottage chicken costs £4.99/kg);

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This is hardly wallet-busting stuff, even if you ate chicken 3-4 times a week. Seems like to me you are exaggerating the cost of free range chicken...

And with the tank scenario, if we are comparing an overstocked tank to barn range chickens, then to make a good comparison lets put 12 shovelnose catfish in a 150gallon tank than doesn't have adequate filtration (and so easily gets filthy and isn't cleaned often), because this is what chicken barns are like. Would you still be like, "oh well, not the end of the world"??

With everything else being so expensive these days surely the public deserve a little break in their weekly shopping bill?
If food can be produced and sold for less than it was 20 years ago then that is a good thing as it means the average family can have a better quality of life than the same family 20 years ago, i know that I as a child never had a family holiday ever but now we manage a week at the south coast once a year and can just about afford to send our son on a weeks holiday with the school as well. We are also able to indulge in our hobbies where as my parents never had the money to do anything they wanted as every penny went into feeding the family and putting a roof over our heads; would you really prefer that our lifestyles went back to the way they were 20-30 years ago?

As i have just proved, buying free range chicken does not cost an arm and a leg. You could easily solve your free range chicken cost by simply not eating chicken as much on the whole. However you refuse to do this and put your taste before you morals/ethics. Eating barn/battery range chicken has not allowed you to all of a sudden afford holidays, any money you save is pretty meager even if you are addicted to chicken and eat it every other day- and if you really wanted to seriously save up money for stuff like holidays, then you wouldn't be eating animal products as much either way (regardless of how they are farmed). Do you somehow think that eating cheap chicken all the time has increased the quality of your life?

You may call it selfish but i like thousands of other people work damn hard for the money i earn so if i can stretch that money a little further by buying meat from animals that have been reared on commercial farms rather than being able to roam free in a field then so be it, we do consciously avoid the cheapest products like economy (battery farmed) chickens and eggs and buy sustainably sourced fish but I'm not going to put us in financial stress buy spending extra money on free range products when reasonably good alternatives are available without supporting cruelty.

You are so wrong there with the "without supporting cruelty"- barn range chickens do not have an adequate quality of life. Also you admitted to eating KFC, and you did not even really know if that contained battery farmed chicken, so how can you so assuredly say you don't support such stuff? The fact of the matter is that you can't.
At the end of the day, you simply will not get dirt cheap chicken being sold without the chickens quality of life being reduced for the sake of the price.

 

[BecciMac1987]

Mmmm that KFC pic has made me hungry....

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

I would like all animals to be well treated, however it's not an overruling factor in my life, there are far more important things in my life than chickens. So if you want to call that convenience, then yep, that's me.

So basically you don't really care about animal cruelty if doing something about it would cost you a tiny price.

But I don't "want to achieve this" and I'm not particularly bothered whether you or anyone else thinks I should be able to cook I can cook (basic stuff) but I don't like it.

Well then don't try to excuse buying battery farmed products because you don't have a large food budget, when you realistically do nothing at all to cut down on food costs. Your lack of money is your own fault in this sense and is again, no excuse for buying battery farmed products.

If the "free range" stuff makes the cost too much, then I will choose the cheaper option rather than abstain.

Then you have no real morality/ethics concerning the treatment of animals.

They aren't my ethics, they are yours you need to spot the distinction. The fundamentalist (PETA style) attitude is more likely to push people in the opposite direction, I for one fancy a McD's right now which I didn't before I got lectured.

Arfie

"Sigh", i had a feeling you'd sink and pull out the "fundamentalist" card. So, let me get this right, because i refuse to buy battery farmed products and disagree with others doing so, that makes me a "PETA animal rights fundamentalist" ?

And with the ethics, i'm just using the basic definitions of ethics. Because your ethics are convenience-based, they aren't actually really ethics at all, because ethics is a major branch of philosophy, encompasses right conduct and good life- your "ethics" appear to be little more than opinionated-whims, which you judge others upon but not so much yourself. By you saying its fine to eat McD's because its tasty even though you know its cruelly farmed stuff, but to then say that you think animals should be well-treated, its hypocritical and flawed thinking. Its like you saying that dog-kicking is wrong, but that its ok for you to kick a dog if you want to.