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3 chicken fillets cost me €7.50
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30-09-2013 11:41pm#1
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I was recently asked if I could help my friend out with one of the vans to save some hens from slaughter. There were to be over 7,000 hens slaughtered simply because they had served their production time for the farmer as after a year I believe at this time, they stop producing eggs and it's cheaper to slaughter them all and get new hens than to wait for them to start producing again, I think that's what I was told anyway.
So I decided to go on a mission with the van and we were guided to a battery farm, where the hens are apparently exposed to 23 hours of light a day to trick them into laying more eggs, in cramped conditions where they had never seen daylight and didn't have enough room to walk to build their leg muscles and had their beaks chopped at the end so they don't bite eachother, or do much damage when they try, out of stress. The farmer was letting an animal rescue charity organise a collection of these hens but were charging €2 a pop per hen. These were fully grown I believe (I think it takes 90 days for a chicken to grow fully and these were about a year old).
I imagine this happens in many more farms around the country, so if the farmer is letting a charity take them at €2 a pop, then this is probably more profitable than what he could hope to make off them going to slaughter and being sold for meat. I wouldn't dare to eat any of these guys, the condition they were in was horrible, featherless, the pink bit above their head floppy and pale, but I imagine if their eggs were being sold without issue, then they probably could be too?
The whole thing seemed very wrong for me.
I'm not sure if this applies in Ireland but I was told that in some cases the chickens are fed so much hormone induced foods that their regular 90 day growing time can be cut in half and they grow so quickly that their legs can't even support them? Also I believe meat and other foods are subsidised? http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/09/why-a-big-mac-costs-less-than-a-salad/?_r=0
I'm not too knowledgeable about any of this but just going by what I've heard (had to google the last link just now :P). When I went to help my friend get them hens it was definitely real though.
I've been eating much higher fruit, veg, nut and seed proportions lately. There are certainly expensive things out there but there's also cheap things too. Also, I try and buy as much organic as possible (I'm not sure what evidence there is about non organic foods being harmful, but I'd prefer to spend a little extra on organic personally just to be on the safe side).
It's amazing what other savings can be seen by changing your diet. I've pretty much cut out animal products altogether and one thing in particular I've saved on is waste charges. I went a period of over 2 years I believe without putting my black wheelie bin out, and when I did put it out, most of it was taken up with ashes from the fire. Pretty much everything that comes into the house is recycled or composted, the packaging is all clean enough to recycle etc.
I believe by spending a bit more on decent food, whatever you decide to eat as long as it's unprocessed ****e, you're reducing money spent and wasted elsewhere with days off sick, doctor bills, antibiotics etc. When I slump and don't eat well due to high stress or workload, this is when I get sick, unfortunately it goes hand in hand.
In the long run, eating crappy processed foods is going to end up costing you more no matter how tempting them yellow price tags might be with the special offers, you're better off paying the good food grocer now and not the doctor later
Of course, it helps to shop around too. Some of the best grapes I've had were going for €3.50 a kg, these were organic red globe grapes being sold in the Dublin Food Co-Op, at the same time, I saw grapes in Tesco going for €7.80 (approx) a KG. Also, I was getting delicious apples, again organic at €2.90 a kg as opposed to your typical non organic apple going for about €3.50 a kg in Tesco.
Also, there's a lot of bad tasting fruit out there, I mean there's disgusting, dry, tasteless oranges and there's juicy, sweet delicious ones, same with all types of fruit. If you're introducing fruits and veg, make sure to try them yourself first to check they are actually nice so you don't throw your child off them with the idea that all the oranges taste the same.0 -
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^ this. We rehomed 4 ex-battery girls, paid a fiver for them each. They were practically bald when we got them but after some tlc they started to come around. They actually became quite tame and used to follow me around the garden looking for food. Gave them to farming neighbours after a while as I didn't like keeping them in a coop. Still see them pecking around on the farm, and like to wave at the (well 15) hens going by lol. Their eggs are amazing, totally different from battery ones. It's worrying when eggs are all completely uniform (or any food for that matter). I will hold my hands up and admit I am guilty of buying cheaper fillets when I am broke, and I do worry about it. An xpose was done a while ago that showed chickens that had been artificially "grown" (ie pumped with water and antib's) so rapidly that their legs could not support their own body weight, and in fact it makes sense. Often you cook up a few fillets and end up with far less than you started out with!
Edit: we are not really designed to eat meat 7 days anyway, if we switched to a number of times a week, we could afford to eat more ethically sourced (and better for us) meat for the same price overall.0 -
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