Organic Chickens
I've been travelling and there hasn't been time to eat out much. I thought I would muse upon Organic Chickens since I have just failed to find one in Sainsbury's for about the 4th time running.
The breast meat of a broiler chicken, dry as sawdust, tastes of absolutely nothing at all. It's cheap, but the price has been paid elsewhere, by animals raised in the most horrific conditions imaginable. They are packed so densely that they can barely turn around, pumped full of anti-biotics and frequently unable to stand due to their swollen body mass. Their beaks are clipped to prevent them injuring each other due to the unnatural aggression brought on by stress. Their short lives, as short as 40 days, must be amongst the most miserable of any animals on the planet.
When I was a student I worked for a well-known food-processing company in Nottingham. At first I worked in the delivery yard, illegally driving a fork-lift truck and having a whale of a time. Unfortunately I was late for work once too often and I was transferred to "The Fridge" by way of punishment. Outside it was glorious summer but in the fridge it was so cold that we were dressed in fleece jackets and parkas. Huge container lorries full of frozen chickens would arrive daily from Norway. We would unpack them, thaw and split apart the frozen mass of birds before placing them on a conveyor belt. The chickens then passed through a device which had a sort of grid of hypodermic needles which slammed down on the chickens, injecting them with water to bulk them up and chicken flavouring to make them taste of something. I know some of those birds ended up as fresh chicken on the shelves of some of the UK's best-known supermarkets.
Ethical intentions are not the only reason to buy organic. If you've never eaten an organic chicken, then you don't know what chicken tastes like. Whereas organic veg tastes much the same as its "conventionally" grown counterparts - an organic chicken could be a completely different animal. The meat is richer and darker with an almost gamey flavour. This is the taste of a slowly matured bird, grown without antibiotics, fed on organic grains and which has lived to feel the wind in its feathers for a while. You don't need to do anything fancy with them - just do a traditional British roast (real gravy please) and you will never buy another broiler again.
Now why have Sainsbury's NEVER GOT ANY?
The breast meat of a broiler chicken, dry as sawdust, tastes of absolutely nothing at all. It's cheap, but the price has been paid elsewhere, by animals raised in the most horrific conditions imaginable. They are packed so densely that they can barely turn around, pumped full of anti-biotics and frequently unable to stand due to their swollen body mass. Their beaks are clipped to prevent them injuring each other due to the unnatural aggression brought on by stress. Their short lives, as short as 40 days, must be amongst the most miserable of any animals on the planet.
When I was a student I worked for a well-known food-processing company in Nottingham. At first I worked in the delivery yard, illegally driving a fork-lift truck and having a whale of a time. Unfortunately I was late for work once too often and I was transferred to "The Fridge" by way of punishment. Outside it was glorious summer but in the fridge it was so cold that we were dressed in fleece jackets and parkas. Huge container lorries full of frozen chickens would arrive daily from Norway. We would unpack them, thaw and split apart the frozen mass of birds before placing them on a conveyor belt. The chickens then passed through a device which had a sort of grid of hypodermic needles which slammed down on the chickens, injecting them with water to bulk them up and chicken flavouring to make them taste of something. I know some of those birds ended up as fresh chicken on the shelves of some of the UK's best-known supermarkets.
Ethical intentions are not the only reason to buy organic. If you've never eaten an organic chicken, then you don't know what chicken tastes like. Whereas organic veg tastes much the same as its "conventionally" grown counterparts - an organic chicken could be a completely different animal. The meat is richer and darker with an almost gamey flavour. This is the taste of a slowly matured bird, grown without antibiotics, fed on organic grains and which has lived to feel the wind in its feathers for a while. You don't need to do anything fancy with them - just do a traditional British roast (real gravy please) and you will never buy another broiler again.
Now why have Sainsbury's NEVER GOT ANY?
2 Comments:
Can anyone tell me where i can find organic chickens in Nottingham?
Dinoken@gmail.com
Can anyone tell me where i can find organic chickens in Nottingham?
Dinoken@gmail.com
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