Chicken Carnage.

Apparently we Brits are a nation of animal lovers, in 2014 it was estimated that 13 million households (46%) have pets.

For the most part people love and nuture their animals, providing warmth, food, company and medical treatment where necessary. The thought of subjecting our pets to terrible living conditions, cruelty and torture, would be beyond most normal peoples imagination. Yet when it comes to eating animals very few people consider the animals welfare. We have a belief system that enables us to eat some animals and not others?

I wonder, as we rush to buy our bargain priced chickens, how many of us have any concerns about where these birds are coming from? Our desire for cheap chickens is pushing some producers to erode higher welfare standards in the UK, consequently, millions of chickens live their (on average) 33 -38 days of life in overcrowded metal sheds, (google intensively farmed chickens and watch: live fast die young, if that doesn't make you weep it should at least raise your concerns!

We have recently had scandalous levels of contamination in supermarket chickens. 8 out of 10 fresh chickens bought from UK supermarkets last summer were contaminated with the potentially lethal food poisoning bug campylobacter! Asda's chickens, (3 for £10) contained the highest levels of campylobacter. This contamination is hardly surprising given the number of birds crammed into each shed which thwarts all efforts to reduce disease.

Chickens are by nature gregarious birds, they like to live together as a flock and would naturally spend the day foraging for food. Meanwhile dairy cows are being housed all year round, never seeing the light of day until they are culled aged four or five years old, again this is due to economic pressure, the supermarkets are demanding cheaper milk, which we in turn are buying, giving no thought to the cows being denied their natural behaviour.

Beef cattle and their calves, permanently housed, generally stand up to their bellies in excrement, unable to lie down, freezing cold, their feet rotting, until they are led to slaughter!

I'm not trying to use shock tactics, although we like to pretend that intensive farming goes on behind closed doors, we're all big enough and ugly enough to know full well what's going on! Jamie Oliver has exposed the horrors of factory farming and urged us shoppers to boycott intensively reared animals for years.

                  These beautiful cows have the same emotions as our pet dogs and cats.

For the record, I don't buy the 'I can't afford free-range/outdoor reared or organic.' Argument. Greed is what pushes us, we are as a society consuming more and more. We would rather bulk buy economy burgers and budget chickens, not because we have more mouths to feed, but because we have bigger appetites and why eat one ethically sourced burger when you can have a triple economy burger for less money!

Many of my recipes include meat and chicken, but my family have come to understand it's not about quantity but quality. One small free-range chicken will serve as a roast one day, with leftovers for the next. A very simple and delicious meal is mixed rice, all sorts of vegetables could be added to this dish to bulk it out, therefore very little chicken is needed.

Chicken fried rice

Recipe
A small handful of shredded chicken per person (leftovers from your roast chicken)
3 cups cooked rice
2 tablespoons sesame oil
1 small onion, chopped
1 cup frozen peas, thawed
1 cup frozen diced carrots, thawed
2 cloves garlic, crushed
2-3 tablespoons soy sauce
2 free-range eggs, lightly beaten
4 spring onions, chopped

Heat a large frying pan or wok to medium heat
Add oil and fry peas, carrots, onion and garlic until tender
Scramble eggs into the veg mixture, add chicken and rice and combine thoroughly
Add soy sauce and when everything is piping hot, place in warm bowls and garnish with spring onions, serve immediately

'Needless to say, jamming deformed, drugged, overstressed birds together in filthy, excrement filled sheds is not very healthy. Beyond deformities and bacterial infections are suffering animals with tortured flesh - that tortured flesh is becoming our own.'
- Safran Foer

Love Donna xxxxxxx