It's Not Really About Chickens At All.

[poliphilo]

More about chickens. And first off I feel I owe Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall an apology. The man is trying to do a good thing. I was unduly contemptuous and harsh.

I liked Jamie Oliver's show last night. He went over much of the same ground- but in the form of an illustrated lecture. He killed chickens on stage, he gassed chicks, he made fritters out of the horrible slurry known as MRM (mechanically recovered meat). He also went where H F-W hadn't been and looked at egg production. He didn't bully us, he showed us the process. And he gave some credit and sympathy to the farmers. They don't necessarily want to farm on this inhuman scale but they're not given much choice; the market demands it of them. A standard chicken sells for £2.50 - £3.00. And how much of that goes to the producer? 3p.

Unlike H F-P, Oliver was groping for a compromise solution. The RSPCA has drawn up guidelines and will award a badge to producers who honour them. The birds are still kept indoors but in less crowded conditions, with windows and fans and amenities like straw bales and perches and toys. It's not the rural idyll we'd all like to see but it's a big improvement - and it only adds £1.00 to the price of each bird. That's acceptable, isn't it?

Or is it? I don't really know. There are almost certainly people out there who can afford a chicken at £2.50 but not at £3.50.  And do we really think it's ethical to press for animal welfare at the expense of human beings? Chickens are cheap because people are poor. That's what it's really all about.  Ten years ago we elected a Labour government in the belief that they cared about this sort of thing- and what have they done? They've allowed the gap between rich and poor to widen. Fussing about animal cruelty is approaching the problem from the wrong end. Stamp out human poverty and the excuse for factory farming disappears.

Comments

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

But a cheap chicken is perhaps the closest to "decent" meat some people can afford. If that's taken away from them they'll have nothing left but junk.

I read or heard somewhere that the British public was never healthier than during WWII when food was rationed.

[arielstarshadow.livejournal.com]

Well a 1 pound increase should still be affordable to even the poorest. If you'd said it was a 10 pound increase, then yes, I'd worry about people who had been able to afford chicken before suddenly not being able to.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Most people could probably afford a £1.00 increase, but I'm sure there are some- single parents, pensioners- who would find it too much.

[qatsi.livejournal.com]

Yes, I remember seeing that somewhere - probably, in my case, in London: 1945 where I think it was attributed either to Churchill or a family member or secretary. Rationing effectively broke the "normal" laws of supply and demand - money wasn't all that you needed and there was equality in the (initial) distribution of ration coupons. (Of course, it doesn't necessarily follow that food was cheap, just that its availability was more equitable).

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Of course it may not be true.

British cuisine in the post-war years- when meat was still scarce and/or highly priced- was pretty depressing. I wouldn't want to go back to eating the food I ate as a child.

[qatsi.livejournal.com]

Another possible explanation is that people ate (proportionally) far more fruit and veg, because that's what was relatively more abundant. A lot of food "advice" seems to come and go, but "fresh fruit and veg is good for you" seems to be fairly constant.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I remember there being lots of cabbage on offer. Boiled cabbage. And carrots.

Very healthy but boring as hell.

We did, however, have our own fruit trees- lots of apples and pears and plums. Oh- and currants and gooseberries

[frumiousb.livejournal.com]

"But a cheap chicken is perhaps the closest to "decent" meat some people can afford. If that's taken away from them they'll have nothing left but junk."

Is there any evidence at all to suggest that cheaper food prices are a contributor to higher nutritional standards at this point in our history? How cheap is cheap enough?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I've no idea.

I just think it right that the poorest members of society should be able to afford a decent diet- including meat.

[frumiousb.livejournal.com]

Of course. But I would think that we would be better off targeting vulnerable populations with nutrition programs rather than just generally depressing food prices. I find it interesting that in the US, obesity is most epidemic in poorer neighborhoods. Meat is the cheapest that it has ever been, and its consumption is wide-spread.

I remember clearly growing up that my father hated the idea of peanut butter because as a kid on a farm, he could remember when the only meat that they could afford to eat themselves was tough chicken from their own farm. As a result, when meat prices started coming down and his salary rose (he became a fireman) he insisted on red meat as often as possible. He died of a heart attack at 54. I'm not sure that he was better off. Interestingly, the only family friends whose families are still surviving at farming are the ones who converted to organic farming. It is the only market that allows a small farmer to be paid enough to survive on the labor of his land. I eat organic because it is better for the farmers.

I don't know if this is true in the poultry industry, but I know that much of the cheap food prices is artificial-- a result of subsidy structure that encourages overproduction and de-emphasizes food safety.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes, you can eat too much meat.

What we need perhaps is for people to be better educated about nutrition- but then again, I'm not sure we're not over-obsessed with the whole subject. On the one hand we're panicking about obesity and on the other about anorexia. I wouldn't say affluence was a curse- but it brings problems in its wake that our ancestors didn't even have to consider.