Food, Drink & Dining Out Free range chicken

[Lester Burnham]

When I buy chicken from the supermarket I usually pay a bit more in the hope that it has led a happy life scratching around a paddock eating bugs, berries and truffles, and that it will taste better.

What's the reality of a free range chicken's existence?

Do people think it tastes better?

 

[pantskyle]

I would like to take some of your free chicken. I'll pm you my address for delivery.

Thanks.

 

[little graham]

I know people who breed their own chooks (I use to) and they taste completly different to anything you'll find in a shop. The eggs are also completely different. when you break open a fresh organic egg, you'll get a shock. You'll get a bigger one when you start to fry it, a bigger one again when you taste it.

You even need less than what recipes suggest when baking with real eggs.

Shop eggs and chooks are poison. Cancer birds we call them.

 

[SugarShane]

Couldn't care less where they come from. Doesn't affect my buying at all.

 

[radiojake]

I must say I don't quite understand how people could buy cage eggs...

I know sometimes the egg cartons are tricky and they make it seem like they are free range through the packaging, but when you read the fine print, they're cage eggs...But when I see people buy the no frills 'CAGED EGGS' packet, I feel like a Port supporter shaking my head at the media....

 

[Lester Burnham]

I know people who breed their own chooks (I use to) and they taste completly different to anything you'll find in a shop. The eggs are also completely different. when you break open a fresh organic egg, you'll get a shock. You'll get a bigger one when you start to fry it, a bigger one again when you taste it.

You even need less than what recipes suggest when baking with real eggs.

Shop eggs and chooks are poison. Cancer birds we call them.

I keep a couple of chooks that can wander and eat anything they feel like. The eggs taste great. The box for Woolworth's Select Free Range Eggs says 'Our Free Range eggs have been laid by hens that are free to roam outdoors during the day and nest in barns at night.'. Those eggs don't taste nearly so good. What's the difference?

The 'free range' chicken I buy to eat tastes totally bland. Going to try to find a source for the real stuff.

 

[vealesy]

Free range as a term is deceptive.

It just means there can only be so many chickens in the cages per metre squared.

Its killing us softly.

But also making boobs bigger.

 

[little graham]

The 'free range' chicken I buy to eat tastes totally bland. Going to try to find a source for the real stuff.

Go to 'produce/farmers' markets and ask questions at stalls that sell eggs or ask a hippy looking chick 30 + They'll know where you may be able to source something other than cancer birds.

It's what you feed the chooks that determines how healthy of a protien source and how they taste. Alot of commercially farmed chooks/eggs are fed with GM feed laden with antibiotics and steroids. Organic greens is the best way to feed a chook, but a highly expensive slow and a very impractical commercial enterprise.

 

[Thrawn]

Couldn't care less where they come from. Doesn't affect my buying at all.

If more people cared, then there'd be less unnecessary suffering all round. Hopefully shitty, selfish attitudes such as this are getting less and less prevalent.

PS. I'm not a vegetarian either, but I do think it's important for people to be more aware of where their meat comes from, and how it's processed. It's healthier, better for the animals too.

 

[Julius Seizure]

I tend to try to buy organic grass fed meat when I can, but thats more because I think it tastes better than anything else. When money is tight its the basic stuff that ends up in my fridge.

 

[Scotland]

I keep a couple of chooks that can wander and eat anything they feel like. The eggs taste great. The box for Woolworth's Select Free Range Eggs says 'Our Free Range eggs have been laid by hens that are free to roam outdoors during the day and nest in barns at night.'. Those eggs don't taste nearly so good. What's the difference?

The 'free range' chicken I buy to eat tastes totally bland. Going to try to find a source for the real stuff.

Chickens roost by nature so if you provide a 10 acre paddock with a small barn in the middle come sundown you'll know where to find the chooks.

I reckon eggs from pet chickens taste better because the chickens are simply fed better. I had them growing up and they used to get wheat, pellets, shell grit, vege scraps etc. as well as whatever they could find scratching around in the garden. I doubt your average professional egg layer has such variety and freedom.

As far as the meat goes I don't find the flavour of chicken on its own that strong so don't notice a huge difference between the good stuff and the cheap stuff. What I have noticed is the texture of the meat on the free range stuff is better, and the size of one breast/thigh fillet is much larger than what you get with the $7/kg stuff. Budget chickens aren't raised, they're harvested. If you want to grow a good chicken then feed it well and let it finish growing.

 

[BALKAN]

Whatever kind of chicken KFC serve up, that's the kind I eat.

 

[Gasometer]

As a kid of the 70's living in a country town we had chooks in our back yard and occasionally they were murdered for our stomachs.

I remember my Dad plucking them and the distinct smell of wet hot feathers.

But there is one thing I know now...the taste between a 1976 backyard chook and anything bought in a supermarket, free-caged-whatever, is miles and miles apart.

Chicken breast today is tasteless.

Back to chooks in backyards IMO...better eggs as well.

 

[lemon chicken]

I keep a couple of chooks that can wander and eat anything they feel like. The eggs taste great. The box for Woolworth's Select Free Range Eggs says 'Our Free Range eggs have been laid by hens that are free to roam outdoors during the day and nest in barns at night.'. Those eggs don't taste nearly so good. What's the difference?

The 'free range' chicken I buy to eat tastes totally bland. Going to try to find a source for the real stuff.

They are allowed out of the barn during the day as opposed to being in a cage all of the time but they are still fed the same shit. Chooks scratch around in the grass a lot so the area they are being let out in would just be a patch of dirt in a short time.

 

[Fevola99]

I like the taste of suffering

 

[Northworth]

I think it is a moral issue more than a taste issue
but for the record I think it tastes better free range

the life of a caged/battery animal is just cruel and we can do better than that - and it is a personal choice for everyone but my decision is always to "do the right thing"

 

[little graham]

I think it is a moral issue more than a taste issue

To play devils advocate, we cage humans in our cities as well, for the same reasons, to maintain commercial enterprises and profit margins...

So it's not really moral...

 

[Sanders]

It is certainly not a moral issue it is a taste issue

It starts with breed
What cereals it's been fed
Exercise
Whether growth is hormone led
And perhaps as important as anything: how old it is

A truly free range, organic chicken bread to 70 days - such as Poulet de Bresse is a thing of beauty

The moral argument is played because its simple enough for everyone to understand. Chicken welfare leads to better taste

 

[Lester Burnham]

I think it is a moral issue more than a taste issue
but for the record I think it tastes better free range

I think it is both. A chicken can be treated humanely while it is alive and taste better if it is reared and fed in a certain way.

But I still don't know what it really means that a chicken is 'free range'. If they just have a small enclosure to wander around in during the day and are fed the same hormone filled pellets then it's no surprise that they don't taste any different.

 

[nicky]

I know people who breed their own chooks (I use to) and they taste completly different to anything you'll find in a shop. The eggs are also completely different. when you break open a fresh organic egg, you'll get a shock. You'll get a bigger one when you start to fry it, a bigger one again when you taste it.

You even need less than what recipes suggest when baking with real eggs.

Shop eggs and chooks are poison. Cancer birds we call them.

That's very true little graham. It's also important to mention that free range chicken and eggs isn't good enough if you're after something nutritious and healthy. Look for certified organic.

You know really, if you really care then buy your eggs from a health store like fruit peddlers, organic section of a market like queen victoria or even better, farmers markets.

Here is a guide to supermarket eggs in australia.

 

[FreoGirl]

When I buy chicken from the supermarket I usually pay a bit more in the hope that it has led a happy life scratching around a paddock eating bugs, berries and truffles, and that it will taste better.

What's the reality of a free range chicken's existence?

Do people think it tastes better?

I can tell the taste of it and hate it. FRC reminds me too much of the taste of the chickens my dad used to kill when I was growing up. I thought I was a bit odd until my butcher told me others have said the same.

 

[Kim Hagdorn]

Intensive battery farms should be banned, disgraceful practice