Thursday 5 February 2009

chickens and pigs too.

After watching Hugh's campaign for free range chickens, Jamie's campaign for free range eggs and now the latest one I watched the other night Jamie's saving British pork I feel I should have a rant in the hope that I may feel a bit better about it all.
I agree with everything they are trying to do and I only buy free range eggs and the same now goes for chicken and British pork, but why do shops make it so damned hard?. Our local butcher is the only place locally I can buy sausages without sodium metabisulphite in. (This is also in most children's drinks too) I will post about that another time, but if you have children take have a look at the link. Getting back to my butcher, I asked about his chickens being free range, He said no but they are kept very well on a local farm, so I asked if he had been to this farm to see how they are kept, guess what? - he hadn't!! how can someone say they are well kept if they have never been, judging by the horrid hock marks I would say not so. They wont sell them because apparently in the area which I live people wont pay extra for free range. This has made me cross because I'm sure there are more people in my area that would buy them if they were available. I guess it comes down to how strong your morals are.
Next we come to Iceland, the shop not place, the supermarket where apparently mums know best, well this mum does and I was very upset that Iceland's policy ( I know because I rang head office) is that it is unfeasible at the present time to sell free range, think of little Jimmy's nuggets and those lovely Kiev's, all from shitty legged poorly looked after chickens - yummy!! As one of the major players in selling food especially to the poorer end of the consumer, they should make some kind of stand,. Their statement said to me, our customers are too poor and not bothered enough to care whether we stock free range or not. Well I was one of their customers for years in fact but I wont be going in there again until it changes.
Please tell me why cant there be more compassion in the world, why is it all about money?
Sometimes we feel very alone as a family, in that we home school, follow a choice of not eating chemicals, preservatives etc in our foods and seem to have a different outlook on life than most folks around here. That's why I like being on the net to read about other like minded souls, it makes me feel that were not alone and only a bit crazy!
(photo is not mine, it is off another blog but I cant remember which one, so if this is your pic mail me and I will put a link)