Since I started raising and selling chickens, I've become more and more 
aware of the so-called "industrial food system" in the U.S.  While I don't 
really want to use this forum as a place to opine on the nature (and 
horrors) of factory farms in the U.S., I do believe that there is a 
difference in the quality of the food produced.  Most of the people that buy 
chickens from us (we raised 300 chickens this year), do it because they also 
believe there is a difference.  Honestly, not too long ago, I was probably 
among those who thought "chicken is chicken and only hippies and 
tree-huggers believe in organics."  Ok, perhaps much of the organic food 
market is hippies and tree-huggers, but that doesn't necessarily mean they 
are wrong.

Nevertheless, "Organic" is not actually a term that we are allowed to use, 
and it's really not a term that I truly believe in, anyway.  The definition 
is too broad in many cases, and in others, it's way too narrow.  It's rife 
with the same sort of factory farming that it pretends to rally against. 
But that's a whole other issue.  As much as I hate to admit it, France, and 
much or Europe, is WAY ahead of the U.S. on these issues.  First off, the 
U.S. tries to commoditize everything.  Every chicken and every piece of corn 
is supposed just that, and no more.  Reading about the "Label Rouge" program 
in France, as it relates to chickens, and I discovered that I'm following 
almost all of their guidelines.  In fact, in the last batch, we grew-out 150 
"alternative" (non-white) chickens.  They grow slower, have fewer health 
problems, and are much tastier.  These have only been available in the US 
for a couple years now, but they have been in France since the 1960's.  Even 
so, the breeding stock is still very limited here, so we're only getting a 
very small percentage of the available breeds (technically "genetics").

But my chickens cost more to grow-out.  We sold them (bagged whole) for 
$2.10/lb, which is more than twice the price of what you'd pay at Walmart 
for "chicken".  I can't sell chickens for 99 cents per pound and break even. 
My costs on 150 chickens is about $1300, and that's just the cost of the 
chicks, feed, and processing.  150 chickens is about 900 lbs of meat, so 
doing the math, that's $1.44/lb.  In France, the Label Rouge chickens 
generally sell for more than I'm charging, so I mention that, and in that 
sense, our customers are getting a bargain.  I believe it's a superior 
product, and so do they.  :-)

So then we started buying our pork (we don't eat a lot of beef) from other 
local farmers, and discovered that it was also far superior.  Yes, we still 
buy meat from Walmart and Kroger and a local meat store (my favorite place), 
but we now understand that there is a real difference.

It's sad that our food system has become so commoditized that most people 
can't believe that there could be such a difference in quality. 
Furthermore, from what I've read, the U.S. mostly seems to be behind other 
countries in that regard.  I suppose the French have always eaten better, 
and always will, as long as we continue down the road of "cheaper is 
better".  I'm glad to be one of a few people offerring a real alternative.

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Jeremy "UncleHoot" Praay wrote:
> It's sad that our food system has become so commoditized that most people 
> can't believe that there could be such a difference in quality. 

It's especially apparent (to me) in the fruits and vegetables, all of which 
taste essentially identical. Apples are cardboard here.

> Furthermore, from what I've read, the U.S. mostly seems to be behind other 
> countries in that regard.  

We have traded quality for quantity, yes.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".

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Jeremy "UncleHoot" Praay wrote:

> It's sad that our food system has become so commoditized that most people 
> can't believe that there could be such a difference in quality. 

Well, I don't know. I'm not convinced that one slab of chicken breast 
tastes any different to another. Then again, if I cook a chicken breast, 
I usually fry it and then dust it with pepper and paprika, so what do I 
know?

My mum likes to buy the Tesco "value bread". Hint: This stuff costs 

half-stale the day you buy it, it has no taste at all, and it's just 
horrid to eat. But in my mum's tiny lizard-brain, the loaf with the 



serious outlay for me...

Similarly, while I'm not convinced that a prime Aberdeen Angus stake in 
a fancy restraunt is any different to a beef stake from Tesco, I'm 
downright sure a cheap try of minced beef is not in the same league. I 
mean, have you *seen* how much fat you get out of that stuff when you 
cook it??

Also, I'm not saying they add extra water to the chicken to make it 
heavier, but... well if you slice it up and start cooking it, you end up 
with a pretty impressive lake of water...

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It's nice to hear about this.

Some years ago I participated in a EU-funded project aiming at creating 
educational material for "young" (read: new) organic farmers. The project 
was an epic disaster due to poor management but at least the texts we 
produced were OK: see the attached file for the texts about poultry. Note 
that this is for true organic farming according to the stringent EU 
regulations, but there may be a couple of interesting ideas there.

Organic livestock farming is indeed difficult. It's generally more work and 
the resulting product is more expensive due to longer production cycles. 
With true organic livestock, it is very hard to feed and treat animals and 
get as much milk/eggs/meat as in non-organic farming. In French 
supermarkets, prices for organic chicken are 2 to 3 times higher than for 
"standard" chicken ("Label" and certified chickens are expensive too, but 
less so). One solution is selling directly to customers: a colleague of mine 
just quit his job to become an organic sheep farmer (lamb meat). He 
advertises on local open markets and has a few dozens of customers in a 
30-km radius (IIRC) that he knows personally. Because there is no middlemen 
his prices are actually attractive compared to supermarkets. Of course this 
is for lamb and I don't know how it works in poultry (and I hope he's got 
his business model well figured out...).

G.


message de news: 4accab1f@news.povray.org...
> Since I started raising and selling chickens, I've become more and more
> aware of the so-called "industrial food system" in the U.S.  While I don't
> really want to use this forum as a place to opine on the nature (and
> horrors) of factory farms in the U.S., I do believe that there is a
> difference in the quality of the food produced.  Most of the people that 
> buy
> chickens from us (we raised 300 chickens this year), do it because they 
> also
> believe there is a difference.  Honestly, not too long ago, I was probably
> among those who thought "chicken is chicken and only hippies and
> tree-huggers believe in organics."  Ok, perhaps much of the organic food
> market is hippies and tree-huggers, but that doesn't necessarily mean they
> are wrong.
>

Post a reply to this message

Attachments:
Download 'poultry_uk.zip' (40 KB)

On Wed, 07 Oct 2009 17:01:17 +0100, Invisible wrote:

>> It's sad that our food system has become so commoditized that most
>> people can't believe that there could be such a difference in quality.
> 
> Well, I don't know. I'm not convinced that one slab of chicken breast
> tastes any different to another.

I think you just unwittingly proved Jeremy's point. :-)

I can believe there is a difference, but I've tasted the difference.

Same thing with steak; I've had some downright cheap steaks in 
restaurants and bought better quality cuts myself and cooked them.  With 
a restaurant, one way of telling if they get a good quality cut is if 
they'll cook it rare.  A good quality steak is best served (IMHO) rare; 
if you are going to turn it into a charcoal briquette, you don't need 
quality because you're going to cook all the flavour out of it anyways.

That extra water?  Ice from when it's frozen, most likely.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

>> Well, I don't know. I'm not convinced that one slab of chicken breast
>> tastes any different to another.
> 
> I think you just unwittingly proved Jeremy's point. :-)
> 
> I can believe there is a difference, but I've tasted the difference.

Well, I don't have a great sense of taste anyway, so...

> That extra water?  Ice from when it's frozen, most likely.

Who said it was frozen?

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"Jim Henderson" <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote in message 
news:4accbce4$1@news.povray.org...
> That extra water?  Ice from when it's frozen, most likely.

When chickens are processed in an industrial setup, they are mechanically 
eviscerated.  This leads to a large quantity of fecal matter ending up on 
the inside of the chicken.  So, to fix that, they are hosed and bathed in a 
chlorine bath for a few hours, where they also cool down with a whole bunch 
of other chickens.  As you can imagine, the carcasses at the bottom of the 
chill tank are probably pretty nasty.  When you smell a chicken from the 
store, there is an odd smell to it that's just not present on my chickens. 
I'm guessing it's the chlorine.

My processor eviscerates by hand, then drops them into the chill tank.  He 
doesn't get feces on the chicken to begin with.  If I had it my way, they 
would be air-chilled, but I can't get everything I want.  When I pick them 
up in the evening, they're all bagged and cold.

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On Wed, 07 Oct 2009 17:12:41 +0100, Invisible wrote:

>>> Well, I don't know. I'm not convinced that one slab of chicken breast
>>> tastes any different to another.
>> 
>> I think you just unwittingly proved Jeremy's point. :-)
>> 
>> I can believe there is a difference, but I've tasted the difference.
> 
> Well, I don't have a great sense of taste anyway, so...

I don't really either, if it comes to that.

>> That extra water?  Ice from when it's frozen, most likely.
> 
> Who said it was frozen?

Chances are it was frozen at some point along it's journey from the 
packaging plant to your local grocery store.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On Wed, 07 Oct 2009 13:17:28 -0400, Jeremy \"UncleHoot\" Praay wrote:

> "Jim Henderson" <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote in message
> news:4accbce4$1@news.povray.org...
>> That extra water?  Ice from when it's frozen, most likely.
> 
> When chickens are processed in an industrial setup, they are
> mechanically eviscerated.  This leads to a large quantity of fecal
> matter ending up on the inside of the chicken.  So, to fix that, they
> are hosed and bathed in a chlorine bath for a few hours, where they also
> cool down with a whole bunch of other chickens.  As you can imagine, the
> carcasses at the bottom of the chill tank are probably pretty nasty. 
> When you smell a chicken from the store, there is an odd smell to it
> that's just not present on my chickens. I'm guessing it's the chlorine.

Probably, or a reaction with the chlorine.

> My processor eviscerates by hand, then drops them into the chill tank. 
> He doesn't get feces on the chicken to begin with.  If I had it my way,
> they would be air-chilled, but I can't get everything I want.  When I
> pick them up in the evening, they're all bagged and cold.

Where were you located again?  :-)

Jim

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"Gilles Tran" <gil### [at] agroparistechfr> wrote in message 
news:4accbcd9$1@news.povray.org...
> Organic livestock farming is indeed difficult. It's generally more work 
> and the resulting product is more expensive due to longer production 
> cycles. With true organic livestock, it is very hard to feed and treat 
> animals and get as much milk/eggs/meat as in non-organic farming. In 
> French supermarkets, prices for organic chicken are 2 to 3 times higher 
> than for "standard" chicken ("Label" and certified chickens are expensive 
> too, but less so). One solution is selling directly to customers: a 
> colleague of mine just quit his job to become an organic sheep farmer 
> (lamb meat). He advertises on local open markets and has a few dozens of 
> customers in a 30-km radius (IIRC) that he knows personally. Because there 
> is no middlemen his prices are actually attractive compared to 
> supermarkets. Of course this is for lamb and I don't know how it works in 
> poultry (and I hope he's got his business model well figured out...).
>

There is a provision in the law that allows us to sell chickens from our 
home in a similar way.  We really don't have a farm in the usual sense, just 
2.5 acres of land.  I use 1 acre for the chickens, which I put in a movable 
pen that gets dragged around the yard.  Suffice it to say that our grass in 
that part of the yard is very green.  :-)  When they get bigger, I often let 
them run around the yard in the evenings.  As a result, I believe our 
chickens are better than nearly all chickens that get the "organic" term 
stamped on them.  The only thing I do differently is that I don't feed them 
a certified organic feed.  But instead, they spend nearly their entire lives 
outdoors, eating grass and bugs, and whatever else they might want to 
sample.  That's where a "Label Rouge" type of designation would be nice.

We'd like to raise lamb, too.  From talking with friends, it only takes one 
season.  Buy them in the spring, and then they're ready in the fall. 
Unfortunately, I'd probably have to reduce the number of chickens we raise. 
We just don't have enough land for both at the same time.

Anyway, out of the 300 chickens we raised this year, we're keeping about 40 
for ourselves, many of which have already been eaten.  It works out such 
that I can raise my own chickens for free, by selling the rest.  It's not 
"profit" in the usual sense of the word, but it works for us.  It's a hobby 
that I enjoy, and my wife is enjoying it more and more as well.  I've 
estimated around 100 man-hours for this last 150 chicken batch.  That's 
probably a couple orders of magnitude higher than chickens raised in a 
conventional setting.

Mostly, I feel like I'm offering something to our community at a reasonable 
price.  If anyone balks at the price, I really don't care; they can buy 
their chicken from Walmart at the cheapest price possible.

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