Free range is fairer!

Apologies to the vegetarians (yes, you can look away now) as I step onto my little wooden box to call to the masses...

No it has nothing to with knitting, but yes, I believe you should keep reading.

If you live in the UK and have been watching TV recently you should aready be aware of the Chicken Out campaign to get better lives for chickens that will eventually end up on our plates.

BF and myself switched to free-range after watching The River Cottage Treatment last year, and as I felt guilty tucking into a Nando's bird of non-descript origin last weekend I knew there was no going back. Added to that the 3-part program of this week (Hugh's Chicken Run still available to watch on 4OD and probably through ovguide.com) really finished opening my eyes.

Free range chickens take almost twice as long to get to retail weight, and they get a good night sleep...not 30 minutes of shut eye like their intensively-farmed equivalent.

The main issue people have with free range is the cost, and I confess I have gasped at the £17.99/kg price tag on organic free-range fillets BUT in fact the cost of a WHOLE free range chicken is only about £5.00.

Compared to the cheaper option (£3.50 on average) it is only the equivalent of 1 half pint of beer or about 5 cigarettes...not much of a sacrifice to eat a much tastier bird that had a much more 'normal' life.

So anyway as the celeb chefs take it in turn to draw the public's attention to the issue I thought I would follow in Roman Sock's footsteps and, having just signed up to the chickenout campaign, that I would encourage anybody who comes across this blog to do the same. Link in the side bar...

Thanks for reading.

And now to find a knitting way to help the campaign... knitted chicks anyone?