Re: Jamie Oliver - & his Chickens???
 

Ahem - I meant organic OR freerange - I wouldn't have used a slash if I meant "and" - I would have written "and also" or some such thing. ;):p

We've bought both freerange chickens and organic chickens within that price bracket. Which was the point I was making.

Anyway - no worries - what actually defines organic anyway? Is it that a crop/animal/land has been tested and deemed "organic" by some organisation? Or can the word "organic" be used in a less official way?

For example - we buy our beef from a farmer friend. His family has owned the land the cows pasture on since they first arrived in Canada in 1910 or some such date. Some parts of the land have never been touched apart from the cows pasturing during the late spring, summer and early autumn. They receive no supplemental food during this time apart from a mineral lick.

In the winter they are yarded for protection and fed on hay (grown without pesticides from another area of the farm - land hasn't been treated either etc) and supplement-grainy stuff for cows (this I acknowledge I can't comment on as being "organic" - but lets say it is for the sake of argument for this example).

They receive the standard vaccinations/worming etc they need as calves but then do not receive hormone treatment or additional jabs unless they are ill and need some form of medicine.

When they are slaughtered no water or additives are added to the meat before packing in greaseproof-type paper and freezing.

Given the above parameters, can this meat be deemed organic and/or freerange? I'm genuinely asking, because I find the definition of organic confusing - plus I don't Jamie or Hugh to guide me :)

Re: Jamie Oliver - & his Chickens???
 

[QUOTE=ladymoose;5782147]Ahem - I meant organic OR freerange - I wouldn't have used a slash if I meant "and" - I would have written "and also" or some such thing. ;):p
QUOTE]

:lol: I knew what you meant even if others didn't ;)

Have you got your new dog to foster yet, you mentioned you'd be getting a new one - I think you do a brilliant job :thumbsup:

Both our two dogs & three cats are all rescue - i'm all for it, I worked for a while at the Dogs Home Battersea in the 80's & some of the sights I saw were heart wrenching :(

Re: Jamie Oliver - & his Chickens???
 

In the UK it's the Soil Association that decides, but their standard is highly political, for example they plan to withdraw the label from food that has been delivered by aeroplane. Here the California government standards are generally used, they're pretty strict but deal only with growing conditions.

This morning, btw, I found a free range chicken (a barred Plymouth Rock) dead for no obvious reason. If anyone would like it please advise.

Re: Jamie Oliver - & his Chickens???
 

I agree with you totally. I think he is a bully who browbeats people through his fowl tongue. It really does get awful as the show goes on in terms of how much he swears. I don't know how he gets his ego through the door. And if anybody dares to question his beliefs, he just swears more. He is a good cook and has good ideas, but I think he can do it w/o the foul tongue.

Re: Jamie Oliver - & his Chickens???
 

[QUOTE=Arris;5782377][QUOTE=ladymoose;5782147]Have you got your new dog to foster yet, you mentioned you'd be getting a new one - I think you do a brilliant job :thumbsup:QUOTE]

Hi Arris - we got another puppy who was snapped up in less than a week (he was the cutest dog ever and loved kids to bits, so he was bound to go fast). We are having a break now, but will be getting 2, 8 week old pups in a couple of weeks.

Ideally, they should stay with mum longer, but they have no shelter and she is losing them at a rate of 1 a week at the moment. The cold snap we had last week resulted in 2 more freezing.

Unfortunately, she won't allow herself to be caught, or we could bring them all in.

Thanks for asking by the way, if you want to do fostering when you get over, you will be snapped up. :thumbup:

I read the figures for the number of dogs handed in to shelters in the UK last week - compared to Canada it is relatively few (though it is also far too many of course!). A recent survey in just one of the reserves around Stony found 300 stray dogs alone. I'd hate to see what the actual number for AB is altogether - let alone for Canada as a whole. The pounds and rescue centres are overrun currently. :(

Re: Jamie Oliver - & his Chickens???
 

I'm glad that Hugh's programmes have have made it across the ocean, I was wondering what he was up to now. You're quite right LadyMoose, Hugh is a lovely chap, he's very friendly in real life and rather cheeky! ;)

The one I saw recently he got a load of overweight chavs to his farm to teach them about chickens and the horrors of battery farming. Ended up slaughtering one in front of the camera (a chicken, not a chav) which I thought was quite brave - I didn't think that sort of thing would be shown on UK TV?

Re: Jamie Oliver - & his Chickens???
 

Probably would have picked the chav myself ;)

Re: Jamie Oliver - & his Chickens???
 

Who's language was worse?

Re: Jamie Oliver - & his Chickens???
 

On Channel 4 of course!!! Long been the nation's favourite channel of controversy and boundary-pushing!

Coincidence they have the best programmes on? Probably not.

Shinkansen

Re: Jamie Oliver - & his Chickens???
 

Try Shameless "battery raised chav's" on channel 4, can be downloaded! :eek:

Re: Jamie Oliver - & his Chickens???
 

The very best show on earth :rofl: love it to death. Being a Manchester lass it really reminds me of the UK :eek:

They do show it on one of the channels over here - think it could be CBC at about 11pm but think we are waiting for a new series to start.

If in doubt order the DVD's fromAmazon or something and a multi region player and you can watch it to your hearts content :eek:

Gaynor

Re: Jamie Oliver - & his Chickens???
 

Hubby has been down loading it - so we have the latest episodes one day after it is viewed in the UK.:eek:

Reminds us of why we left - hubby worked for the local authority, so had to fix back up the damaged council properties; hated his job!