Jamie Oliver In Jamies Fowl Dinners
Forget about School dinners, Jamie Oliver is on a new crusade. This time the naked chef will be investigating the life and death of chickens sold cheaply in our local supermarket.
In the show, which will air on Channel 4 this month, Jamie can be seen killing chickens himself as well as watching them be slaughtered professionally.
He told The Sun:
“I hated it. But I don’t think it’s sensational to show people the reality of how chickens live and die at the moment,” he said.
“It may be upsetting for some people, but that’s how things are. All of those birds would have been killed anyway, as thousands are every day up and down the country.
“And if seeing some of the practices helps to change the shopping habits of just 5% of people watching, then it will be worth it.”
Jamie has claimed that our expectation to be able to buy very cheap chicken is leading to awful conditions for the chickens and very poor return for farmers.
“People are selling chickens 20p cheaper here, cages getting a few inches smaller there - and we’ve reached a point where people expect to be able to buy a chicken for £2.50, when really it should be at least £4,” Jamie argued.
“I think the thing that shocked me most was the fact that farmers have to sell something like 100 chickens to make 3 or 4 quid and to me that’s outrageous.”
“I’m not asking people to pay three times as much, just what they can afford,” he said.
“I believe the conditions under which standard eggs and standard chickens are reared are morally wrong and if changing your habits means that you don’t have chicken as often, so be it.
“The Italians on average eat meat three times a week whereas in the UK, meat-eaters will tend to have it six or seven times a week.”
Jamies new show will air as part of C4’s The Big Food Fight season: Jamie’s Fowl Dinners, January 11, 9pm, C4
We have a great interview with Jamie on his new Fowl Dinner show. It’s well worth a read. Just click here!
Bookmark & Share »
January 8th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
[...] about School dinners, Jamie Oliver is on a new crusade. In his new show, Jamies Fowl Dinners the naked chef will be investigating the life and death of chickens sold cheaply in our local [...]
January 11th, 2008 at 9:29 pm
OH MY WORD . this is disgusting ( how people treat animals) i canot belive my eyes !
January 11th, 2008 at 10:33 pm
This is crazy. Jamie Oliver is stuffing his pockets with cash from Sainsburys whilst telling us what we should and shouldn’t eat. If he really cared about chickens he’d not take his fat 1.2 million a year from this huge supermarket. Where does he think the money comes from to pay his contract….partly from mistreating chickens. This guy is a hypocrite and a fraud. If I earned over a million quid a year, I too would eat organic free-range! It doesn’t help that he’s also gratuitous pompous and self-inflated.
January 11th, 2008 at 11:47 pm
Thank you Jamie for informing the public of the poor conditions for the birds and making us all realise that for a few pennys more we can all sleep at night after a chicken roast knowing that the birds that we eat have a good life and not to be cultivated in that way that we have seen in your show many thanks once again for the knowledge that many of us didnt know about poultry farming and hope that this will change many people thoughts about this issue as it has ours. A fantastic programme.
January 11th, 2008 at 11:50 pm
jamie, what a brill programe.I was supprised to here that it’s only 4 chucks to a cage with the battery hens. It used to be 6 to a cage when i worked on a farm in 1997.It was awful, the smell etc, i always chewed gum and made sure i had some nice smelley on to whiff. Good luck to you but dont stop there, go on to pork and the rest of the meat we eat in this country.
Yours jill hibbert.
PS i had mail this morning from sainsbury, telling me all about the bifference with the eggs and chucks. They dont know that i used to work in the industry with chucks and with the eggs in a packing station.
Take care and all the luck with the campain
January 11th, 2008 at 11:56 pm
To Sarah Hunt. Jamie does not need sainsburys, they need him. Yes i do shop there.But not for much longer unless they get there act together.Yes i do know what i’m talking about within the industry as i used to work in it.Warts and all.
January 12th, 2008 at 3:03 pm
Sarah Hunt - it should be fairly obvious to anyone with even a whit of intelligence that in order to raise awareness on a topic, you need someone with a high profile. If the campaign for better treatment of chickens was spearheaded by some Swampy type with unreproachable vegan credentials who nobody had heard of, do you think it’d get on TV?
However you like to judge Jamie Oliver, it doesn’t make any difference to the validity of this campaign. And if you think it’s justifiable to keep hens in such brutal conditions, that’s up to you. On the other hand, if you claim to care in the slightest about animal welfare yet are too tight to stump up 50p extra for a pack of free range eggs, doesn’t that make YOU the hypocrite?
January 12th, 2008 at 6:17 pm
In response to the lady who pointed out that free range is not an option for people on lower incomes - i agree wholeheartedly.
Previous shows have argued that money is not an issue when it comes to shopping - in some respects I have to agree with this as I live on porridge and tins of dried skimmed milk, interspersed with Somerfields tinned tomatoes and Red Kidney beans (but I have to admit that eggs are my fall back - they help fill me for the day - but it is not great - my belly is full sometimes. Actually I like cooking but cannot watch cookery programmes as they make me hungry. I have been for an interview today for a job and maybe I’ll get it maybe I won’t but if I do I would never waste my precious hard earned cash on the kind of food that that music teacher and her kids thought was great but I would still buy what the other family treated with disgust - I have always known where food comes from. Current food production is an unknown area to me but I can tell one story relating to 1997 - someone I know worked at Smithfields market and saw the cattle coming off boats from the African ‘nations’ I don’t know as I am not up to speed on all political issues. They were poor starved animals and possibly diseased but there was a queue to buy them at 5a.m in the morning. I cannot say who by as it would not be politically correct
January 12th, 2008 at 6:36 pm
I have to add to my previous comment that I am in no way being racist by mentioning ‘politically correct’. I am basically trying to say - that Channel Four successfully brought to any person who chose to view ‘the tip of the iceberg’. Perhaps we could be offered further programmes as for example with regards to fuel. I am struggling - an understatement - to maintain some kind of body heat - how are the elderly at the bottom of our economic system coping - any responses would be appreciated as we should all know by now that younger bodies cope better with adverse conditions as do older ones.
This issue could be considered in conjunction with food prices and subsequent effects on lives in the UK. I am empathetic with other nations who are suffering - so where does one start.
January 12th, 2008 at 8:02 pm
Great program, it about time some told the truth