discuss eating meat please

[justmama]

I am vegetarian but it's for my daughters. They do like meat and I like that they made their own decisions regarding their eating. But my problem is that I just read that book "Eating Animals" and now I can't seem to bring myself to buy meat for them anymore. I was wondering what the most humane way of purchasing chicken is for my daughters given that we can't buy from a local farmer with our food stamps. Free-range doesn't seem any better than caged. Antibiotic-free is important to me but what about chickens fed a vegetarian diet? Does that matter? I don't know much about meat. I just want to be able to not feel like I'm cruelly murdering chickens everytime I feed my children. And I want my kids to have HEALTHY chicken in their diet, not just factory-farmed crap.

[Storm Bride]

I think vegetarian feed matters. I would hope the "vegetarian" chickens are stilll able to eat bugs on the ground, but vegetarian feed means there are no animal byproducts in the feed. I think feeding meat byproducts to animals that don't eat meat is messed up, and the resulting meat/poultry isn't going to be biochemically right.

[Magelet]

Technically, chickens do eat meat, but there is a huge difference between eating bugs and the occasional mouse, and eating animal by-product crap (the stuff that humans wouldn't eat, whether its organs which we can eat, animals that died for a reason other than slaughter, meat past its sell date from grocery stores or restaurants send to be "rendered", or more, and definitely not what a chicken naturally eats).

I would definitely say the ideal type of chicken would be a pastured chicken from a local farm, but admitedly, these guys are horribly expensive. (completely justifiably, the honestly cost the farmers that much, but sometimes, it may be justifiable, but I haven't the money for it, and dont' do well without meat.)

I personally always make sure I am buying vegetarian chickens, anti-biotic free chickens (I think most chickens are antibiotic free?), and the types I buy do say they are "free-range". Yes, I know, that free-range does not mean what it implies. However, the places I buy my chickens at say what free range means to them, and I'll tell you, I think a ton of chickens in a barn where they are crowded yes but can move around is better than tons of chickens in tiny cages they can't. Do they actually get to use the outside space, I don't know. I do know it is a lot better than it could be.

(The chickens I buy are rocky, or rosie chickens. they are local to the San Francisco Bay Area, I think, but there may be similar chicken producers near you.)

As for cruelly murdering chickens, maybe it might help to learn to serve more parts of a chicken? You can buy whole chickens, with some organs still in them, and use the meat, make stock with the bones (it might be too meaty as a vegetarian, but if not, its amazing nutrition), and cook up the organs (also incredibly nutritious). That way, for each meat meal, there were fewer chickens killed than if say, you only buy boneless skinless breasts. (though I know those might be easier to handle as a vegetarian, and the other parts do mostly get sold seperately.)

HTH and doesn't gross you out.