Countryfile Chicken Taste Test

Thurston Garden · Sun Mar 16, 2008 9:39 pm

I was disappointed with BBC's Countryfile today. They get 8 vet students to do a taste test on 4 types of chicken: corn fed, free range, organic and intensive.

No surprise that they all picked intensive and one is filmed saying "mmm tasty and cheap" when asked if the test result will affect their buying habits. Students shopping bags are full of non intensively reared chicken are then not? Would be safe to say their palettes were conditioned to prefer intensive pap?

Is this the right image for Countryfile to portray or is it typical BBC (or EBC as I call it!)

ina · Post: # 90145Post **ina** » Mon Mar 17, 2008 10:40 am

I heard about that this morning on farming today... The only thing this proves is that folk are so conditioned to eating soft, tasteless stuff that, sadly, they now prefer it! Well, what do you expect from kids who've been brought up on burgers...

I once read that burgers were so popular because they were like baby food: soft, luke warm, no chewing needed, no distinct flavour. And I suppose that's what intensively reared chicken breasts are like, too.

Annpan · Post: # 90159Post **Annpan** » Mon Mar 17, 2008 12:55 pm

That is disturbing

Not least because they are VET students... I thought all vets want to help animals and ease their suffering... Does suffering not count if they are being grown for food?

Frankly I don't give two hoots as to want they taste like... I don't want creatures to suffer so that Fatso Lazyass can have a cheap chicken 3 times a week.

red · Post: # 90175Post **red** » Mon Mar 17, 2008 3:38 pm

hmm yeh - i gather fois gras is delicious
and crated veal is really tender.

but i dont eat these things...

kiery · Post: # 90556Post **kiery** » Wed Mar 19, 2008 10:00 am

I didn't see the countryfile episode - abandoned watching it long ago as their choice of articles no longer appealed to me.

I don't trust any sort of testing done on the TV.

I cannot believe these vet students could not tell the difference, and chose the intensively reared chickens!
Just a wee bit embarrassing for them

Most vets I know though place animal welfare at the top of their priority, at least they are students and are still learning.

Did they say where they were studying?

Thurston Garden · Wed Mar 19, 2008 12:25 pm

It only said veterinary students...

I emailed the EBC but not surprisingly still await a response!

ina · Post: # 90569Post **ina** » Wed Mar 19, 2008 12:57 pm

I think there were a lot of listener reactions to radio 4 - most of them saying that nobody under the age of 40 nowadays does know what a chicken is supposed to taste like... No wonder, that outcome. You like what you were brought up on. If that's crap, you like crap.

Mydreamlife · Wed Mar 19, 2008 1:05 pm

ina wrote: You like what you were brought up on. If that's crap, you like crap.

So true! My 5 and 3 year old children refused to eat chicken at my mothers a couple of weeks ago because 'it tasted yucky'! It was a cheep chicken, (My mother is a typical townie when it comes to meat purchase) I couldn't stop grinning!!!!

Also Just on the subject my friends little by asked in the car a couple on months ago Mummy what is that big Yellow M for. The mum replied it's Mcdonalds, He said it couldn't be because there were now cows, sheep chickes etc. He though McDonalds was Old Macdonalds! At lest some of our next generation will have a good understanding of food and animal welfare!

ina · Post: # 90772Post **ina** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 3:07 pm

Just to illustrate why the result of that test couldn't have been much different...

We had a nice vet student helping at work yesterday. Friendly bloke, helpful, cheerful, knowledgeable - but for his lunch he'd brought pot noodles. Well, that says it all.

Millymollymandy · Fri Mar 21, 2008 12:40 pm

cavscott · Post: # 92594Post **cavscott** » Sun Mar 30, 2008 5:28 pm

I think the point above is the one that really sums it up. Most people today are conditioned to eat intensively reared chicken. It's all they know. Plus, they were commenting on the tenderness of the chicken. No-wonder it was tender - it had little in the way of muscle in its life.

I believe the student vets were from Bristol, which is where the taste lab that carried out the experiment is based.

Cheers

Cav

Dori · Post: # 92609Post **Dori** » Sun Mar 30, 2008 6:09 pm

I agree Cav,
Yes, it may well seem tender, but it has no flavour, no body or texture to it! It's just full of water, and your hungry again in no time! I'm really surprised that they aired the test with the current push on free range here. It's quite sad that these students couldn't tell quality meat when put in front of them!

cavscott · Post: # 92629Post **cavscott** » Sun Mar 30, 2008 7:25 pm

The fact that it's such a current story would have been exactly why the team put together the segment. It was examining the claim that free-range food tastes better.

What they did was cook the four birds in a lab kitchen in the same conditions, for the same time and at the same temperatures. Then they carried out the blind taste test, asking the subjects to taste the various meats and fill out a multiple-choice questionnaire. Once that was done the scientists at the lab analyzed the answers and came up with the results. You should have seen the look of shock on the reporter's face. She was gobsmacked.

To be fair the report did end by reminding people that the conditions of standard birds cause concerns that go beyond how tender the meat is, with something along the lines of: 'Intensively reared chicken may have came first in this taste test but for many the conditions of the birds is a face much harder to swallow.' At no point did the show say 'you shouldn't eat free-range or organic birds.'

Cav