Chicken taste test

[Hawthorn]

Ok, I bit the bullet and spent £9.05 on an organic, free range chicken to feed the family.

I expected that this chicken would taste delightful.

I was disappointed. It did taste marginally better, I have to admit, but not a whole seven pounds better.

I'm kinda disappointed about the whole experience to be honest.

Anyone else found this?

[dudley]

Yes we have found Organic birds disappointing but still carried on buying as we couldn’t bring ourselves to buy intensive. And we have bought organic for some years now.
We believe the problem to be that even the commercially produced organics are genetically engineered for fast growth.

Not realising that at the time we bought 30 day old chicks last July and reared them to supply food for my Son’s wedding breakfast. They grew much quicker than we expected, and became so heavy that they started going lame before we were ready to kill them. And they were only about 5 weeks old. The taste was not as good as we thought it should have been either.
We have since bought a trio of Cornish game birds as parent stock to produce eggs for meat birds, but they have not laid a single egg yet and they are 9 months old now. Looks like they will get eaten soon!

[mrsflibble]

Yep. had the same problem here too. didn't taste good enough to justify the cost.
terribly sorry, but I can't afford £9 to spend on a chicken; even though I do know how to get the best out of it I still can't justify that kind of money.

[ina]

We believe the problem to be that even the commercially produced organics are genetically engineered for fast growth.

They may be bred for fast growth - but not engineered. That's simply not viable yet. And you might well be right - although they shouldn't be, or at least not quite as badly driven as non-organic. The problem is of course partly that now the demand for organic chickens has grown massively (not just since that big chicken action on telly) that producers have to try and keep up with supplies! And there are organic and organic producers. The one kind may do everything right according to the book, but from what I can see and judge they are still "factory farms", only they use organic feed, and don't use antibiotics automatically etc. And then there are the "true" backyard style old breeds, grown almost as part of the family and looked after accordingly.

And even they might not taste as you expect, because then there are differences in breed, type of feed - might depend on the time of year, too...

[Silver Ether]

nope .... I don't eat it myself the family does Last two I have bought are sorry were happy chucks and found them very good value I had one from M&S a cheat as it was a cooked one just over £6.00 Second from Ludlow market again just over £6.00 but uncooked. Both were tasty and the texture was lovely and the old fella said continue ...

Meals ... x2 chicken breast.
x1 breast and leg
x1 leg and wing

snack, wing with salad and bread roll.

removed a lot of small bits to make a double round sandwich.

Boiled carcass for stew stock added veg, I was amazed by how much meat still came of from the carcass while boiling. Enough stew for 3 good sized adult portions.

[dudley]

We believe the problem to be that even the commercially produced organics are genetically engineered for fast growth.

They may be bred for fast growth - but not engineered. That's simply not viable yet. And you might well be right - although they shouldn't be, or at least not quite as badly driven as non-organic. The problem is of course partly that now the demand for organic chickens has grown massively (not just since that big chicken action on telly) that producers have to try and keep up with supplies! And there are organic and organic producers. The one kind may do everything right according to the book, but from what I can see and judge they are still "factory farms", only they use organic feed, and don't use antibiotics automatically etc. And then there are the "true" backyard style old breeds, grown almost as part of the family and looked after accordingly.

And even they might not taste as you expect, because then there are differences in breed, type of feed - might depend on the time of year, too...

I agree Ina Genetically engineered may not have been the best choice of words but livestock is genetically selected, it always has been, we wouldn’t breed from a bird that has a deformity, but today we take it to the extreme that is why I say genetically engineered.
Today we do have the science and technology to go further and the birds we use commercially have not naturally arrived they have been hybridised from drastic selection.

We also have a similar problem with pig meat. It just does not taste the same as it used to, that’s why we have gone back to rearing the traditional breed.

On our farm we used to produce pigs for a company who sold pig breeding stock internationally and our pigs were genetically selected.

We had geneticists come over from Belgium to our farm in Kent on a monthly basis to take scores of ultrasonic measurements from all our live pigs to test among other things the fat and lean meat percentage against the growth rate from birth. We culled anything that was not up to scratch even though visually it was identical. So today we have pork chops with little if any fat on them and no flavour but the supermarkets love them as they say their customer likes the look of them.

Sorry, dont know how this "Quote" thing works yet, hope this has worked ok?

[ina]

Yes, your quoting worked fine!

I know what you mean with the extremes they go to in breeding... It could be a good thing, if they bred for the right qualities: flavour, longevity in cows and ewes, health etc. I'm involved in a breeding programme myself, which I don't think much of - but the scientists get ever so excited about having found the right gene... Argh! But at least we don't "engineer" them yet - that is why I like to avoid that word; the only thing we do is tell the girls which boys they are allowed to have fun with...