Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall in tears

So part two of "Hugh's Chicken Run" aired on Channel 4 last night, absolutely required viewing (in my household anyway)...we haven't even got to the metaphorical "end" of the journey yet and there were already some sequences where Flyingpops felt the need to look away from the screen (if that gives you any idea)...I mean, Hugh's dream of seeing a communal chicken run in every neighbourhood is sadly laughable fantasy (at least in *most* places where the average consumer spends £2.50 on the family roast), he might have been better off showing how you could bring up a couple of birds in a pen in the garden (like Gordon did) feeding them quite successfully with kitchen scraps (no more smelly recycling) and mixer (cheap), but it wouldn't have made such good TV, setting up (as it did) the group of motivated people who were going to be the benchmark "public opinion" thermometer (although one that had been personally involved in rearing their own chickens at the absolute pinacle of excellence in husbandry). They were then paraded, in order, through an (idealised) but largely standard "free range" industrial setup, and after (thinking "well, not great, but not too bad") they were led into the black hole of calcutta next door...

Only one woman (the one who had been most voiciferous throughout) held onto her convictions claiming she still didn't care what conditions they had to endure (so she could afford to gorge herself on enough of them for satisfaction), that is, until her small son emerged from the gloom in floods of tears...(a small, but twisted smile spread a little way across my lips when I watched her bend down to comfort him)...

On this note, did anyone notice McDonalds UK quietly issue a press release (before Channel 4's hype engine got out of first gear) confidently predicting that standards of animal husbandry would become more of an issue in the public conciousness this year? Someone who works under the golden arches is obviously *rather* good at their job...it does beg the question though, if McDonalds can do it (and have the best year in the companies history despite it), why can't the supermarkets?

It's simple, the public must demand it...McDonalds *have* to be whiter than white because after McLibel everyone expects them to be dirty and underhanded (even though they have now been using purely free range eggs, sourced locally if at all possible, for over a decade, among other amazingly foresighted moves)...the supermarkets simply don't have any of this kind of pressure to react to, and that's what needs to change (and, I believe, is changing now)...

If you want to add your support, you can sign the petition here...

Part 3 tonight...

Update - looks like things are changing already, and not in a good way, the Express reports that farmers are already suffering as public opinion takes landslide shift away from intensively farmed chicken...not quite what they had in mind!

The Big Food Fight C4

No doubt you've seen the ads on TV (Hugh, Gordon and Jamie running through some woods), well, here we go, Channel 4's "The Big Food Fight" all starts tonight with part one of a three-part documentary called "Hugh's Chicken Run" showing what happened when Hugh Fearnley-Wittingstall *attempted* to investigate the intensive poultry farming industry (basically the door was slammed in his face), forcing the producers to go through the process of setting up their own (with Hugh at the helm)...quite how he copes with this (following his idillic time at River Cottage) remains to be seen, but I suspect it's going to be an extremely messy (and disturbing) ride designed to further shame the supermarkets into buying proper free-range stocks instead of 2p or 3p-per-carcas genetic freaks...

Good.

Also on the agenda is to get all products that contain egg (like mayo) to display the source of it clearly on the package, at the moment Hellmann's apparently uses battery eggs (update - whoops -sorry NFU-that should be "intensively farmed eggs"), even though it is a premium product, I have to say that suprised me a little...and they are obviously serious about it too, Jamie Oliver today firmly bit the hand that feeds him by slamming Sainsbury's for not turning up to a public debate on the subject he had organised...again good...his shows follow Hugh's on the 11th of January...

Looks like something might be about to happen about battery farming as finally the pressure is being brought to bear in the right place (i.e. not the farmers), just a shame it's taken so long, and so many other fearful documentaries (and RSPCA investigations) that have been largely ignored by the public in favour of cheap meat (I'm guilty here too, free range prices do make me think twice before choosing quality and cruelty-free chicken for my table) but if the basic benchmark for "acceptable" levels of cruelty in husbandry could be raised a just a little then buying premium meat won't be the *only* option...

On a less sticky note, Gordon Ramsay is going to be running some "how to cook" webinars to get your skills up to scratch followed by a one-hour long one-off live show (on the 18th of January) called "Cookalong live" where you literally cook alongside the master in real-time to create a 3 course meal...!

It's all terribly exciting, so well done (albeit a little prematurely) Channel 4...sounds fantastic! ;)