TV Chef In Chicken Fiasco
Eeep - the TV lied again! Well - more specifically sanctimoniuos TV personality “Chef” Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall lied. Well probably not directly, but he didn’t tell the whole truth. And his producers certainly didn’t let the truth get in the way of a good old fashioned tear jerking brow beater.
Basically - don’t buy chickens. Eat carrots, potatoes and peas but not chickens. Cows you say? Ok, because leading them to slaughter is fine. Chickens though? NO WAY! THEY EAT THEIR OWN SHIT! Pigs? Sure they roll in it but its not the same, and anyway, they have curly tails and snouts.
No - for some reason this posh chap who never appears to do much but try and drag us back into the iron age wants us to avoid the chicken. And if you can’t? The message is simple - go free range.
The whole point of his little charade was to show the difference between free range and intensively reared chickens. Not sure why he singled out chickens mind, because I’m pretty sure killing any animal for food isn’t going to be that fun for the animal, especially our four legged friends who get hung upside down and bled dry. Anyway, maybe its easier to buy a shed and rear chickens. Cows are inconsiderate and take too long to get big enough to eat.
The hypothesis - set up two chicken runs, one intensively reared, one free range and show people the difference. Hopefully they’ll decide of their own free will to buy free range in future. Unless like 65% of us you earn under the national average, in which case your dinner will just taste of guilt from now on.
Problem is -
An industry watchdog said he allowed needless cruelty to exaggerate the “appalling” conditions at the farm he created for television David Clarke, chief executive of the industry watchdog Assured Food Standards, who investigated the farm, said: “When Hugh set up this experiment he told viewers it would run to industry standards. There was no way it was going to pass our inspection. We agreed to give Hugh a 20-minute debrief at the end of the inspection on camera, and we broke the news that they had failed. It was obvious some of what we said was not helpful to the message Hugh wanted to give his fans. I was pretty shocked when that wasn’t shown on the programme. Hugh didn’t pass the test and it didn’t fairly represent intensive farms.”
Oh dear - more accusations levelled at Channel 4! Seems like someone somewhere is a maverick who just can’t play by the rules! The only saving grace from the networks position is that their wasn’t a phone-in competition to win 6 eggs.
Q. How many times this year will a fat TV chef tell you / your kids / your pets what to eat?
A. Faaaaar toooo mannnnny.
B. Duck.
C. Blue.
At one point (just call me) “Hugh” broke down in tears at the plight of the birds, which were a) crammed into a barn, b) never saw daylight and c) suffered blisters on their legs from sitting in their own shit. He then said: “If consumers are better informed, they may be prepared to pay more for a free-range bird, in the same way they already do for eggs”. Unfortunately Hugh, all that suffering that made you cry like a bad actor was totally unessecary and unjust and better still all your fault.
But Mr Clarke said both his freerange and intensive farming failed to make the grade. In the intensive shed, problems included bad ventilation and pest control. The free-range run was criticised for being close to a derelict area which could attract vermin. The chickens were also at risk of bird flu. Mr Clarke added: “Only this week, 20 miles from that farm, there was an outbreak of avian flu. There was no record of who had access to that barn.”
Fearnley-Whittingstall also failed the inspection for not ensuring the chickens were killed humanely. Mr Clarke added: “We were not satisfied the stockman was culling the birds properly. Birds would have suffered. Farmers across the UK were made to feel ashamed of their methods but the industry is very highly regulated. We have stringent tests and Hugh didn’t pass them. It’s a shame viewers didn’t know that.”
Shocker. In fact, it gets me thinking - how many kids did Jamie “Jools” Oliver have sitting in their own poo in order to prove a point about school dinners - all those kids cooped up in a battery farm style classroom, faded energy saving bulbs dimly lighting the chalkboard? Who can you trust these days?
Filed by Kieran at January 16th, 2008 under Complaint!, TV, Topical?