Coles one step closer to okaying GE chicken meat

[minnie]

Coles one step closer to okaying GE chicken meat
15 July 2010
Coles' response to the True Food Network reveals the company's backslide on GE feed. Unless we can convince Coles that shoppers want their non-GE policy to stay, more of our food will soon be polluted with GE.

In June, True Food Members who took action to stop GE animal feed from seeping into our food supply should have received a reply from the supermarket.
In an attempt to fob-off customer’s complaints about polluted, GE animal feed, Coles states their ‘strong preference’ for non-GE feed, and promises that they follow all the laws when it comes to genetically engineered toxins.

Unfortunately, Australia’s current laws openly allow GE pollution in our food. Coles also completely fails to mention its chicken products. This is a serious omission, because we know that poultry producers are the most likely culprits when it comes to using dodgy GE feed.

The good thing is there’s a solution. There are heaps of non-GE animal feed alternatives on the market. GE crops are only a tiny part of the Australian agricultural landscape and 50 per cent of Brazilian soy, which we import to feed chickens, is non-GE. That means stores like Coles have absolutely no excuse not to use non-GE feed; all we need to do is show them that it would be worth their while, because customers care whether their food is polluted with GE or not.

Email Coles (coles.customer.care@coles.com.au) and let them no there’s no excuses when it comes to selling customers polluted, GE, chicken meat.

Here’s some points you could include:
* Your latest email on animal feed fails to mention chicken. Does that mean you’re selling your customers polluted, GE chicken meat?
* I don’t want to eat products contaminated with toxic genes and that certainly goes for chicken meat.
* There are plenty of non-GE feed alternatives in Australia and around the world. There is no excuse for Coles selling poor quality chicken meat to its customers.

From http://www.truefood.org.au/newsandevents/?news=101

[Shadowgirlau]

Hi Vicki,
I have emailed Coles and registered my opinion/dismay etc. Given the continuing downward spiral when it comes to food from the big supermarkets (and the smaller ones though at the moment to a lessor extent) it wont be long and will not be a customer as I have already moved away from buying much in the way of meat fruit or vegetables from the supermarkets anyway.
Too much is GM GE or imported from places such as China or India and other places of dubious health risks etc.

I hate that when I go shopping nowadays I have to read the labels of everything I buy food wise just to make sure it isn't from imported foods or doesn't contain one of the items I am avoiding whether that be preservative or other additives. Takes 3 times as long to shop as it used to in my younger day.

Cheers
Kathleen

[minnie]

Hi Kathleen,

I'm the same it takes an age to get around the supermarket and then some things don't say where the ingredients come from just 'local and imported'...

DH's mother ALWAYS shops at Coles, as his father worked for them for many years. So now if she cooks chicken we're both going to pass on it... I will let her know about the GE chicken but they won't pay any attention to us whatsoever, we just don't know or are too hippy according to them, the media of course knows more than us ... ah well at least they're old not too many years to show the effects.

It's people with kids that really need to watch this stuff as they don't know how it will effect them in 20-50 years.

Vicki

[Shadowgirlau]

I usually "pass" when anything says it has imported products in it.

Saying this I did buy some frozen cauliflower/broccoli only last week which said it was from NZ. Annoyingly I had no cauliflower in the garden and the broccoli which was out there bolted to seed after producing very tiny heads Why I have no idea?
Anyway I bought the above because we were getting tired of the same 3 vegetables. Well I was very disappointed with the product. it was a very pale sage sorta green tinged yellow. The heads of the broccoli were tiny florets and so tasteless. It was expensive and I shan't be buying it again no matter how desperate for change I am.

Have since replanted these vegetables in the garden.

Kathleen

[Mojojo]

I wouldn't be buying coles's chicken anyway.
But I might have to email Coles anyway just because I am a stirrer.

I figured out a while back that I can buy the Mt Barker free range chickens whole, works out cheaper, and of course better, than buying the individual franken-chickens bits already cut up. (the size of the mass produced chicken breasts scares me) I buy two or three at a time, break them down and freeze them, and make stock from the carcasses, while supporting a local WA business! Win-win!

[minnie]

Hi Jo,

Yes I started buying the free range chicken whole and breaking up too... but I have to admit that it's been a learning process breaking up the chicken neatly.

I'm getting better and one day aspire to doing with total ease, until then I just keep practicing.

I like that I have the skin on the breast as well...

Vicki

[childoftheearth]

Hi Vicki,

Do you have a good quality pair of poultry shears? I worked for a couple of years in a "Red Rooster" take away chicken shop as a kitchen hand and as a result I can portion a chicken in seconds (literally). But good quality shears are essential, they snip through the spine and breastbone like a knife through butter!

Cheers
Elaine

[minnie]

Hi Elaine,

No not really I do need to get a good pair. I find when it's cooked it's easier to separate than raw, do the shears make it easier on the raw chicken as well?

Red Rooster ah, now how do they get the coating on the chicken crunchy.

Vicki

[childoftheearth]

Hi Vicki,

There was no crunchy coating in my day, all RR chicken was spit roasted. I gave up that job when I found out that I was expecting my son (who is now 23). The smell of roasting chicken and morning sickness really didn't go well together!

Good shears should work equally well with raw or cooked chicken (also good for other kitchen jobs like cutting fins off fish etc).

You get hold of the whole chicken with a pair of tongs (parson's nose toward the hinge), a couple of snips down from the neck through the breast bone, and then (without letting go of the tongs) rotate your wrist for a couple more snips down the backbone. . Voila - half chickens, for Marylands just snip through the backbone just in front of the thigh, that is the only skeletal connection, so then you can easily section the chook by slipping a knife down between the leg and the breast to separate the flesh and quarter the chicken.

So quick and easy once you get the hang of it.

Elaine

[minnie]

Elaine,

I'm convinced, I'll invest in the shears... it's funny some things you really need good quality and yet still buy cheap and nasty which don't last.

Hence I'm really thinking about the Food Processor I get this time.

I was thinking KFC and not having gone to either for many a year bundled them together.

Vicki

[Shadowgirlau]

I don't buy the Mt Barker chicken, too expensive.

Haven't bought chicken for ages and am looking forward to preparing my own eventually (after all that is why I got dual purpose breeds)
Saying this it could be quite awhile yet before I get into doing this as one of my roosters is looking like a real gorgeous fella and so I am considering keeping him along with the other two which means I will be splitting up the orchard so I can keep each of the breeds separate.

Kathleen

[Mojojo]

Kathleen I often find it comparable by $/kg to the already portioned (ie breast/thigh) chicken by weight, and also grab a couple when on special.
I guess it depends on what your local supermarkets charge for stuff really. I think the IGAs here in Perth have alot of competition, so have to price things competitively. I have three IGAs and a 'super progressive' IGA within about 3 minutes drive, and 2 major supermarkets, so lots of competition.
Was really happy to see in what will be my local IGA in Donnybrook, last week, that they had duck breasts! yippee. Love duck.

Poultry shears are very good... and quick. Although I tend to use them for other thangs rather than the chickens!

[Shadowgirlau]

Jo, I find the local IGA (Mt Barker) to be very expensive. the only good thing about them is that they do have reasonable specials on some items. As a result I usually only buy things that are on special and that I would normally use from them.
With Mt barker chicken being just down the road so to speak one would think that it would be cheaper at the local butcher or IGA, not so. It is dear here in Mt Barker than it is over in Bunbury where it is transported to.

I find most things in Albany to be dearer than what I was used to over in Bunbury or Mandurah, not to mention up in the city but then up there , the competition was fiercer.

Even so, I would rather be here and go with out

Cheers
Kathleen

[Mojojo]

Yeah, being just down the road you would think that... less transport costs etc... but then they probably all go up to Perth first before making the journey back to your IGA, wouldn't suprise me.

I stumbled on some chicken 'processing' videos on you tube today, (whiole looking at Joel Salatin's Poly face farms - pasture farming) quite informative, been watching them to see if I think I could do it.
Not sure yet. I liked his pasture poultry tractors all lined up across the paddock though, and his 'eggmobiles'