Fallacy: Meats at Whole Foods or other similar markets cost more. Truth: Not if you shop it right.
This is not a plug for Whole Foods Market, but I have been buying my meats at Whole Foods for years and people tell me that they don't because it is too expensive. I do not agree because I always buy what is on sale or go to their store location where the economy/family packs are available. When I do so, I don't have to wait for a sale but buy in bulk packs of 3lbs or more and get the reduction on the price per pound by 30 cents or even more.
If you want to know why you should buy chicken there, simply visit online video sites such as Google Videos or You Tube and see how non-organic fed and factory farmed (soon-to-be supermarket) chickens are raised and treated. This will help you decide if you still want to support that industry. Chickens are the least protected livestock, for some strange reason, and since there are no laws, regulations etc. to enforce, they are grossly taken advantage of. Feed your family or yourself healthy poultry. How? You might begin by looking at the price of chicken regular retail in your supermarket and comparing it to Whole Foods Market (or a similar market's) at a reduced price or in a family value bulk pack. Can you see that there's not much difference? You also will see, when you get home, a huge difference in the quality. Buy some chicken from the conventional supermarket and boil it (for example to make chicken salad) and get a good whiff of the steam as it is cooking. Next, buy a Whole Foods (or similar strict guidelines non-factory-farmed organic meat market) bird and do the same, notice the aroma, notice the difference. Decide now where your dollar will go. Remember, "where the money goes so goes the supermarkets" and you may even, in the process of deciding, make some poor chickens really happy birds. I have included a video link, not to some horrible graphics of abused chickens but of rescued birds behaving normally in good free range conditions. They are eating grass, lettuce, cabbage and interacting peaceably as they should when put in normal outdoor conditions. This is the way their lives should be, before we even think about them becoming our food. You have heard that "you are what you eat". To view video: click here for Rescued Cage Free Birds And, for an very very short film without any narration to see a marginal show of abuse side by side with the beauty of normal birds (and with musical score) see video: click here for PART ONE and for a new narrated video: click here for the NEW ENGLAND - USA area (newly added).
Please ask yourself, "How much money am I saving by buying caged factory-farmed chickens?" You decide what is on your plate by deciding where your dollar goes, we have the power to end all abuse. Remembering that: "we are what we eat", let's all get "unconventional" about what we allow be set before us in our markets and make changes for the better. Things can change, your very dollar will determine the future food, our very vital corporate health, and the kind treatment of God's helpless creatures, chickens and baby chicks.
I was in Whole Foods last weekend and was absolutely amazed how the selection of 'ecomony' packs have grown. The prices were very affordable! It is absolutely important to put your money down where it counts (and while we have choice) - it is the only way to change the system.
ReplyDeleteLast winter in Connecticut there was legislation I followed regarding the conditions small factory (local) laying hens are kept. Keep in mind that the 'hen keepers' defended their position to KEEP THE PRICE OF EGGS LOW for the consumer. What does that mean? A dozen eggs for just over a dollar. A hen keeper myself - you cannot produce a dozen eggs for that price. That is...unless you stick 6 hens in a cage the size of a lobster cage and stack the cages one on top of another as high as the ceiling in a factory...now picture an entire wall of these cages. It gets worse. What happens to the excrement? What happens when one dies? I'll save you the gory details, but I sat through the hearing (with tears). The hen has just about two years and then gets turned into animal food because the bones are so weak from poor nutrition and cannot be sold as human food (didn't they make human food though?) The hen keepers won for the sake of cheap eggs. Don't buy cheap eggs. I'll put my soap box away now - I just wanted to chime in. Donna, your article is great!