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Organic chicken 'less nutritious' than battery-farmed birds
Last updated at 01:07am on 04.12.06
Battery chickens: More health benefits than free range organic.
With its premium price tag, shoppers expect organic chicken to be both tastier and healthier than cheaper battery-farmed birds.
But organic poultry is actually less nutritious, contains more fat and tastes worse than its mass-produced equivalent, research has shown.
Tests on supermarket chicken breasts showed that organic versions contained lower levels of health-boosting omega 3 fatty acids than other varieties, including non-organic free-range poultry.
The compounds, present in high levels in oily fish, are thought to be responsible for a host of health benefits, from combating heart disease to boosting intelligence.
Organic chicken, which typically costs nearly three times as much as battery-farmed poultry, also contained lower levels of anti-oxidants – compounds which mop up harmful molecules called free radicals that have been linked to cancer, heart disease and strokes.
If that wasn't enough, the chicken – from birds which are raised as naturally as possible and are given antibiotics only when they are actually ill – contained up to twice as much cholesterol.
Organic chicken even fared poorly in blind taste tests, gaining the lowest marks for succulence.
Researcher Dr Alistair Paterson, of Strathclyde University, told the Sunday Times: It is safe to say that you are not getting any nutritional benefit from buying organic chicken.
You could be better off buying conventional chicken.
There is no guarantee that organic chicken gives you more omega 3, better taste or lower cholesterol level.'
The findings come as organic food market is booming, fuelled by a rise in ethical shopping.
Last year it was worth £1.6 billion, dounle the amount in 2000. Sales are forceast to be worth £2.7billion by 2010.
An organic chicken costs about £12 in a supermarket, almost three times the price of a more conventionally reared bird.
The latest study, published in the International Journal of Food Sciences and Nutrition, is not the first to question the health benefits of eating organic. Earlier this year, food watchdog the Food Standards Agency said that organic milk was no healthier than the traditionally produced variety.
Dr Paterson, a food technologist, said the difference in nutritional quality could partly be explained by the way the birds are fed. Synthetic vitamin supplements, which are routinely added to conventionalfeed, are banned under organic farming rules, as is feed with GM additives.
The rules also impose strict standards on the use of pesticides and animal welfare and sustainability. While all organic chickens are free range not all free-range chickens are organic.
The Soil Association, which accredits organic poultry producers, disputed the Strathclyde University team's findings yesterday.
Spokesman Hugh Raven said: This research contradicts the bulk of evidence which shows organic food is higher in omega 3, vitamins and minerals than conventional chicken.'
Reader views (19)
Here's a sample of the latest views published.
Yes, and smarties taste better than bran.... our taste buds have been so jaded by fake food, pumped full of additives and god knows what else, that we've forgotten what real food tastes like.
Plus, buying organic/free range isn't just about us, it's about how we treat the living creatures who are under our stewardship.
This kind of reactionary 'research' (let's see the cheque book) smacks of childish defiance and denial. The time has come for change.
- Sharon, Leicestershire, UK
It's no great surprise that supermarket "organic" chicken turned out to be so shoddy. Get along to your local butcher or farm shop, or better yet, use the Real Meat Company, and then tell me it doesn't taste as good.
- Ian Sturrock, UK
This is a bit fishy and worthless without knowing more about who funded the project and what controls were inplace when choosing the Battery Chickens and Free Range...
Battery Chickens are as good for you as the feed they give them and a lot are not fed very nutritiously (unless of course there's an up and coming research project that wants to back your cause)... the question is were these battery chickens fed in a typical manor and are the amounts of "Synthetic vitamin supplements" standard across the board of battery chickens?
If Organic and Free Range are not permitted to (and rightly so) pump up their chickens with vitamins that are not natural then its a fairly obvious result that you could "manufacture" a mutant super chicken for the purpose of "research".
Logic suggests that allowing the chickens to naturally gain the nutrients within them is more cost effective than basically adding suplements to balls of meat...
...and Tastes better? sounds like marketing to me and not scientific research!
- Chris, UK
Firstly, I would like to know who paid for the so called research!
Secondly, organic or free range chicken does taste better!
Not only that we should have more respect for animals. If we all get together and demand free range we will get it! Remember the early eighties when they thought CAMRA was a load of hippies, but the breweries under estimated them, that is why you can now buy real ale in pubs!
- M Thomas, UK
It is sad to think that people care more about things like cholesterol than they do about how there food was raised. Battery chickens suffer far worse health problems than high cholesterol.
- Kyle Bibby, Isle of man
I myself raise chickens. I find that one of the breeds I raise is tougher in texture and is basically a soup starter type chicken. I would prefer my home farm raised chickens in comparison to the battery birds anyday. I know what my chickens eat, and they get plenty of fresh air and sunshine. I also know what their living conditions are like. That gives me peace of mind if nothing else.
- H Eichten, Pequot Lakes, MN USA
I have suffered through numerous, "Chickens tasted better in the Depression," monologues from my elders. I suppose hunger is the best sauce.
Just wait for next year, when we find McNuggets are the key to immortality.
- Rinson Drei, Florence, AL, USA
I only eat chickens that have died of old age while being petted after having granted their tissues for use in the culinary sciences. Yummy.
- C Hart, Terra Bella, CA, USA
I suppose that by 'conventionally reared' you mean 'battery farmed' seeing as that's the only way to rear a £4 chicken. As battery birds are kept in terrible conditions and never see daylight I'll get my Omega 3 elsewhere thanks.
- H Snow, UK
The very idea of a healthy piece of meat from chicken is preposterous. It's certainly not healthy for the chickens.
- Pj, London
I personally only take antibiotics when I need them not when I fancy a chicken meal.
Surely an animal of any type that is routinely feed vitamins and supplements would have a higher average content of these compounds than one that is bred naturally and I agree with everyone else here that the free range organic do taste far better that the water filled bloated things that ooze that white stuff when you attempt to roast them.
- R Forte, UK
I find most retailers charge more for chickens that include batteries than those that sell them without.
- Brian, Bromley, Uk
I buy organic chickens because it tastes better by far. Non organic gives both me and my family terrible flatulence, we suffer for days.
Sounds like organic chicken is not making enough profit for the super market and they want to push organic out the window.
- M Burton, Bedfordshire
Just by LOOKING at free range and mass-produced chicken you can see the difference. And free-range DOES taste best, I'll personally vouch for that.
So many of the 'new' diseases hitting our world are caused by all the chemicals and toxins artificially pumped into our food. Give me free-range anyday, never mind the price (I'll eat it less often but enjoy it a whole lot more).
- Marianne, South West France
I have started to buy organic and free range chicken after seeing the appalling conditions battery hens are kept in and because I cannot in all conscience continue to support that sort of cruelty. I eat more vegetables and less meat now and this balances the cost - this also means I am eating better. If more ordinary people did the same, the cost would decrease - supermarkets are led by demand.
- Sarah, Surrey
This sounds like a press release from a supermarket wanting to flog a range of chicken without having to go to the expense of actually making the product any good. In my experience, organic meat well reared from a tradition of good husbandry tastes far better than anything that the factory system can offer.
- Neil Evans, Notting Hill
I don't buy organic/free range because I can taste a difference I buy it because I don't want the food to be either full of chemicals or pumped full of antibiotics.
If many people actually saw the way the battery birds are housed they would be appalled I believe.
- Mike, Bedford
I have a hard time paying for organic anything with its lower yeilds when so many people are starving.
- Fai Mao, Hong Kong, China
"Conventionally" fed (what ever that means) I don't belive it is conventional to pump animals full of chemicals, supplements and GM additives. I know I buy organic to avoid these things being in my food chain and if I have to have a slightly lesser tasting chicken then so be it. We also have to question who is paying for this testing to be carried out? I'm sure it is being sourced by conventionally fed chicken breeders as opposed to the organic ones, thats for sure.
- Anon, England
