SLOP BUCKETS

re: giving food waste to chickens, pigs etc - I believe this has been banned now in UK since one of the epidemics (can't remember which one.)
But maybe this just applies to large farms where the animals are sold for human consumption.

Yes, it was a food and mouth epidemic which started with a pig farmer in Scotland as far as I can remember Tricia. But I think he was importing food from abroad anyway.

It's meat that's the problem so far as I understand it, and the ban on feeding human food to animals, is to prevent the development of things like cjd/mad cow disease.

I wish we could return to less intensive, factory farming and avoid meat/fish that has been reared in these conditions. It's hideous to treat fellow creatures so badly. I read recently that an adult farmed salmon eats its own body weight in anti biotics before it's killed for eating. Magnify that to include chickens, cows and pigs, goodness knows how much antibiotic is being transferred to humans from the flesh of creatures.

Iam64 I only eat organic meat. It is superficially more expensive but because the quality and flavour is so good it doesn't shrivel up in the cooking so, for us a pound of meat will be more than sufficient for 6 people and with bacon we have replaced 2 supermarket rashers that boil dry and shrivel up before they respond to frying or grilling, with one dry cured organic rasher that stays the same size. For chicken I use boned thighs rather than chicken breasts. They taste delicious, and again one thigh replaces one superficially much larger supermarket chicken breats.

I have never had any problem with food waste, not maggots or smells. I have had a caddy beside the sink for years into which I put vegetable waste and trimmings, and odd bits of paper and card and take up to the compost heap every day or so. We generate very little animal or cooked food waste. I have a little pot. like a plant saucer on the draining board, which currently contains 2 bacon rinds and the skin of a smoked mackerel fillet. They have been there two days and because open to the air have dried out, so do not smell and do not seem to attract flies. They will be put in a bag and put out in the specialist container on Tuesday.

I have a similar approach FlicketyB. I only buy organic, free range chicken, or lamb from our local moors/butcher. I never buy farmed fish. I don't' cook a lot with meat, so it isn't too expensive. As you say, good quality goes much further, and tastes so much better as well.