"Are those Free-Range vegetarians or are they raised in captivity?"

I am an unrepentant carnivore. I like steak, fish, chicken, bison, venison, veal, lamb... (I've hunkered for cute baby animals and would probably eat sad-eyed orphans if Nigella Lawson & Donna Hay said they were tasty). But certain people around me have reservations and don't like factory farming, especially for Chicken (understandable, I s'pose, given the recent kerfluffle on how some Tyson chickens were treated). Fortunately the local Alberstsons has a brand of Free-Range chickens...

BUT... I talked to the butcher and he and I went through the agitprop. I saw nothing that explicity said that their brand was was indeed FR (though they mention the value of Free-Range farming in the literature). And to make things even more interesting there was a reference to the chicken's strict all-vegetarian diet. Obviously, my credibility detectors went to 11.

First. You are about to eat a dead animal. Asside from mad cow issues (which are overblown), who the heck cares if the late Foghorn Leghorn was a Vegan cause you sure as hell aren't about to be one...

Second. Just how in the barnyard are those birds gonna be monitored to make sure they don't eat any bugs, worms or all the other good stuff that gives free-range chicken the flavor edge over factory raised birds? The only way that works is if they are in very large pens or the free-range is a parking lot. Worse still I can see some nagging goose (free-range or not) enforcing the no-meat rule around the barnyard like the food police or a vegan who became a vegetarian for the worst reason (second-handed fake moral superiority) just to make everyone else more miserable than he is. Happy chickens my fanny.

I'll just say it's artificially chicken-flavored tofu and leave it at that.