I didn’t taste-test organic or free-range chicken in my book, though I did with some other foods. However, from my own experience I’ve always found birds bred with higher welfare standards have a nicer flavour. But is that just because I want it to?

It’s a question I asked after the results of my ‘Organic v Ordinary’ taste test in Confessions of an Eco-Shopper (Aisle 1, Challenge 4: ‘Does it taste any better? Organic vs Ordinary’). A blind tasting session with 30 people sampling a range of both organic and non-organic versions of the same foods from cheese, wine, bread, biscuits, chocolate, crisps and carrots came out in favour of organic foods, but only just. Purely on preference, organic food won 55 per cent of the vote; the non-organic food, 45 per cent.

Perhaps, then, I shouldn’t be entirely surprised that a study, published in the journal British Poultry Science, showed that conventional chicken fared better in a blind tasting that organic chicken  (reported in the Daily Mail, 7 July 08).

In the experiment, conducted at Bristol University’s School of Veterinary Science, researchers gave ten tasters samples from 120 chickens that had been reared in various ways. According to Dr Paul Warriss, who led the study, ‘In general, higher ratings were given for texture, juiciness, flavour and overall preference for meat from the birds reared in the standard system.’

‘This may be to do with the fact that intensively farmed birds are eaten at a much younger age, so they will be less tough than older birds.’

Speaking as an older bird myself, I’d say that while people don’t buy an organic or free-range chicken solely on taste grounds – usually it’s an informed ethical decision – you do, nonetheless, want it to be equally as tasty, if not tastier, than the poor old broiler that’s only lived for 39 days in a cramped little cage.

Taste is a subjective matter, though, and I’m still not convinced by this piece of research. I had reason to buy some regular chicken recently (against my normal principles; we had extra kids to tea and I supplemented our four organic drumsticks with some hastily bought bog-standard ones from the butcher) and the difference in the look, and the flavour, was marked, with the organic ones tasting much nicer.

If you’re in any doubt, cook the bird on its breast so that the juices soak down into it, and baste it well. I flavour a free-range roast chicken with lemon, or perhaps rosemary and garlic, or an onion and some fresh thyme, together with a splash of olive oil and some ‘Good with Everything’ Salt (from Lakeland) and it’s gorgeous. If you’re cooking chicken portions, marinate them for an hour (or more) first. It makes all the difference.

I take the point about taste though, and from other trials I’ve done – one with Fairtrade and non-Fairtrade instant coffees and another with brands of tea – I’ve come to the conclusion that, just because a product is ethical, it doesn’t guarantee that it’ll taste better. And since most of us want to enjoy what we’re consuming (particularly if it cost us more), producers of ethical food and drink should not rest on their laurels.

There are other arguments kicking around about chicken: another study (this from Strathclyde University) found that organic poultry was actually less nutritious, having less omega 3 and more fat than conventional chicken – which is strange, because I watched a television programme recently that demonstrated exactly the opposite!

And if you want to do what’s best for the planet, as opposed to what’s best for the chicken, intensively farmed chickens produce less CO2 than organic (32 per cent less energy per tonne of meat) precisely because of the pile-em-high, sell-em-fast approach (from Shades of Green by Paul Waddington).

What to do? Well, we buy free-range chicken (a brand called Loose Birds) from our butcher, but it’s expensive so we don’t eat the amount of chicken that we used to. So we eat less chicken – better for the environment, presumably – but it’s reared to higher welfare standards, which is indubitably better for the chicken.

And I think it tastes way better. But then I would, wouldn’t I?