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Who mistook the steak for chicken?

Chickens_feedingA couple of weeks ago I was cooking dinner, as I do most nights. We were having some sort of chicken dish and the recipe called for 250g (~1/2 lb) of chicken breast. I wandered over to the refrigerator, pulled out the twin pack of chicken breasts that Dr. O’C had picked up at the grocery store and my jaw dropped.

Inside was the biggest pair of chicken breasts I’d ever seen; each of them was upwards of 400g (just shy of a pound). This had clearly been the Pamela Anderson of chickens.

My thoughts immediately turned to foul play. Hormones. Has to be hormone treated chickens. I know that cattle manufacturers in the U.S. have been adding exogenous growth hormones to their beef stock, clearly Australian chicken men have been doing the same thing.

I’ve become increasingly concerned about eating meat. With beef in particular there are serious environmental and health concerns that I’m struggling to square with my lust for red meat. With a wee one or two in the picture, I decided to cut back a bit – a couple of meatless meals a week. However, faced with these H cup chicken breasts I made the decision to go even further – three maybe four meatless dinners a week – and to actively seek out ‘organic’ meat when we did go carnivorous.

hens15~s800x800But then I remembered that I am supposed to be a scientist and thus should probably do a bit of research before coming to a conclusion based on a single observation. So off I went in search of the biological explanation for voluptuous chickens.

It didn’t take long. The chicken industry in Australia  is quick to point out that neither hormones nor antibiotics are added to their birds, that the increase in breast size that older consumers are seeing is due only to selective breeding. Being an anti-corporate leftist, I tend to disregard anything that industry advocates say as propaganda, but the most recent survey by the Australian Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry confirms these claims. In their tests, Australian chicken meat is 100% free of exogenous hormones or antibiotics.

Now, I’m fully aware that most of my readers are American, so what about Yank chicken? As in Australia, it is illegal to use growth hormones on poultry in the U.S. and based on the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s testing, American chicken is largely free of hormones and antibiotics.

Looks like chicken is clean. Giant chicken breasts are just a product of some very clever breeders. See, genetics is awesome. Good news for the carnivores among us. There are, of course, still a lot of issues about how poultry is raised and the waste generated by chicken farms. Farms? Ranches? And beef is a whole different kettle of fish, so to speak. American and Australian beef has been shown to contain a whole cocktail of exogenous hormones, at least one of which is used illicitly by bodybuilders and professional baseball players and has been shown to cause DNA mutation at high doses.  

battery_chickens440I know that the vegetarians out there are saying to themselves, “well just don’t eat meat, problem solved.” But it isn’t so simple.  When it comes to hormones, it isn’t just beef that we need to worry about. Soybeans, the most readily available protein replacement, contain high levels of an endogenous non-steroidal hormone known as phytoestrogen. These hormones may be good for women, having been linked in some studies to have a mild preventative effect against some types of breast cancer. But for men, and particularly boy children, phytoestrogens may do more harm than good. When Boy Z turned out to be intolerant to standard infant formulas, we stayed away from the soy alternatives. This was due to studies that have been done demonstrating that a high soy diet and/or soy based infant formulas have “adverse effects with respect to carcinogenesis, reproductive function, immune function, and thyroid disease.”  There is a lot of controversy around the soy studies, but I tend to pitch my tent in the better safe than sorry camp when it comes to feeding my kids.

So, chicken is fine. Beef is probably not great for a number of reasons, but man I love a good steak. Soy is OK in reasonable doses. So what that leaves us with, I suppose, is that balanced diet approach that health professionals are always on about.

God, I hate it when the obvious answer is the best one.

———————————

I love Kimya Dawson. Her music on the “Juno” soundtrack helped to make that film and her 2006 album “Remember That I Love You” is just fantastic. She got her start in the band The Moldy Peaches, whose self-titled album is available from The Moldy Peaches - The Moldy Peaches.

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46 comments to Who mistook the steak for chicken?

  • Well, there ya go, you did the research for me. Not that I am lazy, just hadn’t gotten around to it yet. So it is good news for chicken lovers. Do you use tofu?
    Technobabe´s last blog ..Remember Hollywood Squares? My ComLuv Profile

  • I love this post. I hate not knowing what crap may be in our food and where it’s come from (made from local and imported ingredients for example). Here in Sydney I use an organic delivery service– they do produce, groceries and meat– it’s fantastic. Thanks for this very informative post!
    Florida Girl in Sydney´s last blog ..Sculpture by the Sea 2009 My ComLuv Profile

  • Kangaroo my friend – better for the environment, better for you. It’s not the best rump steak in the world, but fry it up with some asian greens and some noodles it’s great. I had a kangaroo steak sandwich for dinner last night (lots of beetroot) and it was wonderful. The mince makes great bolognese and rissoles too.

    Take it from a sometimes food blogger.

    And there’s really really good free range organic chicken around, particularly from KI, but you need to be prepared to pay for it!
    kitty´s last blog ..insert pavemet here My ComLuv Profile

  • This makes me wish we could go back to a simpler time when food was just food and not all this processed shit. I wonder if dog food is safe now?
    Beth´s last blog ..She sells herself short My ComLuv Profile

  • Chicken is easily my favorite meat. It’s nice to know at least something in this world is still (presumably) safe to eat.
    Joe @ IrrationalDad´s last blog ..It’s a little early for THIS, isnt it? My ComLuv Profile

  • Ha. “Fowl” play. I get it. You have to get up pretty early, etc.

    Sadly, you can get meat that is guaranteed hormone free at specialty/health food grocery stores but you have to pay a premium for it. What an insult! And if you’re income-challenged but want to feed your family non-juiced food? Tough luck for you, I suppose.
    The Unbearable Banishment´s last blog ..Taking leave of my senses My ComLuv Profile

  • ssg

    I am not veggie but have increasingly cut back eating mammals and birds, to maybe twice a week, for a few reasons:
    1. carbon footprint, global warming effect of raising livestock, etc. I hate when the meat they ship in from abraod is cheaper than the local stuff. I hate when the life of an animal is so cheap, meat used to be a treat on a Sunday but now people want meat everyday, how well can a chicken be raised, what quality food can it be being fed, when you can buy it’s carcass for £1.99 in tesco. disgusting.
    2. processed meat. reconstituted pork, turkey etc etc. I will never buy this stuff or feed it to anyone. chicken mcnuggests in toronto when i visited, because of local laws, had to be called “white meat” mcnugget as it didnt contain enough chicken. rank.
    3. treatment of animals. let my chickens roam pretty free, let my cows not live in the dark in a shed (this guy in the UK is getting taken to court by animal rights people for keeping his entire cow stock in the dark to save money on electricity) and i’ll happily pay more. I’d rather eat good quality, local, “happy” meat once or twice a week than absolute shite every day.

    Veggies get cheaper life insurance too, so i suppose healthwise cutting down on fatty meats is a good idea. Also, i don’t really like eating something quite evoluntionary close to me. The chances of disease transfer from another mammal to me is much more likely than from a fish or a bird. Schistosomiasis anyone? Prion diseases?
    ssg´s last blog ..hello again My ComLuv Profile

  • Hooorrraaay! The ssg is back on the airwaves! (blogwaves? whatever!)Glad to know the humble chicken is acceptable fare. The BA and I don’t do much steak since she grew up in the UK where Mad Cow meant we ate no beef for 8 years. Seriously, that kid still won’t eat a Big Mac…she goes for the chicken version every time.
    arizaphale´s last blog ..Brightly Dawned Her Wedding Day My ComLuv Profile

  • I have other qualms with commercial meat chickens. The birds are bred to grow so fast and so large that they physically are unable to support themselves. Add the fact that the birds are kept in such tight spaces while waiting for the slaughter house that their beaks have to be cut off to keep them from pecking each other to death (a natural chicken reaction to overcrowding or self-culling the sick or weak members of the flock). If allowed to reach maturity, these hybrid birds are physically unable to support their own weight.

    I always raised chickens as a kid, but always stuck with heritage breeds. These birds were usually too big to fly (the Red Jungle Fowl ancestor of all chickens, which looks like a chicken flies as well as a wild turkey if not better), but they were perfectly healthy animals. I once got to get a few birds from friends of the family who raise meat chickens for a living. The trucks had picked up the flock to butcher and I was able to catch and keep any that had escaped the trucks because there weren’t enough left to justify another truck coming.

    Normally, when I was putting birds into the pen, I would toss them from waist level into the pen, they would flap their wings to slow their descent and they’d land and walk away. I tried this with these new birds, their legs would pop out of joint or their bones would break. This is normal for those birds. Honestly, I think the most inhumane facet of commercial meat production is with chickens and I would give up store-bought chicken before I’d give up beef on ethical reasons. The link is to a photo of what these meat chickens look like if they live past the time for butchering.

    http://www.feathersite.com/Poultry/CGA/Broil/BroilerDownLegs.JPEG
    Jacob´s last blog ..The Saddest Clown in the World My ComLuv Profile

  • I do try to buy “free-range” chickens that haven’t been penned up in nasty chicken houses. My aunt and uncle had a chicken house and it was disgusting. I also try to buy the hormone/steroid-free beef and if none is available, then bison which, buy law, cannot be administered hormones/steroids.

    Grocery shopping is a horror show.
    Coal Miner’s Granddaughter´s last blog ..Marc Singer and the Visitors are My Heroes My ComLuv Profile

  • That’s annoying. I left a long comment and it disappeared. Basically, what I said was that even without the hormones and antibiotics (you also can’t sell eggs from birds who’ve received antibiotics in a certain time period either) there’s a reason to avoid store-bought chicken.

    Example: http://www.feathersite.com/Poultry/CGA/Broil/BroilerDownLegs.JPEG

    That picture is what happens when commercial meat hybrids reach maturity. They’re bred to grow so large so fast that they are physically unable to support their own weight.

    In middle school, I got some of the escapees from a meat chicken farm owned by family friends. When I tossed them into the pen from waist height, like I always did with my birds, they broke their legs or popped their legs out of joint when they landed instead of flapping down to the ground.

    Considering the fact that the birds are kept in overcrowded confines that force growers to cut off their beaks because the natural reaction in chickens toward overcrowding (or a weak or sick bird in the flock) is to self cull by pecking the weaker ones to death.

    I’ve actually considered giving up store-bought chicken in the past because of this, but I’m a wuss who can’t stand up for his convictions, so I complain about the inhumanity of the industry and still pay for their products.

    Still, there is no less humane meat industry than poultry.
    Jacob´s last blog ..The Saddest Clown in the World My ComLuv Profile

  • Is there a way you can set this to give a confirmation that the comment worked? I posted my comment two or three times because I thought it was just being lost because it didn’t show up and didn’t say it was going to the moderator before being posted. Sorry about that.
    Jacob´s last blog ..The Saddest Clown in the World My ComLuv Profile

  • Wait, why did that comment show up and not the other three? I’m confused.
    Jacob´s last blog ..The Saddest Clown in the World My ComLuv Profile

  • That is something to think about. Honestly? I’m just trying to get my kids to actually eat so I don’t do a ton of thinking about what goes into what. Though I am trying to be more cautious about red dyes because they seem to affect kids with certain conditions more (as my daughter sits sucking down a pack of fruit snacks). We aren’t red meat eaters except hamburgers and only when we go out to dinner or to a bbq. I occasionally make meatloaf (once a month maybe if that). Red meats always upset my stomach so I avoid it. We stick to chicken and pasta, ham or sausage.

    Unfortunately a lot of what I buy has to depend on price. I can’t afford $12 free range chickens these days with my dh due to become unemployed next year. That tends to limit the choices. This is definitely where living in Germany was better. We ate very little preservative laden food and a ton of natural/organic stuff. Primarily because that’s all they offer.
    Blogging Mama Andrea´s last blog ..The Naked Truth : In case of emergency break glass My ComLuv Profile

  • You know, this has been increasingly on my mind lately as well. I’ve been listening to Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle audiobook and I am taking stock of my family’s place in the food chain. It’s eye opening.

    While I believe your research on the chickens, I have to raise another point. Artful breeding isn’t necessarily good, in that chickens (and other poultry such as turkeys) are being housed in such tight quarters (at least in the U.S., I’m not sure about Australia) that the chickens are evolving to a point where they’re losing even the ability to walk, and to procreate. Certain turkeys have to be artificially enseminated to continue their lines because they can’t breed anymore. They’re packed together so tightly that they can’t move, and so are losing basic abilities. Not sure lack of exercise has the same effect on poultry as it does on humans, but I have to wonder if that docility will lead to fattier chickens, changing the nature of their meat so it’s not as healthy as we have it now. It still makes me leery.

    But like Blogging Mama Andrea said, (and with a name like Andrea how could I not respect what she has to say) it’s hard to afford the free range chicken as well. So perhaps your approach of a couple meatless meals a week is more reasonable. It’s all food for thought (pun not intended).
    Andrea (@shutterbitch)´s last blog ..Bliss My ComLuv Profile

  • Yes, this is a big problem her in the U.S. Fortunately for me and mine we live in a rural state. We can get meat and chicken from local farmers at the butcher.

    I, evil mother of two, try to stop the wildthings from eating processed foods. As hubby was a food scientist two careers ago we have been pretty savvy for a long time.

    He does recommend the all things in moderation approach. Boring, but effective.
    heather´s last blog ..Tha Sandwich Incident My ComLuv Profile

  • You just know too much. Ignorance is bliss. Maybe you should hit your head a couple of times each night before you prepare dinner.
    Carolyn Online´s last blog ..I’m just one Super Nova away from creating my own black hole. My ComLuv Profile

  • It’s posts like this one, right here, that make me think I’d like to know you in real life.

    I’m with the commenter above who said she’s just trying to get her kids to eat, period. But I have to say, as The Boy gets older, he’s hearing things, and questioning them all by himself.

  • jen

    well there are a whole host of reasons why i no longer eat chicken, but good to know hormones are not one of them! compound that with the increasing guilt about eating beef/pork/lamb and am considering reverting to vegetarianism (was one for about 14 years).

    in the meantime, i still enjoy meat – but these days won’t buy it unless i can buy the most ethical meat available to me. at the current ridiculous prices, when i have a steak i *really* enjoy that steak!

  • I’ve heard that, due to selective breeding, the gigantic size of chicken breasts interfere with copulation, so the only way to maintain the big boobed chicken is by artificial insemination. Since I can’t eat chicken (allergy, no kidding!), I don’t think about it.

    Also, in his book “In Defense of Food” Michael Pollen tried pretty damn hard to prove that we should all be vegetarians. By the end of it, he had to concluded that for a healthy diet we should included some meat, but we should treat it as more of a side dish and it should be all the things you mentioned above: grass-fed/organic etc.
    Matthew´s last blog ..Wordless Wednesday: Around the Garden My ComLuv Profile

  • Nathan B.

    Everything in moderation. What a novel concept.

  • We are very chicken heavy here in the NATUI-household. Good to know that it is mostly selective breeding. I very rarely buy any beef anymore, but every now and them I can hear the steak screaming my name from the freezer. Kind of creeps the neighbors out.

  • Chicken, it’s what’s for dinner! (98% of the time that is.) I am tempted to paint a steak off white to sneak it past the wife.
    Seattledad´s last blog ..The Darndest Things My ComLuv Profile

  • I had pork chops for dinner tonight. Where do we stand on those?
    courtney´s last blog ..The Large Canyon My ComLuv Profile

  • I am obviously too stupid to figure out how to do a trackback on your blog tonight, so heads up: You are linked.

    http://notafraidtouseit.blogspot.com/2009/11/desperately-seeking-remake.html

  • Please research buffalo.
    ellie´s last blog ..Full Moon Not Full My ComLuv Profile

  • I’m down to eating meat maybe once a week and I don’t really miss it. And since my husband doesn’t like tofu, we don’t really eat soy all that much (I toss some edamame in with a salad on occasion and that’s about it). I do cook with seitan (gluten) a few times a month and we eat a LOT of beans — they’re delicious, cheap, low in fat, a good source of protein, and they come in quite the variety of forms and flavors.

    It’s not that I have anything against eating meat — as long as it’s responsibly raised and humanely dispatched. The problem I have with meat is that so much of it is laden with fat — and not the good kind. So, while I do love a nice bloody steak as much as the next guy, I don’t indulge very often. Chicken and turkey can be lean, so they show up in the rotation more often than beef or lamb, but all meat has gotten so costly that I think we’re better off eating less in more ways than one.
    alice´s last blog ..Friday Creature My ComLuv Profile

  • The same thing is happening here, at alarming rates.
    I’m not a chicken eater, really, but my son loves it.
    I used to pick up small breasts (and then I’d go to the supermarket- ha) for him, but they are impossible to find, even in the crunchy hippie organic stores. The butcher tried to tell me that it’s because the chicken farmers are being more humane and waiting longer to slaughter the chickens so they are getting bigger.

    Bullshit, I call.

    even if hormones aren’t injected directly into the birds, they could be in the feed, or in the soil the feed was grown in, or in the water supply, or who the heck knows.
    It’s horrifying.

    I can’t believe I’m scared of chickens.
    lora´s last blog ..MoFo My ComLuv Profile

  • Jamie

    We are lucky to live next to a family beef/lamb farm that does only grass-fed feedings, with no hormones or anti-biotics. Grass-fed is so nice because it a) produces a great taste, b) less fat, c) don’t get the e-coli problems as bad as maize fed cows. We actually eat more red meat than we used to because of this farm (and less chicken – which also concerns me, but mostly because U.S. industrial chicken has almost no flavor whatsoever.

  • What a coincidence – I was watching the documentary, Food Inc, which says that chickens are so much larger than their predecessors in the 1950s. So much so that they can only a few steps before collapsing from their weight. Then they proceeded to show how the chickens are dumped into one massive machine to be slaughtered, and then I felt this really great urge to abandon chicken meat altogether.

    They also do the same to pigs, and I watch, stuck to my sofa in horror, as they are shoved into something that looked like a gas chamber for pigs and to hear them squealing in fear…

    OK,OK… enough with the graphic descriptions. ;)

    But seriously, watching that documentary is tempting me to turn vegetarian.

    I don’t eat much red meat – I only started eating red meat when I was 19. (Long story, my family is Buddhist and they don’t eat beef.) I have to actually *force* myself to eat more red meat cos I tend to be iron-deficient.

    Good to hear about Aussie chickens though. I think Malaysian farmers are still happily feeding their chickens hormones and antibiotics.
    Susan Wanderlust´s last blog ..Got my IELTS results! My ComLuv Profile

  • You know I have all kinds of things to say about this, including the fact that I was really relieved to find out about the chicken breasts not so very long ago myself. We ate a LOT more vegetarian meals before I moved in with The-Guy. He works for a food company so he orders bag-o-chicken breasts from work and I felt bad, bad, bad that my kids were eating so much more chicken. But then I read up a little more and found out the same as you’re saying here. Meat food is still always higher in pesticides though but that’s not what I came to tell you about. I came to talk about the draft.

    No, what really struck me were the comments of people who said they were just trying to get their kids to eat period. And I just wanted to say – if they’re hungry, they’ll eat no matter what type of food you provide. They’ll choose the unhealthy over the healthy if you give them a choice of course. And they’re stomachs are very tiny at first. Even giving them three or four crackers as a snack might replace lunch. But unless the pediatrician says they’re not gaining, or they have a medical feeding issue, “getting them to eat” is just an extra power struggle. I’ve screwed up my fair share as a parent and maybe even then some, but I do know the less food battles, the better.
    Jill/Twipply Skwood´s last blog ..Here’s the Blood for Vickie My ComLuv Profile

  • Jamie

    Hey, I woke up and saw that miracles or miracles, UGA actually won a game. Good work guys!

  • Well, I’m pretty sure my comment came off as totally…preachy…or something. Sorry, sometimes I’m not very good at reigning myself in.
    Jill/Twipply Skwood´s last blog ..Wedding Flowers and Pork Blood, both in the same post. Because those things go together. Obviously. My ComLuv Profile

  • Nathan B.

    After reading some of these comments, I have to wonder how people think meat gets from the farm to your table? The animal has to die at some point, so what difference does it make how they die?

  • Nathan B. – I’m going to go out on a limb and say that there are lots & lots of people who care how the animal died. So many people that at least two of the world’s major religions have really specific rules about whether or not animals can be eaten based on how they were slaughtered. I think. At least, that’s how I understand it…but maybe that’s not what you meant anyway. I couldn’t figure out specifically which comment(s) you meant.
    Jill/Twipply Skwood´s last blog ..Wedding Flowers and Pork Blood, both in the same post. Because those things go together. Obviously. My ComLuv Profile

  • Nathan B.

    I was referring to the posts that alluded toward the humanity (my words) of pigs being killed in a gas chamber, etc. My understanding is that religious rules for meat processing are in place for ensuring “purity” of the meat, not how humanely the animal died. I could be wrong though…

  • I don’t actually care about how chickens are raised or slaughtered or whether they tip over when they walk. I don’t mean to be flip, but chickens are incredibly stupid animals and when it comes right down to it, whether we like it or not, there are 7 billion people on the planet that have to eat. If we all became vegetarian today, food prices would skyrocket and a hell of a lot of people would starve. Whether a chicken is raised in a cage, or a shed or is ‘free range’ – as an aside, all you have to do to make a chicken ‘free range’ is give them a small outdoor area, they ain’t roaming the Great Plains my friends – means nothing to me. Food security is going to become an increasingly important issue, so the ethical raising and slaughtering of chickens just isn’t that important. Call me what you will, but we have to be pragmatic.
    A Free Man´s last blog ..Who mistook the steak for chicken? My ComLuv Profile

  • Ted

    It makes you wonder what you have actually eaten in your life sometimes.

    This is a great blog, you should add it to The Expat Directory – http://www.theexpatdirectory.com/community.php?b=9&pagenum=2
    Ted´s last blog ..Web Development in India and how Web Development is different from Website Designing My ComLuv Profile

  • Nathan B. – I don’t know for certain, and what I know uncertainly isn’t much. But my daughter was telling me that some of the kosher laws have to do with making (certain) animals pure by means of a slaughter where they don’t suffer. Other animals (like fish she was telling me) you could just eat alive if you want. I don’t know why one would care about the suffering of one animal over another…

    A Free Man – I didn’t know that about the starvation thing. I thought that the corn and stuff that went into raising an animal would feed more people than the dead animal itself? Is it that they’re being fed stuff people couldn’t eat I guess?
    Jill/Twipply Skwood´s last blog ..Wedding Flowers and Pork Blood, both in the same post. Because those things go together. Obviously. My ComLuv Profile

  • ssg

    dude i totally disagree with you over the animal thing. Maybe cos I’m from the Uk and we’re all wack jobs that support animal charities, but I dont want to eat something that’s had a measley life, cooped up in a cage. I would rather be veggie. And why would prices sky rocket if we all went veggie? If i went veggie i dont think I would eat that much more veg, I would just cut out the meat which I dont really need. People could be more encouraged to grow their own food. The space taken up by cows and pigs and shit could be converted into crop land. And we dont need to eat so much- most of us in the western world eat way more than we need to, and also throw away a lot. Saying you dont care about chickens cos we all need to be fed to me, isn’t a good argument. We dont need meat everyday. We dont need huge meals. We dont have to raise chickens in a battery environment inorder to get enough protein to feed us. We could eat engineered bacterial fodder if we wanted to, but we have a choice. Eating a zombie chicken that cant move and is having a horrific time is not what i’d call tasty. I call that gross. Why do we always have to eat what we want now- it’s the same for some fruit. i can get pineapple in the UK any time of year- but why should I? I kinda find it disgusting.
    ssg´s last blog ..hello again My ComLuv Profile

  • I think this was a well balanced post. While I know the social, environmental, and health benefits of being a vegetarian, (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6299642/) I still eat meat. I believe it is important in our diets but not to the extent that Americans consume it. I’m very much against hormones and antibiotics in cattle, pigs, chickens, and other domestic fare, the idea that farmers are selectively breeding their chickens doesn’t sound all that appetizing either. Like you said, everyone has to start taking responsibility for their food and their own health and eat the right portions. Ideally, the meat you consume should have been treated ethically and also eaten as a “treat” rather than a meal staple, as it was in my house growing up.
    My Name’s Not Barbara´s last blog ..Have you seen the ghost of John? Long white bones with the skin all gone. Wouldn’t it be chilly with no skin on? My ComLuv Profile

  • ssg

    doooood where’ve you goooonnnneeee????????
    ssg´s last blog ..hello again My ComLuv Profile

  • Next time you’re in Chattanooga, I’ll take you by our downtown chicken processing plant for a looksee and (even from a distance) I think you’ll change your mind. They use mistreated (and therefore, quite sickly) chickens that are freakishly disgusting — bald, deformed and covered in shit. No thanks. If that’s going to be the only way we can put food on our dinner tables as the population increases on this planet, then we need to start seriously thinking about culling the herd and/or incentivizing/enforcing some form of birth control.

    Well, we ought to be working on that anyway… it’s getting too damn crowded…
    alice´s last blog ..Good eats! My ComLuv Profile

  • It really stinks that talking about moderation isn’t popular or newsworthy.
    Allie´s last blog ..Wordless Wednesday – November My ComLuv Profile

  • Great post! I found your blog when I was researching a post on chicken breast for my blog (click back on my link and check it out to see a GREAT 1940s-era photo of roasted turkey – its breasts are positively tiny).

    I hunt for most of my meat, so I get around this problem most of the time. (Double bonus: Wild game tastes infinitely more flavorful than domestic meat.) When I do buy domestic, I try really, really hard to avoid factory-farmed meat for exactly the reasons people have talked about here – animals bred into deformity to meet the inexplicable demand for the most boring-tasting part of the bird. (Not to mention the disgusting treatment of animals and the environmental damage of all that concentrated waste.)

    But oh, man, I love chicken, and sometimes I can’t stop myself from putting a rotisserie chicken in my cart at the grocery store. If the store carried a free-range/pastured/organic chicken in its rotisserie rack, I would buy it more often, at almost any price.
    NorCal Cazadora´s last blog ..America’s obsession with breast meat My ComLuv Profile

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