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.

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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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Chickens feeding

Hens

Chicken shed

 
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