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Why is chicken so cheap? [video]

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Re: Why is chicken so cheap? [video]

#31

That man and his automatic shed. How depressing. I'd much rather pay 3x as much, eat chicken 1/3 as often and actually enjoy it instead of eating it every day and hardly noticing it. All those cheap chickens may as well have stickers on saying "1/3 the enjoyment"

> I'd much rather pay 3x as much, eat chicken 1/3 as often you wouldn't You already could right now but you're not doing it

I am and have been for years

Re: Why is chicken so cheap? [video]

#32

That man and his automatic shed. How depressing. I'd much rather pay 3x as much, eat chicken 1/3 as often and actually enjoy it instead of eating it every day and hardly noticing it. All those cheap chickens may as well have stickers on saying "1/3 the enjoyment"

> eating it every day and hardly noticing it Our distant relationship with where meat comes from is one of the most bizarre things about humans. Especially next to our psychopathic relationship with our own pets. I've seen people freak out with disgust because there's a tiny feather or some dirt in their carton of eggs. Or disgusted by the hanging, swinging corpses behind the butcher when they go to order something t…

I heard some super markets put a feather or two on purpose in the package to make it look more authentic. I often find one or two (I live in Germany). But they’re usually clean.

Re: Why is chicken so cheap? [video]

#33
post #30
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What sort of lives do you think birds living "in nature" in Africa have? Instead of being painlessly gassed to death like farmed chickens they'll be eaten alive by some predator, or instead of being provided with antibiotics as hatchlings perhaps worms will eat most of their siblings alive before they leave the nest. Romanticizing factory farming is ridiculous, but so is romanticizing the lives of wild animals. From…

Can’t say that comparing the appalling conditions in bird factories with a life lived in the wild really compares here. At least wild birds get to make a go of it, the factory birds never had a chance. Some of them are too fat to even walk and never even get to leave their cage. If I was given the choice I’d choose the life of the wild bird over the caged one any day.

Do they know that their liberties are not the same as in the wild? More importantly, do you believe it causes the chickens psychological pain? I'm not convinced you're not making a naturalist fallacy. Can you point to what is wrong with human's relationship with chickens in a factory farming model, assuming the animals have basic humane treatment?

Edit: I personally eat free-range chicken, but this is for aesthetic reasons. I cannot justify why free-range chickens have a better life than those in enclosures, any more than I can justify why a human farmer has a better life than a software developer.

Re: Why is chicken so cheap? [video]

#34

When I went to America, I couldn't believe how cheap chicken was. I once found boneless chicken breast for $1.99/pound. Eggs were dirt cheap as well, sometimes less than $1.00/dozen. I don't remember ever seeing prices like these in Canada.

We don't pay for the healthcare of anyone in the production chain.

Re: Why is chicken so cheap? [video]

#35

Chickens are one the most successful animals on earth! By evolving to become fatter, more succulent, and delicious, they have convinced humans to feed and house them, and in doing so have multiplied to vast numbers and spread their genes almost everywhere across the globe.

> Wheat domesticated humans as humans domesticated wheat.

Re: Why is chicken so cheap? [video]

#36

Breeding a "product" with a small gene pool, churning out monoculture: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gros_Michel_banana or a more imaginative corrective: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza_A_virus_subtype_H7N9 makes a plant based diet a very good hack indeed.

You don't know what the word monoculture means until you stand in the middle of a soybean field in the midwest and see nothing but more soybeans (from the same small handful of varieties provided by giant seed companies) as far as the eye can see. Please do not imagine for one second that a plant-based diet increases biodiversity.

Re: Why is chicken so cheap? [video]

#37
post #21

Chickens are one the most successful animals on earth! By evolving to become fatter, more succulent, and delicious, they have convinced humans to feed and house them, and in doing so have multiplied to vast numbers and spread their genes almost everywhere across the globe.

Depends how you define success. > By evolving to Being selected to by us > they have convinced humans to feed and house them No, humans have constructed chickens to meet our requirements, minimising the amount we need to house them (e.g. killing them at a few weeks old).

Human are part of nature too, so yes they evolved.

Re: Why is chicken so cheap? [video]

#38

I always found it a bit tacky to call it an "achievement" for the animal/plant that humans farm it. Same with "evolutionary" changes due to selective breeding. Both said in the video. Always feels like someone is trying to spin reality on me. "What? The birds love it! Instead of living in nature in a part of Africa, they are suffering worldwide to the tune of billions!" Their hard work paid off!

I would say it's tacky so much as a deliberate euphemism.

Re: Why is chicken so cheap? [video]

#39
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> eating it every day and hardly noticing it Our distant relationship with where meat comes from is one of the most bizarre things about humans. Especially next to our psychopathic relationship with our own pets. I've seen people freak out with disgust because there's a tiny feather or some dirt in their carton of eggs. Or disgusted by the hanging, swinging corpses behind the butcher when they go to order something t…

There are quite a few (relatively) famous pigs on Instagram. Try suggesting to someone that maybe they should be turned into bacon this Christmas. I'm not talking about vegans, but regular meat-eating people. Study reaction.

That's a entirely reasonable position; those pigs are more useful as entertainment than food, by a rather large margin too.

Re: Why is chicken so cheap? [video]

#40
Land usage per chicken, difference between free-range vs. intensively reared:

1/12 m^2 vs. 1/17 m^2

Consumer cost, difference between free range vs. intensively reared:

4 euros/lb vs. 2 euros/lb.

Does the difference in production costs explain the drastic consumer cost difference between these two methods? Why can't free-range farming be automated like it is in the intensive rearing model?

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