The chicken you are eating has increased 364% in size over the last 50 years • Hacker News Board

Re: The chicken you are eating has increased 364% in size over the last 50 years

#51

Post by inter_netuser » Sun, Apr 17, 2022, 8:25 AM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #19

steve_adams_86 wrote: post #11

When I was a kid we raised chickens for a long time and they were pretty small. I remember getting a new variety that were huge in comparison (they finished around 8lb sometimes!) and they ended up looking great but being incredibly disappointing to eat. They tasted a lot like store-bought chicken. Big chickens are definitely less interesting on the plate in my experience. As I recall my dad picked them because the f…

> disappointing to eat I’m halfway convinced that the recent plant-based goop phenomenon is not a story about environmental or moral concerns, but instead disillusion with the blandness of commodity meat.

Isn’t there an entire flavour industry?

Seems much easier fixed than trying to invent fake meat from scratch.

Re: The chicken you are eating has increased 364% in size over the last 50 years

#52

Post by inter_netuser » Sun, Apr 17, 2022, 8:26 AM UTC

chmod600 wrote: post #33

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm betting they are probably less nutritious too.

I've suspected for a long time that we are missing major stuff from out diet due to changes in both the plants and animals we eat. I look at fruit in the grocery store and it just looks unnatural to me.

Well, we are at the point where farmers have to add nutrients to soil.

Re: The chicken you are eating has increased 364% in size over the last 50 years

#53

Post by Loic » Sun, Apr 17, 2022, 8:27 AM UTC

hackernewds wrote: post #42

Loic wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"flavorless" is exactly what the industry wants. This allows easy control of the taste during processing. This is why the chicken "wings" you buy in your well-knownfast food restaurant taste the same everywhere and every single day of the year.

That seems backwards and hard to believe. They could use the same chickens and would need less sauce frying and spice

This is backwards for a cook who tries to enhance the intrinsic taste, texture of some good ingredients.

But the industry wants a constant taste, texture on a massive scale. The only solution is to produce on one side the needed spices (easy to control the taste) an apply it on a relative tasteless substrate. It means that you do not need to adapt the recipe during production.

Source: wife worked a couple of years for Unilever, some of my customers are in the flagrance, food additives industry.

Re: The chicken you are eating has increased 364% in size over the last 50 years

#54

Post by belorn » Sun, Apr 17, 2022, 8:54 AM UTC

elvis10ten wrote: post #44

> “ Chicken should be so good in itself that it is an absolute delight to eat as a perfectly plain, butter roast, saute or grill.” I said something like this to my ”modern” friends, they laughed at me for having low standard. It was something my dad used to say: “It takes effort to make chicken tastes bad.” We raised chicken via the natural long process. I miss that taste so much and it’s hard to explain to people. N…

In small scale you are 100% right. Leave them to their natural behavior and they are perfectly able to eat the right amount of grass, insects and small rodents that their egg and meat will taste great (some support grains is needed). Force them to eat only the cheapest animal feed and pick breeds that wouldn't survive in the wild, and the resulting egg and meat will have a distinct worse taste.

For small scale, chickens really are one of the most useful and easiest going animals one can have, and it is one of the things I miss living in a city.

Re: The chicken you are eating has increased 364% in size over the last 50 years

#55

Post by thunderbong » Sun, Apr 17, 2022, 9:45 AM UTC

Better readability

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1515324097223225345.html

Re: The chicken you are eating has increased 364% in size over the last 50 years

#56

Post by WithinReason » Sun, Apr 17, 2022, 9:51 AM UTC

juki wrote: post #35

ComradePhil wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Antibiotics doesn't lead to growth, it prevents infection and diseases.

They are/have been also used to promote growth. That's banned in the EU at least, but I think American producers still do it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antibiotic_use_in_livestock#Gr...

Hmm, probably because the chicken's gut flora doesn't consume the calories.

Re: The chicken you are eating has increased 364% in size over the last 50 years

#57

Post by rosndo » Sun, Apr 17, 2022, 9:59 AM UTC

> Modern chicken is notorious for being "dry, "bland," and "flavorless." Contrast this to the 1960s, where chicken was considered a delicacy. "Chicken should be so good in itself that it is an absolute delight to eat as a perfectly plain, butter roast, saute or grill."

Food today is so much better than in the 60s. You’d have hard time convincing anyone today that heritage chickens are a delicacy. They’re much better than mass produced supermarket chicken, but still fairly bland and flavorless.

I pretty much only buy poulets de Bresse. Far nicer than regular supermarket chicken? Sure. Still boring without extensive preparation? yep.

Re: The chicken you are eating has increased 364% in size over the last 50 years

#58

Post by rayiner » Sun, Apr 17, 2022, 11:52 AM UTC

I remember vividly that when we moved here from Bangladesh in 1989, I couldn’t eat the chicken for months. Going from eating non-optimized chickens bought live at the market and slaughtered right before cooking to eating store bought Purdue chicken was a massive downgrade.

Re: The chicken you are eating has increased 364% in size over the last 50 years

#59

Post by rayiner » Sun, Apr 17, 2022, 11:55 AM UTC

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #15

steve_adams_86 wrote: post #11

When I was a kid we raised chickens for a long time and they were pretty small. I remember getting a new variety that were huge in comparison (they finished around 8lb sometimes!) and they ended up looking great but being incredibly disappointing to eat. They tasted a lot like store-bought chicken. Big chickens are definitely less interesting on the plate in my experience. As I recall my dad picked them because the f…

I'm betting they are probably less nutritious too.

People who talk about whether food is “nutritious” are like anti-vaxxers. There’s no scientific basis to these ideas, just feels.

Re: The chicken you are eating has increased 364% in size over the last 50 years

#60

Post by PretzelPirate » Sun, Apr 17, 2022, 11:56 AM UTC

refurb wrote: post #34

mostertoaster wrote: post #3

I’m assuming this keeps chicken prices lower. Is this a bad thing? I guess it could be if it is because of gnarly things they’re doing, but if it is primarily breeding larger chickens, well, that sounds ok.

It is a bad thing. We should go back to where only the middle class can afford quality protein like chicken. Let the poor eat beans I always say!

“Quality” protein is found in plants as well as animals.

There’s no reason that eating chicken is better for a person than eating plants, especially with current state of plant-based foods and recipes that are available making it easy to eat delicious plant-based foods that aren’t just a bowl of beans.