the rallying cry used to be "a chicken in every pot!"....now it will be "a gigantic chicken in every pot!"
The chicken you are eating has increased 364% in size over the last 50 years
61–70 of 91 posts
Re: The chicken you are eating has increased 364% in size over the last 50 years
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
yeah, but protein-dense plants cause flatulence
Re: The chicken you are eating has increased 364% in size over the last 50 years
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I never said it was better, I'm in complete agreement it's a preference.
Are you prepared to have chicken at $10/lb? Make it a luxury only the middle class can afford?
Re: The chicken you are eating has increased 364% in size over the last 50 years
#64When 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…
Similar story with strawberries. The huge ones are quite bland, whereas the small ones pack a punch. I imagine it's mostly the water content that makes them bigger, but at the same time it dilutes the taste. Same for tomatoes as well. Homegrown tomatoes have a strong taste, whereas store-bought ones are quite weak in taste (as well as weirdly plastic). Pretty much anything that is produced for profits will be optimiz…
As far as I am aware the water content reducing flavor is a myth. For fruits and vegtables it comes down to ripening and temperature control. The majority of fruit we purchase from the super market is picked far before it's rip and is either sitting in storage/transport long enough to get acceptable flavor, gassed with certain hormones to speed up rippening before final arrival, or just straight up dyed.
Oranges from warm climates are actually green and are dyed in a lot of cases in the US. A cooler climate is needed to kill of the green pigments in the fall turning them orange.
Fate of food is an interesting book on the food supply chain: https://www.amandalittle.com/fateoffood
Food dying and our perception of flavor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FPnag_rvU8
A fun video with Paul Hollywood trying the most expensive strawberries: https://youtu.be/895DfGuoqvU
Re: The chicken you are eating has increased 364% in size over the last 50 years
#65It's an animal welfare nightmare. Many of these animals are growing too fast to support their own body weight and can barely move by the time they're sent to their deaths.
Re: The chicken you are eating has increased 364% in size over the last 50 years
#66When 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…
Similar story with strawberries. The huge ones are quite bland, whereas the small ones pack a punch. I imagine it's mostly the water content that makes them bigger, but at the same time it dilutes the taste. Same for tomatoes as well. Homegrown tomatoes have a strong taste, whereas store-bought ones are quite weak in taste (as well as weirdly plastic). Pretty much anything that is produced for profits will be optimiz…
Strawberries; I used to think that, but it's only true for me locally. The important thing for delicious strawberries is that you pick them ripe. So locally the only tasty strawberries you get are small and in season, because that's local. However if you are in a place more suited for strawberries you can find large tasty strawberries picked ripe. Strawberries in a super market are picked green and ripen in transit.
Tomatoes: small tomatoes have a higher pulp to juice ratio, so are literally less watery. But again, the big ones can be quite tasty, they just need to be reduced more, which has other effects: the long cooking time changes the flavor, which you may or may not want. But the important thing for flavor is to get vine ripened tomatoes, which usually means you need to buy canned, because the time from vine to can is a lot less than from vine to super market.
Re: The chicken you are eating has increased 364% in size over the last 50 years
#67Earlier 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.
Studies have found decreases over time, from the mid 20th century, to now, in vitamins and minerals in fruits and vegetables. It's due to changes in varieties, soil depletion, and increased atmospheric CO2.
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/vanishing-...
https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/09/13/food-nutrie...
There is some evidence sugar content has increased, from varietal changes, but that's about it.
Re: The chicken you are eating has increased 364% in size over the last 50 years
#68The chickens we raised 40 years ago were usually a good 12-15 pounds, bigger than anything you buy in a store. And much more flavorful.
But that's because it took us 5 months to raise them rather than the 40 days that a modern bird takes.
Re: The chicken you are eating has increased 364% in size over the last 50 years
#69What do they do with other animals used for food production? Is this only done with chicken? I'm not sure I would dare eat meats produced in the U.S.
Re: The chicken you are eating has increased 364% in size over the last 50 years
#70When 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…
Similar story with strawberries. The huge ones are quite bland, whereas the small ones pack a punch. I imagine it's mostly the water content that makes them bigger, but at the same time it dilutes the taste. Same for tomatoes as well. Homegrown tomatoes have a strong taste, whereas store-bought ones are quite weak in taste (as well as weirdly plastic). Pretty much anything that is produced for profits will be optimiz…
I’ve seen this on HN a lot but I just doesn’t match my experience at all.
Large strawberries are generally tastier in my opinion.