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

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

#21

Post by aww_dang »

riffraff wrote: post #18
aww_dang wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The chickens you describe are the only ones I find acceptable for soups and stocks. Mass produced broilers just don't have enough flavor for these uses.

is there a culture of "old hen soup" where you live? In Italy there's a folk saying, "gallina vecchia fa buon brodo" ("and old hen makes for good soup", meaning there's value in old people/stuff), and in Hungary it's relatively easy to buy a literal old hen at farmers' markets, which makes for much better soup than meat-oriented chicken.

They generally prefer the older rooster, non-broiler, heirloom varieties for soup here. You can easily find these in any village, but if you buy them downtown you'll pay about 3x. If you like the countryside it is worth the trip. You can buy other produce while you're there.

Old laying hens are usually cheaper. Not as desirable.

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

#22

Post by lordnacho »

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…

It's easy to optimise things that we can get numbers for, like how much food the chicken is fed and how much it weighs.

There's no number for taste, even if everyone agrees it's worse.

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

#23

Post by rhn_mk1 »

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.

Why not both!

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

#25

Post by eimrine »

What was the 364% grows caused by?

Is this due to selection (like a modern corn we have) or antibiotics being fed to the livestock? (of course, the answer is both but maybe I am missing something).

And a question to a no-tasty-chicken-in-markets adepts, have you (or your farmer/supplier) ever tried to take a modern-genetics chicken and feed them with no antibiotics or other grow-stimulators - what is the taste?

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

#26

Post by nsteel »

This is also part of Morgan Spurlock's Super Size Me 2. Which I didn't realise existed until last week. I found it and an enjoyable/uncomfortable watch although The Guardian were less keen.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Size_Me_2:_Holy_Chicke...!

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/sep/09/super-size-me-2...

Edit: I've just discovered I probably didn't know about it because the distributor (youtube) pulled it just before release following Spurlock's #MeToo confession.

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

#27

Post by deltille »

It always feels weird when I pull a chicken breast out for dinner and it is bigger than my own breast muscle; I grew up with chickens and long intuited something was up but didn't know the numbers were that striking. Parallels to what has happened over the past several decades in the vegetable crop; nutrition, flavor and quality vs. sheer quantity.

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

#28

Post by Fargoan »

MiddleMan5 wrote: post #7
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.

The sibling replies here are interesting in that they appeal to personify the chickens

Chickens are sentient just like us.

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

#29

Post by deltille »

parineum wrote: post #20
kaycebasques wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is this a bad thing? Thread argues that modern chicken is less tasty: > 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." Thread also argues that fat profile is out-of-whack due to modern chickens bei…

It's not that I find these arguments false or anything like that but I always notice a seeming lack of awareness that the extra food produced by these chickens or gmo corn or whatever actually saves lives. Complaining about taste and fat content is a luxury not everyone can afford and I think a lot of the "natural" foods type of people take that for granted.

As an anecdote, I spent time in that margin-- where the presence of mass-produced, 'optimized' food probably meant the difference between my being able to afford enough food vs not-- but I consistently dreaded these sorts of 'inflated' foods, where nutrients had clearly been deprioritized for quantity. This chicken situation is one case, but they show up in a few forms in the US, and are particularly endemic to food deserts, where it can be genuinely hard to find food that hasn't been preserved or 'optimized' beyond the pale. As you said, yes, it certainly beat starving, but I would've rather had better food distributed more effectively. I believe we can have both.
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