For those of you that have seen Food, Inc., or read Fast Food Nation, you may remember pretty horrendous descriptions of how chicken’s are raised in the United States on factory farms. Antibiotics are typically used primarily because chickens are housed so close together that they can’t actually move around.
This sucks for all us chicken lovers; have you ever had free range chicken? My goodness gracious it is delicious! Less stress, hormones, and antibiotics makes for better chicken. Anyone that tells you different probably doesn’t cook much. Unfortunately, free range chicken is expensive. Chicken is expensive on its own, but free range chicken is even more expensive than that. Why? Well – there isn’t THAT much demand for it. Well, that all may now be changing. Rather than endure California style chicken law, producers in Ohio have started negotiating with animal rights activists to get a gradual transition to slightly more human chicken farming.
It’s gonna take a while, but this looks like progress. Or is it? I’m interested in what our readers think!
Comments
6 responses to “Uncaging the Chickens…Finally.”
I love free range, organic, air dried chickens. It is nice to taste a leg and thigh that has actually been used. The meat is darker and tastes like a real, strong chicken flavor. Conventional boneless skinless breasts taste like nothing, but the breast on a free range bird actually tastes good. I think america’s taste buds fell asleep, but hopefully making this meat more accessible will wake them up and consumers will demand more humanely raised (a.k.a. tastier) meats.
I can always taste a huge difference between the two. After I saw Food Inc. I swore I would only buy organic. After I had wiped out my entire bank account, thanks to Whole Foods, I had to go back to the standard Kroger brand chicken.
Whatever – you wiped out your bank account buying all that Chimay and Basting a Turducken in Hennessy! Baller.
Hahahahahhaha come on. You didn’t have to call me out on that.
A commitment to buying “happier” meats is something that I am OK with. I have made my meal plans with 50% vegitarian meals to offset the costs of more expensive meats. The meat feels more like a treat and the overall grocery budget is still affordable. it just means that each night with a chicken breast, or a grass fed steak or a free range pork chop is balanced out by a meal that centers around tofu, or a big salad, or beans, or quinoa, or eggs. It is totally doable. Soyrizo breakfast tacos for dinner is one of the best.
lmao ‘human chicken farming’