Chicken, chicken and more chicken. For those of us who gave up on red meat, chicken became the source of our protein. It is lean, once the external fat is removed, can be prepared a bagillion different ways (yes, that is a made up word), can be found at any market and has been touted by the “experts” as a much better choice than beef, pork, duck etc. The only protein to get better reviews was fish. But that’s another post.
Not too long ago, however, chicken came under fire. Large corporations wanted bigger chickens at a faster pace and less loss. So they required their farmers who supplied with the chickens to use hormones and antibiotics. At first, everyone was excited! The consumers too! Why? Because they could have fat, juicy chickens that were cheap! And so, chicks were crammed into small houses and cages, fed hormones and given antibiotics. Well, it was later brought to the public’s attention that those hormones and antibiotics were still in the flesh when we consumed it (You are what what you eat eats too!). Research found links to early breast development in girls and hormonally driven cancers like breast cancer.
Now for those of us consuming a great deal of chicken thinking we were giving our bodies something healthy, had to re-evaluate our choice. Do we give up chicken? Eat only fish? Grab tofu and go vegetarian? Well, there is still a choice when selecting chicken. Free Range. No hormones. No Antibiotics. More and more you can find this at your better supermarkets. Or you can order online and have it shipped to your home. Some of the suppliers require you to order 10-20 pounds at time. This makes for more efficient ordering and saving on cost of shipping, but you do need to eat chicken that has been frozen within 6 months, so don’t order too much! You will pay a bit more for organic free range chicken because they take longer to bring to market (8-10 weeks versus 6 weeks of conventionally raised chickens) but they are much more nutritious. According to Dr. Andrew Weil, in his book, The Healthy Kitchen, “The fat from free-range poultry has a better spectrum of fatty acids, and the flesh tastes better.”
Be sure to read the fine print on both the labels at your supermarket or the website that you are looking to order. “Free range” doesn’t necessarily mean running on a grassy meadow. It may only mean access to a dirt patch. Or, as in the case of one farm in California, the grassy area is provided, but the chickens stay inside the “house”. Why? Well, since the chickens aren’t fed antibiotics, they are susceptible to disease. The farmers don’t want to lose their flock, so they keep them inside for 5 weeks, then they open the gate to allow them to stroll outside on the grassy lawn. They don’t venture out to that scary part of the yard. They stick inside, close to one another in the familiar space. They only have a few more weeks to live anyway….. So look for the “pastured” on your free range chicken packages. That means they truly were pecking away outside on the grassy knoll.
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