Saturday, April 5, 2008

The Scary Truth Behind the Chickens

Last night Karlo’s mother made some chicken for dinner. Of course it was all fancy with each piece of chicken sitting on top of a cut potato and seasoned to perfection. Her biggest comment and surprise was about how much the chicken shrank after it was cooked. She never experienced that before. She also commented on the color of the chicken. Why was it pink in its uncooked form? These questions didn’t make sense to me. What color should raw chicken be? And I thought all meat was supposed to shrink when it’s cooked.

That was when Karlo explained the realities of the chicken (and all other meat that we get here in the US). Where Karlo’s mother lives, she buys her chicken directly from a local farm. No, not live and not with feathers on it. The chicken meat is yellow in its raw form, not pink. And it doesn’t shrink after cooking.

Karlo informed me that the chickens from his mother’s local farm mature (are ready to be eaten) in 6 months. Our chickens, on the other hand, are pumped with hormones, water, and fat so that they are mature (ready to be eaten) in 6 WEEKS. They are so full of unnatural things that most of them just disappear upon cooking. Well, the water and fat does. God knows what happens to all the hormones.

This is just depressing. How can Americans possibly eat healthy when most of the food that is available to us is toxic? Makes me want to start growing a garden and get some chickens.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Two words: eat organic.
I buy as much as I can in this category especially meats, fruits and veggies. Last summer Brendan and I did a raised garden bed totally segregated from our chemically treated grass. I bought special "dirt", it cost more but your body is your temple! We got off to a late start so we only grew carrots, tomatoes and squash but they were yummy. I had no problems with bugs or worms. We are fortunate to have neighbors (Wesleyan University) with an extremely large organic garden. They offer good advice and great veggies.