Free Range Chicken: A Tough Choice

Last week I happened to eat chicken on two occasions. On the first, Tea Andy and I purchased some 'free-range' chicken at the local grocery store. On the second, I ordered up some deep fried chicken chunks from a street stall. While I admit to enjoying both versions, they were so distinct in flavour and texture that it was hard to imagine them coming from the same species of animal. While I am always suspect of labels such as 'free-range' or 'organic', it was clear from the stringy and flavourful texture of the first meat, that the animal had exercised and had most likely eaten a mixed diet comprised of local insects and herbs in addition to engineered feed product. The extreme tenderness and lack of flavour of the second meat was clearly a result of factory farming. To leave the moral issue of factory farming aside, lets consider for a moment the implications of this disparity in texture.  

Toughness or chewiness is a sure sign of wild or free-range meat. Tough meat forces one to chew more, this promotes the flow of digestive juices that break down proteins and send nutrients into the blood. Aside from this, chewing slows down the process of eating and encourages one to eat less. It is interesting that the word 'tender' is probably the most common adjective used to describe meat in advertising. Perhaps in the future, as more people become aware of the distinctive texture and health benefits of free-range meat, the word 'tough' will one day be a more effective selling point for meat.  

I found this fascinating excerpt from the Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser, on the role of the McDonald's chicken McNugget in the evolution of the poultry industry. It documents how a single company was responsible for not only restructuring the American poultry industry and dramatically changing the eating habits of a large portion of the world, but also for essentially re-engineering the chicken as an animal. The following is an except from this article:

"I have an idea," Fred Turner, the chairman of McDonald's, told one of his suppliers in 1979. "I want a chicken finger-food without bones, about the size of your thumb. Can you do it?" The supplier, an executive at Keystone Foods, ordered a group of technicians to get to work in the lab, where they were soon joined by food scientists from McDonald's. Poultry consumption in the United States was growing, a trend with alarming implications for a fast food chain that only sold hamburgers. The nation's chicken meat had traditionally been provided by hens that were too old to lay eggs; after World War II a new poultry industry based in Delaware and Virginia lowered the cost of raising chicken, while medical research touted the health benefits of eating it. Fred Turner wanted McDonald's to sell a chicken dish that wouldn't clash with the chain's sensibility. After six months of intensive research, the Keystone lab developed new technology for the manufacture of McNuggets — small pieces of reconstituted chicken, composed mainly of white meat, that were held together by stabilizers, breaded, fried, frozen, then reheated. The initial test-marketing of McNuggets was so successful that McDonald's enlisted another company, Tyson Foods, to guarantee an adequate supply. Based in Arkansas, Tyson was one of the nation's leading chicken processors, and it soon developed a new breed of chicken to facilitate the production of McNuggets. Dubbed "Mr. McDonald," the new breed had unusually large breasts. 

Chicken McNuggets were introduced nationwide in 1983. Within one month of their launch, the McDonald's Corporation had become the second-largest purchaser of chicken in the United States, surpassed only by KFC. McNuggets tasted good, they were easy to chew, and they appeared to be healthier than other items on the menu at McDonald's. After all, they were made out of chicken. But their health benefits were illusory. A chemical analysis of McNuggets by a researcher at Harvard Medical School found that their "fatty acid profile" more closely resembled beef than poultry. They were cooked in beef tallow, like McDonald's fries. The chain soon switched to vegetable oil, adding "beef extract" to McNuggets during the manufacturing process in order to retain their familiar taste. Chicken McNuggets, which became wildly popular among young children, still derive much of their flavor from beef additives — and contain twice as much fat per ounce as a hamburger.
 
The McNuggets helped change not only the American diet but also its system for raising and processing poultry. "The impact of McNuggets was so huge that it changed the industry," the president of ConAgra Poultry, the nation's third-largest chicken processor, later acknowledged. Twenty years ago, most chicken was sold whole; today about 90 percent of the chicken sold in the United States has been cut into pieces, cutlets, or nuggets. In 1992 American consumption of chicken for the first time surpassed the consumption of beef. Gaining the McNuggets contract helped turn Tyson Foods into the world's largest chicken processor. Tyson now manufactures about half of the nation's McNuggets and sells chicken to ninety of the one hundred largest restaurant chains. It is a vertically integrated company that breeds, slaughters, and processes chicken. It does not, however, raise the birds. It leaves the capital expenditures and the financial risks of that task to thousands of "independent contractors."

Free range chicken is available in most supermarkets in Taiwan. Look for the cuts that are roughly twice as expensive. Or go down to your local market and pick up one of those bad boys in the picture. If you've never seen your meat killed in front of you, think of it as an educational adventure in a more humane and healthier way to eat.