20 ms·
What is this colored fiber in my chicken?
- Devagamster 10y agoThis is kinda terrifying. I can't put my finger on why exactly but dang.
- polotics 10y agoWell, meat is murder. Eat less, live longer.
- grzm 10y agoPlease don't move discussion onto well-trodden, general ideological grounds unless you have something truly new to say. There's plenty to discuss on the specifics of the submitted piece.
- erikb 10y agoSame feeling here.
- x0x0 10y agocows being raised for meat aren't exactly healthy either. Corn is not what they're designed to eat, but it is what we feed them. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/meat/interviews/pollan.html http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/meat/interview...
- fil_a_del_fee_a 10y agoI just spent a half-hour reading this very well written article. Very cut and dry explanation of the livestock system. Highly recommend everyone to read. Interesting tidbit: "But a lot of it has to do with the way we grow our food, and the fact that we mix 100 different cows in a single burger. We never used to do that. The butcher used to take the scraps from that one animal and make his hamburger right in front of your eyes. ... Now, you get one infected carcass, and that meat can spread all around the country, because we have this centralized national system."
- kozak 10y agoAll living creatures occasionally get sick. You don't see a lot of health issues in your meat only because of quality checks on the way of the meat to you, and also partially because the animals that you eat are young.
- Chris2048 10y agoDang can't help here.
- bambax 10y agoBrown meat is much much more delicious; why would anyone prefer white meat is beyond me. And the irony is that, in buying "heavy breasted chicken", customers pay for something they can't consume (assuming chicken is priced by the pound in the US).
- iopq 10y agoThis is true, in Ukraine we called imported chicken legs "Bush's drumsticks" (referring to Bush Sr.) This is because legs are not in as much demand in the US, so they would rather export them to countries where they are in demand!
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- golergka 10y agoI'm afraid you're mistaken. It's because Bush organized humanitarian help to post-USSR countries in tge early 90s, which risked hunger because of the awful economic conditions.
- bpicolo 10y agoHmm. Thinking about it, I mostly don't use drumsticks because for a sauté they're a bit more of a pain to cook vs flatter variants.
- 10y ago
- ncr100 10y agoFake meat cannot come soon enough - poor bird was encouraged to grow in an unhealthy manner resulting in dead tissue inside it while it was still alive. I wonder if it was painful for the bird having this tough dead tissue at the core of its breasts.
- omginternets 10y agoAnd here I was thinking "(true) free-range as the norm can't come soon enough". I'm very skeptical of fake meet insofar as nutrition involves highly complex systems. Surely the risk of a trans-fat-like health debacle is non-negligible ... tl;dr: fake meat isn't a problem per se, but I sure as hell won't be the first one to eat it. I'll consider it when there's >50 years of hard data on the record.
- Baeocystin 10y agoCell expansion already has decades of science behind it. There isn't anything hard about it, either. You or I could expand cultures in our kitchens with minimal difficulty as it is. The hard part of 'fake meat' (which isn't fake, it's real muscle tissue, it's just grown differently) is that muscle alone doesn't taste good, or have a pleasing texture. You need connective tissue, fat, blood vessels... The whole lot, really. And that is a much more difficult problem.
- ericdykstra 10y agoI'm with omginternets on this one. On a spectrum of "herbivore that has roamed relatively freely and eaten a variety of vegetables according to it's nature" to "animals raised in factory farms, fed defect candy, and grown to 3x it's natural size before reaching physical maturity" to "lab grown muscle tissue" I'm sticking as close to the first one as I can, and I'm going vegetarian before making lab grown tissue a part of my diet.
- Baeocystin 10y agoI wouldn't want to force anyone to eat anything they don't want to. I'm personally looking forward to it, though.
- pvaldes 10y agoThis is not a problem caused by antibiotics. Is a problem of genetic nature that happens because broilers are inbreed for growing big and fast. The same birds in true range with plenty of food would face exactly the same problem, with or without antibiotics. They are too heavy and often tend to have cardiac diseases, but they live short lives and are delicious so they are the most sucessful bird in the planet. On the other hand, we are a paradoxal species. Able to feel horrified by this, whereas happily petting our distorted-faced bulldogs, persian cats, caesarean born bullterriers, extra-dwarfed toy Yorkshires, ponies and toy mini pigs, without any trace of moral conflict...
- adaml_623 10y ago"the most successful bird on the planet" is an interesting line considering that they are all killed and eaten. I guess the obvious line of reasoning is to talk about how GDP is less than perfect for measuring economic success, etc. Sometimes large numbers are not a sign of success.
- kbart 10y ago""the most successful bird on the planet" is an interesting line considering that they are all killed and eaten." Moral questions aside, from the perspective of evolution theory breeding and passing of genes is pretty much equal to "success". So yes, in that regard, chickens are indeed successful.
- parenthephobia 10y agoAlmost all birds are killed and eaten. Birds in the wild don't die peacefully in their sleep. The real difference is what happens before they die.
- lovich 10y agoAren't most animals killed and eaten? Some die from disease and then are eaten by bacteria, but I was under the impression that death from old age was a rare event in the wild animal world
- Prego 10y ago
- codr4life 10y agoI don't even want to imagine the kind of emotional baggage that comes with eating tortured, genetically modified and drugged animals. Why can't anyone see that this is just a step in the race to condition the masses to accept treating any living being the same way? Corporations don't give a shit about living beings except as means to make a profit, human or otherwise makes no difference. And I don't get the excitement over fake meat, or how they managed to get the masses so convinced that they "need" meat to live a fulfilling life that the only choices left are animal concentration camps or synthetic bullshit. Millions of people are just fine eating organic veggies, fruits and grains with maybe a bit of organic dairy thrown in. What makes you special?
- sirbranedamuj 10y agohttps://68.media.tumblr.com/31e2f47e135c21fc0c7b33e3af9d9bd1/tumblr_ng7wcwi7iU1s7elebo1_500.gif https://68.media.tumblr.com/31e2f47e135c21fc0c7b33e3af9d9bd1...
- lawik 10y agoI'm not convinced about the emotional baggage. I do agree that corporations above a certain size completely lose their morals. I get excited over synthetic meat, it is interesting tech, it has the potential to provide some healthy stuff to my diet if I decide to eat it. It can also be a good way of reducing the reliance on the terrible industries you mention. I'm fine eating a vegan diet and I wouldn't want to change that. I know people that couldn't because of allergies and what-not, I also know that some people aren't willing to make that change. I think good things can be done in many ways and I'm sick and tired of seeing people with good intentions go so hard on polarizing these issues. Better farming practices are still an improvement in my eyes. They are still doing a net bad as far as I am concerned but I want to see an improvement, so I'll encourage it. But I guess it also depends on varying levels of empathy. I know people that are much more emotionally troubled by the cruel industries than I am. I just happen to agree that it is terrible and I try to live accordingly. Maybe I just don't feel it the way you do?
- enibundo 10y agoI have a solution, (downvotes are welcome), eat an organic and mostly vegatarian diet.
- alangpierce 10y agoFrom the guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html > Please don't bait other users by inviting them to downvote you or proclaim that you expect to get downvoted. (I also don't think your statement is particularly controversial.)
- enibundo 10y agoMy bad, apparently they followed my advice anyways. Jokes aside, eat more veggies for your health, the health of those poor little things that are fed shit and antibiotics daily in very bad environements, and last but not least for the health of the earth.
- Dylan16807 10y agoRemind me what plants are fed, again?
- enibundo 10y agoyou don't get the end of chain thing do you ?
- andrewclunn 10y agoYour concern for animal welfare will never be enough for the animal rights people (just read the other comments here).
- lawik 10y agoUmm, I've seen plenty of balanced views in this thread. I'm a vegan, partially for animal rights but I still encourage meat-eaters that are concerned to go for the better stuff. I don't believe it is the best solution, but I applaud anyone willing to attempt to make things better. "the animal rights people" is a pretty broad brush, I know that quite a few can be completely impossible to discuss the nuances with but honestly, there are so many vegetarians for ethical reasons around that just don't say anything or go "cool, that's better than industrial farming". I also encounter a good part of meat-eaters that become incredible defensive and almost hostile if they find out about my dietary choices. Always frustrating to see black and white grouping when the truth is incredibly nuanced.
- JCharante 10y ago> I also encounter a good part of meat-eaters that become incredible defensive and almost hostile if they find out about my dietary choices. Yeah after someone found out after kinda knowing them for a couple years they said "Fuck You" and we haven't spoken them since then. I wonder what their problem was ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- jshevek 10y agoWho are these "animal rights people"? Do they really all think as a monolith? Is it fair to characterize each individual with any concern for animal rights as "one of them"?
- hellofunk 10y agoPeople just eat way too much chicken. The numbers of chicken consumed every year in most western nations is astounding. And those poor birds, the way they are packed to the point of not even being able to walk while they are raised, it's really a lot more disgusting than the final product shown in this article.
- jerguismi 10y agoDo you think red meat is better? I've been trying to avoid red meat lately for health reasons, and it is very difficult because for many restaurant major of the items seem to contain red meat. I end up eating lots of chicken and fish. Going vegetarian would be probably best...
- GFischer 10y agoNot all red meat is raised like chicken. Here in Uruguay, cows are free ranging, and it's some of the best meat in the world (they're also individually tracked, etc... that means you can track the individual animal but it also makes it more expensive like most "organic" food :) ).
- problems 10y agoChicken is also significantly better from a carbon emissions perspective too I believe. Going off http://media.treehugger.com/assets/images/2011/10/Greenhouse20Gas20Emissions20from20Common20Proteins20and20Vegetables20.jpeg.650x0_q70_crop-smart.jpg http://media.treehugger.com/assets/images/2011/10/Greenhouse... chickens are far better than almost all other animals. So if you're going to eat meat, chickens are a good choice in this way at least.
- hellofunk 10y agoI typically stick just to freshly caught fish from the coast. Looks like even canned or farmed fish is just as emissions-bad as chicken.
- Hexcles 10y agoAnimal welfare aside, I find people in North America really in favour of chicken breast, much more than other parts, say chicken thigh. Yet I myself think chicken thigh tastes much better, especially with the skin (yet again it is usually skinless in supermarkets here, unfortunately). Is it because of nutrition (percentage of fat/protein etc.)? On top of that, chicken feet are considered unacceptable by many...
- tartuffe78 10y agoI think it has to do with being told fat is bad for so many years. Obviously it is in excess, but now as people come more aware of carbohydrates and other issues with an unbalanced diet things may change. My wife will only eat the breast, because she doesn't like the greasier feel of dark meat. I'll eat either but don't have a strong preference so we mainly just get breasts.
- Slaul 10y agoI personally do not enjoy fatty meats. I much prefer the leaner breast meat over the fatty dark meat. Partly a texture thing for me.
- meddlepal 10y agoI strongly prefer chicken and turkey breast because it's easy to deal with because it does not have bones or cartilage. When it's cooked it usually doesn't have any weird colors and the taste is relatively boring but consistent. Thighs, wings, drumsticks etc all have problems I just don't want to deal with as an eater.
- pillowkusis 10y agoif this disgusts you for moral/guilt reasons there is a good solution. Eat less meat! You don't have to go full vegan. I think people employ black and white thinking about this -- either I eat all meat or I become vegetarian/vegan and eat no meat. That's hard, and you're likely to fail (hard cutting to vegan would be quite difficult, regression rates after a few months are sky high). Instead, simply resolve to eat less meat. Make Thursdays meatless. Opt for the vegetarian option when eating out. Slowly reduce your meat consumption to a level you're happy with. Learn about meat alternatives (which have gotten really, really good in the last few years). If everyone in the US took one day a week to have no meat, the whole industry would change dramatically. Baby steps!
- gargravarr 10y agoIf I wasn't vegetarian already, this probably would have done the trick!
- kurmouk 10y agoI personally only eat meat of animals I have myself killed.
- nscalf 10y agoCertainly one of the weirder things I've seen on HN.
- burfog 10y agoAnswer: it's an oxygen shortage in the overly thick muscle, causing tissue death Solution: oxygen masks for the chickens