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The chicken you are eating has increased 364% in size over the last 50 years
- throwuxiytayq 5y agoOf course it's a Twitter thread, and of course the images got accidentally clipped. How embarrassing.
- kaczordon 5y agoGreat, love more chicken.
- mostertoaster 5y agoI’m assuming this keeps chicken prices lower. Is this a bad thing? I guess it could be if it is because of gnarly things they’re doing, but if it is primarily breeding larger chickens, well, that sounds ok.
- aceki 5y agoIt really hurts their welfare since their skeletal systems were not designed to handle the additional weight and means they cannot really stand on their own. The chickens will also develop lesions/burns from laying in ammonia-soaked grounds, increasing risk of infection and causing unnecessary suffering.[0] [0] https://www.aspca.org/sites/default/files/chix_white_paper_nov2015_lores.pdf https://www.aspca.org/sites/default/files/chix_white_paper_n...
- abc03 5y agoIf you prefer quantity over quality then probably not. Ever wondered how thousands of chickens can survive in one room. Well this chickens are probably not organic because you need to use something that illnesses dońt spread. And personally I think a chicken that canˋt walk normally is a problem.
- MiddleMan5 5y agoThe sibling replies here are interesting in that they appeal to personify the chickens
- presentation 5y agoNot sure how "they taste worse" personifies the chicken, nor how pointing out that in fact chickens can suffer personifies the chicken either (well, I guess only people can suffer...).
- Fargoan 5y agoChickens are sentient just like us.
- kaycebasques 5y ago> Is this a bad thing? Thread argues that modern chicken is less tasty: > Modern chicken is notorious for being "dry, "bland," and "flavorless." Contrast this to the 1960s, where chicken was considered a delicacy. "Chicken should be so good in itself that it is an absolute delight to eat as a perfectly plain, butter roast, saute or grill." Thread also argues that fat profile is out-of-whack due to modern chickens being fed diets that are different from what they ate in nature: > Conventional Grain-Fed birds have an Omega-6 to Omega-3 ratio that can be as high as 17:1. Contrast this to a pasture-raised chicken, which has an Omega 6 to Omega-3 ratio of 6:1. I haven't heard of this ratio before. Supposedly a smaller ratio between the 2 types of fat is healthier.
- Loic 5y ago"flavorless" is exactly what the industry wants. This allows easy control of the taste during processing. This is why the chicken "wings" you buy in your well-knownfast food restaurant taste the same everywhere and every single day of the year.
- hackernewds 5y agoThat seems backwards and hard to believe. They could use the same chickens and would need less sauce frying and spice
- Loic 5y agoThis is backwards for a cook who tries to enhance the intrinsic taste, texture of some good ingredients. But the industry wants a constant taste, texture on a massive scale. The only solution is to produce on one side the needed spices (easy to control the taste) an apply it on a relative tasteless substrate. It means that you do not need to adapt the recipe during production. Source: wife worked a couple of years for Unilever, some of my customers are in the flagrance, food additives industry.
- Consultant32452 5y agoIt's important that the chicken breast sandwich from McDonald's has exactly the same taste and texture whether you get it from San Francisco or Toronto. Might not be important to you, but it's important to McDonald's.
- SpicyLemonZest 5y agoThe implicit context of this thread (like with a lot of Internet nutrition discussion) is that rising obesity rates over the past half century or so indicate something has gone wrong with our diets. The author is suggesting that this could be one piece of the puzzle.
- jrapdx3 5y agoThere is a lot wrong with diets in developed countries, but it's not chicken, or at least chicken is way down the list of offenders. AIUI the biggest dietary culprit is the insidious infiltration of sugars into the foods that many people eat. Much of the prepared, convenience foods people rely on contain sugars that even dedicated label-readers may not be able to readily identify. A whole laundry list of cane sugar, sucrose, high-fructose syrup, rice syrup, honey, invert syrup, molasses, panela, muscovado, etc. Unless they're sneaking sugars into chicken, sure doesn't seem that it would be the main problem.
- refurb 5y agoIt is a bad thing. We should go back to where only the middle class can afford quality protein like chicken. Let the poor eat beans I always say!
- hackernewds 5y agoone could also eat less and receive the same nutritional benefits. today's giant chickens do not seem to be nutritionally dense, flavorful and the unnatural steroids and estrogen levels are certainly worse consumed, than not
- refurb 5y agoToday's chickens have more muscle mass. They are bred for this trait. Are you arguing this larger muscle isn't made of protein? What is it made out of then? Are you arguing these chickens somehow survive without the nutrients that others chickens need to live? How is that possible? Those are some pretty tall claims you need to back up.
- blindmute 5y agoAre you implying that malnutrition or a nutrient deficiency results in immediate death? Death quicker than the 50 days it takes to butcher the chicken?
- refurb 5y agoAre you implying farmers raise these fast-growing, extra-large birds through "malnutrition and nutrient deficiency"?
- blindmute 5y agoYes, I am. Because I am active in the weightlifting community, I'm aware that muscle size has absolutely no correlation with nutrition or micronutrients beyond protein intake. This is extremely obvious if you ever took steroids, because you can become huge eating McDonald's and instant noodle, but even without them the same effect is observed.
- throwuxiytayq 5y agoThere are quality issues with these chickens: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3277097/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3277097/ Probably doesn't make a huge difference for your health, but it's not a very nice culinary experience to find a dead/diseased muscle in the chicken you're eating. Consume enough KFC and it will happen. It looks green, by the way.
- abc03 5y agoI buy chicken at a farmer‘s market from a farmer which has different breeds and few chickens. This reduces the amount of medicine used. The chicken is so slim that my wife first complained. Of course I pay 3 times the regular price but although I donˋt earn a FAANG salary I can afford it. Just eat less! I also recommend to visit once a chicken farm and wonder why there are dead chickens. Alternatively watch some YouTube videos.
- aww_dang 5y agoThe chickens you describe are the only ones I find acceptable for soups and stocks. Mass produced broilers just don't have enough flavor for these uses.
- riffraff 5y agois there a culture of "old hen soup" where you live? In Italy there's a folk saying, "gallina vecchia fa buon brodo" ("and old hen makes for good soup", meaning there's value in old people/stuff), and in Hungary it's relatively easy to buy a literal old hen at farmers' markets, which makes for much better soup than meat-oriented chicken.
- aww_dang 5y agoThey generally prefer the older rooster, non-broiler, heirloom varieties for soup here. You can easily find these in any village, but if you buy them downtown you'll pay about 3x. If you like the countryside it is worth the trip. You can buy other produce while you're there. Old laying hens are usually cheaper. Not as desirable.
- steve_adams_86 5y agoWhen I was a kid we raised chickens for a long time and they were pretty small. I remember getting a new variety that were huge in comparison (they finished around 8lb sometimes!) and they ended up looking great but being incredibly disappointing to eat. They tasted a lot like store-bought chicken. Big chickens are definitely less interesting on the plate in my experience. As I recall my dad picked them because the feed to meat ratio was crazy. The chickens ended up like 2-3lb heavier on average (maybe 1/3 increase) but finished way faster and ate about the same amount. It was a no-brainer for cutting costs, and we were really poor. Popular commercial duck breeds are similar. They're easier to turn into things you like eating I suppose, like smoked breast or confit, but flavours and textures are far less enticing and lack character. If you have the opportunity to raise your own, seek out older and more interesting breeds – there's a whole other world to explore that you'll never see in a grocery store.
- BiteCode_dev 5y agoI'm betting they are probably less nutritious too.
- chmod600 5y agoI've suspected for a long time that we are missing major stuff from out diet due to changes in both the plants and animals we eat. I look at fruit in the grocery store and it just looks unnatural to me.
- inter_netuser 5y agoWell, we are at the point where farmers have to add nutrients to soil.
- derbOac 5y agoStudies have found decreases over time, from the mid 20th century, to now, in vitamins and minerals in fruits and vegetables. It's due to changes in varieties, soil depletion, and increased atmospheric CO2. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/vanishing-nutrients/ https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/vanishing-... https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/09/13/food-nutrients-carbon-dioxide-000511/ https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/09/13/food-nutrie... There is some evidence sugar content has increased, from varietal changes, but that's about it.
- Wistar 5y agoA couple years ago a video went viral showing a monster 16.5lb Brahma chicken from Kosovo: https://youtu.be/JWSrXUQNCtg https://youtu.be/JWSrXUQNCtg
- damiante 5y agoI didn't even know chickens lived for 50 years, much less how big this one got over that time! :^)
- nwah1 5y agoAlso chicken meat generally has high estrogen levels in the US, which might promote cancer. https://ascopubs.org/doi/abs/10.1200/jco.2010.28.15_suppl.1553 https://ascopubs.org/doi/abs/10.1200/jco.2010.28.15_suppl.15...
- hackernewds 5y agoChicken meat in the West also tastes a lot more blander than Asian "boiler" chicken. Try McDonald's nuggets in Brazil or the Middle east or India. Doesn't need as much frying or saucing - much of which is needed for having any decent flavor and leads to obesity
- toast0 5y agoMcDonald's in the US only uses white meat for chicken nuggets, which is part of why they're not as tasty anymore. I don't know if that's gone global yet, but when I was in India ten years ago, it certainly wasn't and I had some really tasty McNuggets.
- eimrine 5y agoWhat was the 364% grows caused by? Is this due to selection (like a modern corn we have) or antibiotics being fed to the livestock? (of course, the answer is both but maybe I am missing something). And a question to a no-tasty-chicken-in-markets adepts, have you (or your farmer/supplier) ever tried to take a modern-genetics chicken and feed them with no antibiotics or other grow-stimulators - what is the taste?
- ComradePhil 5y agoAntibiotics doesn't lead to growth, it prevents infection and diseases.
- juki 5y agoThey are/have been also used to promote growth. That's banned in the EU at least, but I think American producers still do it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antibiotic_use_in_livestock#Growth_stimulation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antibiotic_use_in_livestock#Gr...
- WithinReason 5y agoHmm, probably because the chicken's gut flora doesn't consume the calories.
- eimrine 5y agoMost of farmers buying big loads of antibiotics are not doctors/veterinars. Maybe they are just too hacker-minded if they use to convert meds to extra gains from meat. And from my experience chicken are not that vulnerable to diseases, like rabbits for example.
- nsteel 5y agoThis is also part of Morgan Spurlock's Super Size Me 2. Which I didn't realise existed until last week. I found it and an enjoyable/uncomfortable watch although The Guardian were less keen. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Size_Me_2:_Holy_Chicken https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Size_Me_2:_Holy_Chicke...! https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/sep/09/super-size-me-2-holy-chicken-review-toronto-film-festival-tiff https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/sep/09/super-size-me-2... Edit: I've just discovered I probably didn't know about it because the distributor (youtube) pulled it just before release following Spurlock's #MeToo confession.
- hackernewds 5y agoThe Spurlock demise is a rather strange down spiral. He imploded his own company voluntarily based on conjecture https://www.indiewire.com/2019/09/morgan-spurlock-metoo-confession-company-1202174379/ https://www.indiewire.com/2019/09/morgan-spurlock-metoo-conf...
- deltille 5y agoIt always feels weird when I pull a chicken breast out for dinner and it is bigger than my own breast muscle; I grew up with chickens and long intuited something was up but didn't know the numbers were that striking. Parallels to what has happened over the past several decades in the vegetable crop; nutrition, flavor and quality vs. sheer quantity.
- GrumpyNl 5y agoChicken breast are injected with lots and lots of water.
- dirtyid 5y agoOn flavour, I've had my share of OG scrawny chickens raised in rural backyards in developing countries that I assume aren't Scientifically Manufactured Frankenbirds and TBH I prefer the latter in terms of dark meat. I don't care much for white meat eitherway.
- elvis10ten 5y ago> “ Chicken should be so good in itself that it is an absolute delight to eat as a perfectly plain, butter roast, saute or grill.” I said something like this to my ”modern” friends, they laughed at me for having low standard. It was something my dad used to say: “It takes effort to make chicken tastes bad.” We raised chicken via the natural long process. I miss that taste so much and it’s hard to explain to people. Now, I will just point them to this tweet.
- killingtime74 5y agoWe have slow grown chicken (as one of many chicken options) here in Australia, not sure if it matches the taste from your experiences
- belorn 5y agoIn small scale you are 100% right. Leave them to their natural behavior and they are perfectly able to eat the right amount of grass, insects and small rodents that their egg and meat will taste great (some support grains is needed). Force them to eat only the cheapest animal feed and pick breeds that wouldn't survive in the wild, and the resulting egg and meat will have a distinct worse taste. For small scale, chickens really are one of the most useful and easiest going animals one can have, and it is one of the things I miss living in a city.
- elvis10ten 5y agoYou are right, forgot to add that. We only did this at a small scale (I.e: mostly for our own consumption).
- thunderbong 5y agoBetter readability https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1515324097223225345.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1515324097223225345.html
- rosndo 5y ago> Modern chicken is notorious for being "dry, "bland," and "flavorless." Contrast this to the 1960s, where chicken was considered a delicacy. "Chicken should be so good in itself that it is an absolute delight to eat as a perfectly plain, butter roast, saute or grill." Food today is so much better than in the 60s. You’d have hard time convincing anyone today that heritage chickens are a delicacy. They’re much better than mass produced supermarket chicken, but still fairly bland and flavorless. I pretty much only buy poulets de Bresse. Far nicer than regular supermarket chicken? Sure. Still boring without extensive preparation? yep.
- rayiner 5y agoI remember vividly that when we moved here from Bangladesh in 1989, I couldn’t eat the chicken for months. Going from eating non-optimized chickens bought live at the market and slaughtered right before cooking to eating store bought Purdue chicken was a massive downgrade.
- RappingBoomer 5y agothe rallying cry used to be "a chicken in every pot!"....now it will be "a gigantic chicken in every pot!"
- merry_flame 5y agoIt's an animal welfare nightmare. Many of these animals are growing too fast to support their own body weight and can barely move by the time they're sent to their deaths.
- bryanlarsen 5y agoThe chickens we raised 40 years ago were usually a good 12-15 pounds, bigger than anything you buy in a store. And much more flavorful. But that's because it took us 5 months to raise them rather than the 40 days that a modern bird takes.
- lizardactivist 5y agoWhat do they do with other animals used for food production? Is this only done with chicken? I'm not sure I would dare eat meats produced in the U.S.
- sam_goody 5y agoHow much has the egg changed? And how were the chicken and egg 1000 years ago?
- kr0dak 5y ago> The chicken you are eating has increased 364% in size over the last 50 years 1) I'm not eating anything, let alone a chicken. 2) There aren't any 50 year old chickens. 3) My size has increased way more than 364% over the last 50 years.
- blindmute 5y agoIt's surprising that there doesn't seem to be supply meeting the demand for flavorful and nutritious food, or any attempt to manufacture demand. Organic food is similar, but not really the same thing, because organic generally has no discernible differences. For anyone who has been exposed to natural produce and meat, it's obvious that the grocery store varieties are inferior, yet unlike most goods, there are no companies exploiting this luxury market. Instead, you have to go to a farmer's market to get the quality goods. It's very unusual to have to go to a rural/amateur source for quality; more often, the big players in a product space have the quality and are expensive, while the amateurs are cheaper and worse. I find it really hard to believe that there is no market for things like goat milk, goat ice cream, traditional meat breeds, even a good tomato? Everyone is aware that grocery store tomatoes are horrid, but somehow no stores stock some good cultivars alongside at double the price? How can this be an efficient market?
- alexshendi 5y agoI say, if someone eats a chicken for at least 50 years, small wonder that it has increased 364% in size in the meantime.