3 ms·

I agree with most of what you're saying, but here in Canada, chicken breast is so not cheap.

doubled112 11mo ago
About $5 bucks per skinless boneless chicken breast where I'm at in Canada. That's $20 in just the chicken for a meal if you happen to have a family of four. I swear my growing boys have hollow legs. How do you eat more than I do?
- ta12653421 11mo ago
  Thas fucking cheap! LOL Chicken well raised and fed, is usually good starting at around 30-40 EUR / kg. I supermarkets selling 1kg of chicken for 4-5 EUR / kg - I would not touch this.
  - ta12653421 11mo ago
    The one who downvoted me obviously has a problem with high quality food. Animals held and then sold for 4-5 EUR per kg is pure shit. Period. I would rather eat groceries instead. Most people have no idea what high quality meet is because they buy their stuff always at large chains - remember: None of the sustainability-interested local farms sells to any of those supermarkt chains. You have to GO there to get your stuff. Such animals you can also eat without having remorse.
    - inferiorhuman 11mo ago
      The folks that this article is about are not the sort of folks who can afford €18/lb for protein. In the US, at least, cheap chicken can often be identified as it cooks up with a woody texture or suffers from a variety of visual defects. Out here I can't think of any farms selling chickens directly to consumers. More well regarded farms like Petaluma Poultry do, in fact, sell to the big chain grocery stores and that's closer to $5/lb for a whole "organic" chicken.
      - ta12653421 11mo ago
        well.... Im not in the US :-)
    - Libidinalecon 11mo ago
      This is total nonsense. There is the thermodynamics of calories in and out. Then there are micro nutrients. Everything beyond that is bullshit marketed to suckers.
      - ta12653421 11mo ago
        From a thermodynamic perspective this is somehow true; but not regarding taste, structure etc. of the meat product: There is a clear difference between superlarge chickenfarms and my local farmer with only a couple of hundreds? Also, depending on how the animals are fed, you have different substances in the final product, like Antibiotics. So feel free to optimize only for the "thermodynamic calorie perspective" ;-)
phil21 11mo ago
Costco has been 2.99/lb for chicken breast about as long as I can remember now here in Chicago. It’s only sometimes better priced than the local supermarket, but the quality is consistent and price stable. If I have spare time on a weekend it can be picked up far cheaper in bulk from a food services supply store. 2 weeks ago when I last walked through the cooler section it was sitting at $1.29/lb in 40lb cases. Costs maybe 10 cents per food saver vacuum bag or so to freeze them in packs of 2-4 each. A lot of folks are price takers and have forgotten how to comparison shop or buy on sale and stock up. These were skills lost over the past few generations - likely since stores thought they were competing on price far more than they actually are. Covid taught them the average consumer simply isn’t as price sensitive as the business classes teach you, and have engaged in aggressive price segmentation. I don’t bother buying most shelf stable or freezable products these days unless it’s on a very large sale - which I’ve found tends to happen roughly quarterly for most things. Beef is the current exception, but we buy a half cow from a local farm and eat off that for a year or more.
- inferiorhuman 11mo ago
  Not everyone lives near a Costco. Not everyone is a fan of the environmental cost of their cheap chickens, or whatever. When I lived in San Francisco there was a Costco but it was more inconvenient to get to via Muni than most of the alternatives. Their parking garage is an absolute zoo. If I have spare time on a weekend it can be picked up far cheaper in bulk from a food services supply store. Not everyone has the luxury of being able to store perishable items in bulk. Personally I struggle a bit to store a whole chicken in my fridge. Six and a half pounds (what you'd have to buy to get Costco's $3/lb price) is quite a lot. And if you want to cook that chicken first and then freeze it, you run a high risk of it just tasting weird. I just checked around and for boneless, skinless chicken breasts: Sprouts $7/lb. Safeway $7/lb (more if you don't want the chlorine treated stuff). Trader Joe's $7.50/lb (but they've gained a reputation for nasty, woody chicken). Whole Foods out of stock. Lucky's $8.50/lb. Mollie Stone's $8.89/lb. Berkeley Bowl $9.59/lb. US Foods Chef Store $3.75/lb for *twelve pounds*. At least out here there's a lot less variability than you're claiming, unless you're buying enough to fill your entire fridge/freezer.
- listenallyall 11mo ago

About $5 bucks per skinless boneless chicken breast where I'm at in Canada. That's $20 in just the chicken for a meal if you happen to have a family of four. I swear my growing boys have hollow legs. How do you eat more than I do?

ta12653421 11mo ago
Thas fucking cheap! LOL Chicken well raised and fed, is usually good starting at around 30-40 EUR / kg. I supermarkets selling 1kg of chicken for 4-5 EUR / kg - I would not touch this.
- ta12653421 11mo ago
  The one who downvoted me obviously has a problem with high quality food. Animals held and then sold for 4-5 EUR per kg is pure shit. Period. I would rather eat groceries instead. Most people have no idea what high quality meet is because they buy their stuff always at large chains - remember: None of the sustainability-interested local farms sells to any of those supermarkt chains. You have to GO there to get your stuff. Such animals you can also eat without having remorse.
  - inferiorhuman 11mo ago
    The folks that this article is about are not the sort of folks who can afford €18/lb for protein. In the US, at least, cheap chicken can often be identified as it cooks up with a woody texture or suffers from a variety of visual defects. Out here I can't think of any farms selling chickens directly to consumers. More well regarded farms like Petaluma Poultry do, in fact, sell to the big chain grocery stores and that's closer to $5/lb for a whole "organic" chicken.
    - ta12653421 11mo ago
      well.... Im not in the US :-)
  - Libidinalecon 11mo ago
    This is total nonsense. There is the thermodynamics of calories in and out. Then there are micro nutrients. Everything beyond that is bullshit marketed to suckers.
    - ta12653421 11mo ago
      From a thermodynamic perspective this is somehow true; but not regarding taste, structure etc. of the meat product: There is a clear difference between superlarge chickenfarms and my local farmer with only a couple of hundreds? Also, depending on how the animals are fed, you have different substances in the final product, like Antibiotics. So feel free to optimize only for the "thermodynamic calorie perspective" ;-)

phil21 11mo ago

Costco has been 2.99/lb for chicken breast about as long as I can remember now here in Chicago. It’s only sometimes better priced than the local supermarket, but the quality is consistent and price stable. If I have spare time on a weekend it can be picked up far cheaper in bulk from a food services supply store. 2 weeks ago when I last walked through the cooler section it was sitting at $1.29/lb in 40lb cases. Costs maybe 10 cents per food saver vacuum bag or so to freeze them in packs of 2-4 each. A lot of folks are price takers and have forgotten how to comparison shop or buy on sale and stock up. These were skills lost over the past few generations - likely since stores thought they were competing on price far more than they actually are. Covid taught them the average consumer simply isn’t as price sensitive as the business classes teach you, and have engaged in aggressive price segmentation. I don’t bother buying most shelf stable or freezable products these days unless it’s on a very large sale - which I’ve found tends to happen roughly quarterly for most things. Beef is the current exception, but we buy a half cow from a local farm and eat off that for a year or more.

inferiorhuman 11mo ago
Not everyone lives near a Costco. Not everyone is a fan of the environmental cost of their cheap chickens, or whatever. When I lived in San Francisco there was a Costco but it was more inconvenient to get to via Muni than most of the alternatives. Their parking garage is an absolute zoo. If I have spare time on a weekend it can be picked up far cheaper in bulk from a food services supply store. Not everyone has the luxury of being able to store perishable items in bulk. Personally I struggle a bit to store a whole chicken in my fridge. Six and a half pounds (what you'd have to buy to get Costco's $3/lb price) is quite a lot. And if you want to cook that chicken first and then freeze it, you run a high risk of it just tasting weird. I just checked around and for boneless, skinless chicken breasts: Sprouts $7/lb. Safeway $7/lb (more if you don't want the chlorine treated stuff). Trader Joe's $7.50/lb (but they've gained a reputation for nasty, woody chicken). Whole Foods out of stock. Lucky's $8.50/lb. Mollie Stone's $8.89/lb. Berkeley Bowl $9.59/lb. US Foods Chef Store $3.75/lb for *twelve pounds*. At least out here there's a lot less variability than you're claiming, unless you're buying enough to fill your entire fridge/freezer.
listenallyall 11mo ago