When Chicken Isn’t Chicken- A Carnivore’s Case For Activism

‘All that glitters is not gold’-

Walking into an American supermarket sixteen years ago when I first came to live in New York, I was initially surprised not only by the huge variety of foods that I had never seen before- but also how different the foods were. The fruit and vegetables in the produce section were perfectly shaped, without any blemishes whatsoever and looked as if they had been recently plucked from an impressionist painting. It was nothing like the produce that I had seen growing up and I remember distinctly realizing that there was something missing that I could not quite put my finger on an then it struck me that standing in the middle of all these fruits and vegetables there was no trace of the familiar produce smells of the open air markets back home. None of the perfect fruits or vegetables had a smell but what really stood out was the poultry section. All the chickens in the poultry section had a strangely yellowish color to them in addition to being bigger than any chicken I had ever seen back home in the West Indies. I knew what it was to harvest and prepare a chicken from scratch and one thing that I knew for sure was that chicken skin is white, not yellow.

In spite of the differences I admit that I found myself entranced by it all. The sheer size of the birds and the relatively low cost was very much appealing to my carnivorous nature. As a bodybuilder, animal protein was a staple and the high cost of food back home often made it difficult to get the amount of protein I needed, but here everything seemed almost too good to be true. The chicken breasts I was used to eating fit perfectly inside the palm of my hand, while these were even bigger than of my hand! I remember being ecstatic at the checkout counter, my cart overflowing with chicken breasts and thinking to myself how lucky I was to be in a country where the food was so much better than what we had back in the islands.

About two months later, something was wrong. I had gained at least 10 lbs or so with the increase in my caloric intake and the extra animal protein- but I didn’t feel too good. I couldn’t identify what it was, but I felt as though eating was becoming a bit of a task, whereas before I was always ravenous. Something had changed and I didn’t know what it was. Two months later I began to panic. Chicken had been the staple of my diet for years, a protein source that I almost could not get enough of; there were times when I would eat a whole chicken in one sitting and still have room for more. I used to truly enjoy eating chicken- and it was one of the things that I enjoyed most about being a bodybuilder but now the very thought of it made my stomach clench and filled me with a certain malaise.

I think I did panic somewhat. Perhaps something inside of me had fundamentally changed and now I was on a path towards a more vegetarian existence? What else could explain the repulsion I felt from eating chicken and the dread that now hung over my meals? I didn’t want to be vegetarian and I knew that it would make the achievement of my bodybuilding aspirations much harder- besides, I had no problem eating other meats- it was only chicken that seemed to be an issue for me. I reflected for a while on what I was eating. The chicken that I was eating here not only didn’t  look like what I grew up eating but really didn’t taste the same either.

The texture was different- this chicken was unbelievable juicy and tender, not at all like the tougher meat that I spent years gnawing on- but as tender as it was, it just didn’t seem to taste as good. Here in America, no one ate the bones and with good reason- they were completely inedible, brittle and tasteless and were nothing like the ones I remembered enjoying over the years. I had discarded what I thought was a West Indian habit and soldiered on, often being sick to my stomach, but determined to get my protein requirements in. Chicken was also so inexpensive that at the time I could not see myself replacing it with anything else.

Chicken Isn’t The Problem- The Way They Process Chicken Is The Problem

Fate intervened as I was in the midst of my crisis when a local supermarket opened in my neighborhood and started carrying what they referred to as ‘fowl’. Fowl is essentially naturally raised chicken, the type that many of us in the West Indies grew seeing roaming free in backyards across the country. There was a large Caribbean population where I lived and so the supermarkets decided that the demand was high enough to start selling it. I bought some not thinking much of it only because (at the time) it was cheaper than the American brands and my first meal was a complete re-awakening! Not as big or as tender as its counterparts, fowl was almost a different species and you had to know just how to cook it! It was not yellow, and it tasted like what I fondly remembered chicken was supposed to taste like.

I started making this my source of chicken, (this was long before so-called organic and free range chicken became popular enough to appear on regular supermarket shelves) and I no longer felt bouts of nausea when thinking about an upcoming chicken meal. I even found myself eating bones again, as these bones were hard and tough, but so filled with flavor that they seemed to ask to be eaten. I realized that I had made a huge mistake in assuming that the chicken in the supermarkets here were better than what I had been accustomed to and it began my reflection on the American food industry that made me the writer that I am today.

I learned that the visually appealing chickens spent a short lifetime in a cramped boxes and were often unable to stand – (thus the brittle bones). I learned of the dark and windowless environments in which they were raised, the questionable feeds they were fed and the drugs they were injected with to enhance their growth and prevent disease as thousands of chickens meant for human consumption lived surrounded by squalor. I didn’t understand it when someone said they were vegetarian because they found the taste of chicken to be repulsive, but faced with these almost artificial life forms as a food source, who wouldn’t be?

As a hunter and conservationist, I feel a strong sense of gratitude for every animal that makes the ultimate sacrifice to sustain me. Thomas Merton once said that to be grateful is to love and that there is no middle ground between gratitude and ingratitude. To be indifferent is to hate and it is the indifference cultivated by the desire to have quick, cheap and convenient food sources that has caused this disconnect between the consumer and the animals they eat. Most are aware of the atrocities committed in the name of putting food on the table but most are also able to put such thoughts aside as it is in many ways inconvenient.

The Case For Either Not Eating It- Or Spending More On Free Range Chicken

Putting aside the idea that we are responsible for our planet and the animals that populate it and thinking only on a self serving level- eating animals that are subject to such cruelties can only lead to a negative impact on your health. An industry that cares little about the sentient beings it slaughters in cruel and inhumane ways will be far less inclined to consider the welfare of the human consumer. It is hard to spend the extra money on chicken that had the benefit of a real life, and that was harvested in a humane and respectful way, but not only is it the only choice you really have if you choose to eat chicken, it is worth it. Not only from an ethical perspective, but also in terms of your overall health- you don’t need antibiotics and hormones in your food, nor should you eat animals that eat feed that is inherently foreign to their natural diet. We all know the negative consequences that come when humans eat processed foods that are not part of our evolutionary heritage, so it be a good idea to feed such things to our food sources? The money you spend is the ballot you cast towards the world that you would like to live in and by buying only organic and truly free range chicken, what you spend goes a long way to support the people that care about respectful farming and not those that care only about turning a profit. Activism isn’t always about marching in the streets, but the everyday choices you make with your money.

Many ask how can you eat healthy and ethically when almost all the animal protein sources on the market seem to be mass produced by big corporations in ways harmful to both the animal, to us and to the environment. It is an empty question. To quote Robert Fritz, “” Don’t compromise.

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November 3, 2010 • Tags: When, When Chicken • Posted in: Diet News

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