Obviously in a profession like mine people often tell me about how healthily they eat and nearly always it will be something like ‘oh I mainly eat chicken and fish. I hardly ever eat red meat’
Ahhrrrg
Worse still they only eat chicken breast, in my opinion, the least nutritious part of the chicken (the least tastiest too, again in my opinion).
I'm going to deal with chicken today and share about fish in another post.
This chicken, particular certain cuts, being a healthy choice is really quite new (I am not saying that it’s unhealthy) and our favouring of the skinless, boneless breast came hand in hand with the whole low-fat disaster.
There was a time when chicken was seen as a special or celebration food, only eaten a couple of times a year, usually at Christmas, because it was so expensive. The reason it was expensive is that to raise chickens in a natural way or as one of my favorite farmers Joel Salatin would say, in a way that allows the chicken to express its chicken-ness, does not allow for chickens to be produced in the huge amounts demanded by the retail market – not generations ago and definitely not today.
Most chicken today is produced via the CAFO method – Concentrated, Animal Feeding Method. At its simplest it’s aim is to produce the most amount of product in the shortest amount of time with the most minimal of costs. This is all about profits, not the chickens health/welfare and certainly not yours. As a result, in the case of chickens, they are kept in awful conditions, in sheds, wing to wing, among their own waste and fed a grain mix that is designed to speed up their growth and fatten them up for the retail market.
A chicken is a forager, it needs to peck, it needs sunshine and dirt for dirt baths which is part of its natural grooming and hygiene process. A chicken requires a varied diet, yes of some grain, ideally a good quality, organic, balanced, GMO free mix and lots of insects and a variety of foliage or as Joel Salatin says, a salad bar.
Interestingly, original breeds of chicken were grain free as obviously grain mix doesn’t occur freely in nature however these were not chickens that were of a size or quality that most of us would accept for eating today. To me, this is more evidence as to why eating chicken frequently is a modern and unsustainable practice. FYI - There are a couple of heritage breeds available today that can be raised grain free however raising them is quite labour intensive for obvious reasons…
Something else worth considering is that most cafes/restaurants that are particular about where their produce comes from and how it is raised, rarely if ever have chicken on the menu. This is because it is just too challenging and expensive to have a regular supply of good quality, properly raised chicken. The cafe I am sitting in now as I type this is one of these establishments where chicken is only on the menu as a special when they can get quality chicken.
From a nutrient perspective, while chicken may be a source of protein it is very high in polyunsaturated fats which we have now come to realize are not as healthy as once thought and severely over represented in our diets today to the detriment of our health. Any other perceived nutritional benefits from eating chicken, to my mind, would be nullified and in fact detrimental if eating conventionally raised chickens.
In addition, as with eating red meat, it is healthier to eat the meat with the fat/skin and cooked on the bone to get a more complete nutrient profile. As is usually the case, most of our food comes the way we are meant to consume it. Isolating parts of it as we tend to do today eg skinless, boneless fish fillets instead of eating the whole fish, juicing fruit and vegetables instead of eating the fruit & veg, eating lean muscle meat steak, or skinless, boneless chicken breast is a very modern phenomenon and possibly a contributor to many of the nutrient deficiencies we see today. It would be very alien to generations before us, not to mention the amount of waste.
To my mind chicken meat, skinless, boneless chicken cuts in particular, is not a nutritious food choice. As someone, who believes that nature and the seasons supply us with the food we require, when we require it in the quantities we require it then it makes sense that the amount of chicken (properly raised) that we can eat is limited.
Am I suggesting we don’t eat chicken?
Absolutely not!
Just not in the quantities many do today and not in bits and pieces which aside from the previously mentioned issues is really not sustainable. And most importantly, when you do eat chicken or any animal food for that matter, only choose produce that has been raised in a humane and sustainable manner with the earth, animal and human health, front and centre.
By the way, this applies to raising ducks too and the story with pigs is similar, re: they being foragers, needing sun and fresh air and some quality grain, however the nutrient profile of ducks and pigs is much higher/healthier.
These are my views, from my experience, my beliefs and my research that sit well with me.
They are only provided as ‘food for thought’.
Photo credit: Tathra Place Free Range one of an increasing number of farms that do raising animals REALLY well.
CHICKEN