Jun 18 2009
Funky Chicken
Finger foods are one of today’s most prominent features, allowing us the luxury of eating on the run. Add to that a disposable container, and we’ve eliminated dishwashing, too. Convenience has become a top priority, outweighing quality, consumption, and even health, and leaving us to wonder what happened to our classic, balanced, home-cooked meals. Instead, most of our beef-and-potatoes plates have been replaced with breaded, deep-fried meats, and made their way into many of our everyday lives. But when did this chicken-nugget fest begin? And what makes it so easy to continue?
Chicken nuggets have been around for over sixty years, making their first appearance at Cornell University after their creation by food science professor, Robert C. Baker (Friedlander 2006). Though Baker is credited with the “invention,” it is clear that these golden-fried chicken chunks have ancestral ties to the French croquette—which often contains vegetables in addition to meat, but whose contents vary by country (for example, Mexico’s version is comprised mainly of chicken or tuna fish). Then, without further ado, McDonald’s seized the savory morsel in 1983, adding its own unique recipe, and made it a worldwide phenomenon (Milne 2001). But it isn’t just the breading or the soft, pale flesh that makes this mini meal so popular; chicken, alone, has practically become its own food group.
Since the 1960s, poultry farms have decreased by almost 50 percent but, surprisingly, the output of chickens quintupled in the year 2000, paralleling the early nineties proof that chicken, for the first time, would outsell beef (Gale 2002). A number of possibilities exist to explain the new surge in meat preference, ranging anywhere from price and cost of manufacturing to perception of nutrition. Within the last six years, American beef prices have averaged nearly $4.00 per pound, while chicken has averaged $1.65 per pound, according to the USDA Economic Research Service—though cuts are not specified. With fast food industries (and certain frozen food companies) looking to keep prices as low as possible, it’s no wonder we never see “beef nuggets” on billboards while we’re driving down the freeway. Likewise, with today’s enhanced body image awareness, companies are undoubtedly going to promote foods that are publicly accepted as “healthy,” which may also have given rise to the recent poultry prevalence. Level of health, however, depends on how each cut is prepared, and where it comes from. The Utah Beef Council put together an outline comparing three-ounce servings of chicken and beef. Chicken breast, if skinless, contains 3 grams of fat, while thigh meat (even without skin) contains 9.2 grams of fat. In comparison to lean beef (top sirloin, for example), which contains 4.1 grams of fat, some cuts of chicken are actually less healthy. Even next to T-bone steak (which contains 8.2 grams of fat), dark chicken can still be worse.
So how does chicken continue to be first choice? Luckily, restaurants like McDonalds have switched to all white-meat chicken in their McNuggets (Gale 2004) but that still doesn’t solve problems presented by the oil-encrusted coating and various accusations against the way meat goes through the factories. Three ounces of breaded breast meat contains more than five times the fat of its skinless competition (USDA Nutrient Database), and that’s just the beginning of the alleged ruthlessness of these products. Tyson Foods manufactures chicken in what is called a broiler room, preceded by barely-hatched chicks inhabiting overcrowded coops that are said to be poorly monitored for sanitation. In addition, chickens are fed with chemically enhanced food in order to stimulate muscle growth (which creates larger breasts to sell) and weight-gain to make them plump. And if that isn’t verging on questionable, factory tourists have stated that some chickens are so heavy they can’t even walk, preventing them from reaching food, and therefore causing them to die—contaminating the rest of the coop if they aren’t removed promptly. (Kneidel 2005)
Naturally, there will be controversies about everything, especially when animals and health are involved, but overall, it seems that public perceptions have maintained a positive view of chicken, no matter what the wrapper says. Couple that with an easy-to-heat method, and people feel they’ve found a solution to both convenience and eating healthy. With our busy lifestyles, not only do we not have time to cook, we apparently don’t have time to stop and think about what we’re eating. And how are we to ever find a moment to research all the details involved?
References
Friedlander, Blaine P. “Robert C. Baker, creator of chicken nuggets and Cornell chicken barbecue sauce, dies at 84.” Chronicle Online [Ithaca, NY] 16 Mar. 2006. 21 Feb. 2009.
Gale, Thomson. “Broiler, Fryer, and Roaster Chickens.” Encyclopedia of American Industries. Detroit: Grey House Publishing, 2002.
Gale, Thomson. “McChange is good for Chicken McNuggets: all white meat, fewer calories, less fat.” Quick Frozen Foods International 45.3 (1 Jan. 2004): 96.
Kneidel, Sally, and Sara Kate Kneidel. Veggie Revolution: Smart Choices for a Healthy Body and a Healthy Planet. Golden, CO: Fulcrum Publishing, 2005.
Milne, John. “Making Chicken McNuggets out of Chicken Little.” Northern Ontario Business 21 .7 (May 1 2001): 22. 21 Feb. 2009.
