What is up with the CHICKEN?

Have you noticed a change in the consistency of the chicken you buy at the grocery store, meat markets or with the chicken served at restaurants?  Over the past year my family has noticed that the consistency of the chicken has changed.  It is harder to chew and has a very different consistency; a consistency that is difficult to explain.  I almost want to say that it is a little like gristle or as Sarah, one of my childcare providers, stated that chicken is “difficult to cut and is almost stringy”.  The change in the consistency of chicken made my husband and I ask a few questions.  It also confirmed that we should spend a little more money to buy a better quality of chicken.

What is up with the chicken bought today?  When you buy skinless, boneless chicken breasts, do you ever think about how big they are and the size of the chicken that they must have come from?   According to Phillip Clauer, a senior instruct at Penn State Extension, “an average broiler (chicken) . . . reaches 5 pounds (live weight) in 5 weeks.  At the desired weight, a company catching crew will catch and load the birds onto trucks to be transported to the processing plant”. (1)  Did you catch that?  The chicken on the store shelves are only about 5 weeks old.  What is in that chicken feed to make that chicken grow that big and that fast? 

Most of the feed used is “medicated but organic and pastured small farms will often use unmedicated feed”.  Meat birds are fed “high-protein feeds and is sometimes called "grower-finisher" instead”. (2)  The poultry grower finisher (chicken feed) sold at Tractor Supply consists of the following ingredients. It has a “high energy content and quality protein.  The ingredient are crude protein, lysine, methionine, crude fat, crude fiber, calcium, phosphorus, salt, and selenium”.  Is it just the food that makes a chicken grow to 5 pounds in 5 weeks or is it something in addition to the feed?

The Gerber chicken that we buy from a local Amish Meat Market is smaller in size and is tender.  It is much different in consistency from what is bought in the grocery stores, other meat markets or sold at restaurants.  On the package of Gerber chicken on the bottom left it states

All Natural Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts with Rib Meat

Minimally processed.  No artificial ingredients.  Less than 5% retained water.

Federal regulations prohibit the use of hormones in chicken.

 On the top left of the Gerber chicken package is states

100% Vegetarian Diet

NO Antibiotics EVER

No By-Products

No Hormones

Nothing Added

I would have to conclude that what the chicken is fed and given has something to do with the consistency of the chicken?  Otherwise the Gerber Poultry Company would not have to label the chicken this way, right?  The chicken we eat from Gerber has a vegetarian diet.  Other chicken is fed crude protein, lysine, methionine, crude fat, and crude fiber.  Lysine and methionine are amino acids which are building blocks for proteins.  Therefore the chicken is being fed a lot of protein, fat and fiber which is not a vegetarian diet.

The packaging for the Gerber Chicken lists “NO Antibiotics EVER”.  Earlier in this post I mentioned that most chicken is being fed medicated feed which includes antibiotics.    It also lists no hormones or by-products.  So the 5 to 7 week old chickens that are mass produced and sold at grocery stores and most meat markets must be made up of

High protein, fat and fiber diet including by-products

Medications including antibiotics

And possibly hormones (even though the label states that the federal

regulations prohibit the use of hormones)

Is the concern only with the consistency of the chicken?  I actually believe it is a little more than this.  Protein in our diet builds healthy muscle.  If we have protein from a poor source, what kind of muscle can it build in you?  In your children?  Could this be producing some of the sickness and disease that we have in America?  Have you heard the saying, “you are what you eat”?  I think that what we feed our bodies has the ability to produce sickness or health. 

Dr. Pam Tomaszycki, D.C.

Bibliography

1.  Clauer, P. (2016). Modern Meat Chicken Industry (Poultry). Retrieved July 13, 2016, from http://extension.psu.edu/animals/poultry/topics/general-educational-material/the-chicken/modern-meat-chicken-industry

2.  Arcuri, L. (n.d.). Types of Commercial Chicken or Poultry Feed. Retrieved July 13, 2016, from http://smallfarm.about.com/od/chickens/a/Types-Of-Commercial-Chicken-And-Poultry-Feed.htm