Chicken

The Week magazine does a bit called 'The Bottom Line'. I took this tidbit from that section of the March 27th magazine:

America's insatiable appetite for chicken has led industrial farms to breed even-bigger fowl. In 1978, the typical full-grown broiler chicken weighed 4 pounds - today, the average bird weighs just over 9 pounds. 

I went to see the full article, which is here. I took this quote which can be applied to all our food.

The bulk of the U.S. population still doesn't care where their food comes from, as long as its cheap.

Scary stuff, what we are doing to our food. Though I will confess, clearly I have been brainwashed because the 1957 animal doesn't look like a chicken to me. In my mind, a chicken is the bird with the huge chest/breast.

And I do know that we must feed our population, so there is wisdom in what our scientists are doing. I am not clever enough to know the answer, but it does seem like we might tinker too much.

I remember having a discussion with a religious friend and he said that God has made every choice we can make because S/he made us and the universe. God has given us free will, but yet any answer we come up with is within God's design. So, God gave us a brain to use and make these advances. My friend wasn't talking about chicken, of course, just everything. But my friend also told us God told us not to eat pork with the reason being potentially two fold. One, S/he told us not to eat pork and will we obey? or Two, we haven't yet learned something about pigs which will make us seriously regret eating them. My friend wasn't suggesting disease, but more like something addressed in one of the Star Trek movies. I never saw it, but didn't an alien race come to Earth for the whales?


(I took this image from this blog. I don't know if he had the right to the image, but I trust by giving him credit I am covered.)

How did I get there in the discussion of chicken?

But, further on the discussion of chicken: I read once that the only way American farmers make money on chicken is by selling the feet to China. That chicken farmers lose money on the breasts, but make it up on the feet. The factitious conclusion was drawn that scientists should figure out a way to breed chickens with 6 feet.

Happy Tax Day!