$0.39/lb chicken: not for those with a conscience
I knew 39 cents a pound for chicken leg quarters sounded like a ridiculously low price, but I was focused on staying within our budget while still having enough to eat. I asked Dima to spend up to $8.00 on the chicken. Smooth move: he spent under $6.00 and came home with two huge packages, containing 4-5 legs each. One package went straight into the freezer.
Ordinarily, I would celebrate such a bargain. When I started skinning the legs, though, reality set in.
like a science project, only it ends up in your stomach
There were: grainy stray parts of organs; frozen blood snaking out of a few veins; an unusual amount of fat (I’m guessing from the birds’ being crowded into miniscule cages); even a few feather tips still stuck in the skin. Seeing how carelessly the chickens seemed to have been butchered, I could only assume they were treated with equal negligence in life.
This I knew about ‘conventional’ chicken before I made my grocery list. I have bought the $1.99-a-pound variety countless times before–but I didn’t really understand the impact of my choice until the 39-cent stuff made it, in scores, into my kitchen sink.
conscience vs. hunger: you can't see it in the small image, but my tongue is poking out in mild disgust
I did manage to turn the bony, pink, fatty chicken legs into neat tupperwares of tasty, cooked, relatively lean chicken pieces. They are feeding us well in terms of protein, but I can’t help factoring a dose of antibiotics – and guilt – into the nutritional value of each portion.
cleaned, looking much better
just like the chicken in tacos; on that note, restaurant chicken is probably all 39-cent chicken
It’s free-range chicken for me next time, or I risk serious injury to my green psyche.
cyndaminthia
October 18th, 2009 at 1:22 am #
Ahhh hahaha I love the pictures. This blog is great. I don’t know if I’m brave enough to try your 39 cents chicken!