How's the Chicken? You'd Better Not Ask

Mint

3 days ago

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- London's in the middle of a rotisserie chicken craze. Everyone here has a list of favorites, with arguments breaking out that are almost as heated as those over the fine points of burgers and pizza. My go-to's are Norbert's, across the Thames, in East Dulwich, where a whole bird comes with multiple sauces on the side, plus maddeningly addictive frites; and the bird at The Knave of Clubs, marinated in North African-style charmoula, rich in garlic, cumin and other spices.
Unlike burgers and pizza, however, chicken — while relatively inexpensive as an ingredient — can fly both high and low in terms of cuisine. It can be served bone-in with morels and a buttery vin jaune sauce; or it can present itself as a little, breaded, irresistible, deep-fried nugget.
The prevalence of this adaptable protein source, however, should come with reminders of how our food economies function — and the costs, both pecuniary and ethical, that accrue along with our pleasures. (An excellent Odd Lots podcast from our Bloomberg News colleagues here.)
The scientific designation for the farmyard chicken is gallus gallus domesticus, which recognizes its descent from the brilliantly feathered — and often ferocious — red junglefowl gallus gallus. That bird — native to South and Southeast Asia — is so archetypal that its species and genus are identical. I propose giving the domesticus a new name: gallus gallus factitius — the third word meaning 'artificial, man-made, manufactured.'
Compared to the OG gallus, the factitious one is squat, top heavy and sedentary. It was made to be that way, the selective breeding of various strains culminating in two dominant commercial hybrids: the Ross 308 and the Cobb 500. If they sound like kitchen-top appliances, that's because they're practically factory-made widgets.
These white feathered commercial broilers populate today's 'intensive' poultry yards, comprising barns that, in the US, can house from 25,000 to 50,000 birds in a space of about 16,000 to 25,000 square feet. At maximum capacity, that's about six by six inches per bird. It doesn't pay for Big Chicken — as the major producers are called — to have inventory wandering all around, up and down the factory floor, which is where the birds live out of the entirety of their dismal existence. Designed for rapid and efficient growth, they race from hatchling to kill-weight (just about 5 lbs) in as little as five weeks. You don't want to calculate what that is in human years.(1)
After fish, chicken and poultry are our largest sources of animal protein. About 70 billion birds are slaughtered each year by a global industry that churns their meat through a market projected to be worth $375 billion in 2030. I don't care much for chicken breast, but I love the leg, thigh and wings. The neck, the back, the tail too. Picking at the bits between the ribs. The liver and gizzard. The skin fried up like crackling. Gnawing at the cartilage.
I know, I'm letting my appetite get in the way of my qualms, just like Lewis Carroll's Walrus and Carpenter, who weep for the innocent little oysters they've just slurped up for supper. It's a quandary. If, as Thomas Hobbes said, life is nasty, brutish and short, can't I try to ameliorate that fate with, say, butter chicken?
But everything is compromised, even in the relatively more principled free-range world, where most people assume chickens have the right to roam. Until mid-May, the UK had guidelines in place to keep free-range and organic birds indoors. That was because of the ongoing global outbreak of bird flu — the most contagious form of which, the H5N1 virus, is endemic to wild birds like seagulls, crows, sparrows and pigeons that can intermingle with poultry outdoors. Even without a health emergency, regulations sometimes allow farmers to confine free-range birds indoors in barns for half their lives, which — at an average of eight weeks — isn't much longer than an industrial broiler's. Organic chicken — which are allowed outdoor time and are not raised with antibiotics — get to live ten or eleven weeks.
The system is fragile — as the ongoing global struggle with H5N1 is showing. The virus — which emerged in 1996 — spreads via feathers and even dust that's been in contact with nasal drippings or the droppings of infected birds. The head of a sick chicken may swell, its comb and wattle turn blue. Paralysis may ensue. Death could come in 24 to 72 hours. Among the barnhouse-bound intensively bred broilers, a single infection can start a conflagration of contagion. Globally, more than half-a-billion farmed birds — including chickens — have been culled to prevent even greater catastrophe. At any one time — given the constant slaughter to feed humans — there are about 26 billion living chickens in the world.
Our own vulnerability to avian influenza is low, thus far. (Cooking also kills the virus.) While there have been a few fatal cases among people, they are the result of contact with infected animals, not from other humans, which would be an alarming tipping point. For now, the inchoate fear is that a viral mutation or a different pathogen might find a genetic weakness in chickens, which share a great deal of DNA across breeds, and wreak havoc on a colossal scale. A species wipe-out may be improbable, but if disease depletes a large percentage of the poultry population, it will not just be the birds who will suffer.
There is a theory that humans domesticated the red jungle fowl the same way we turned wolves into dogs. The mammals and the birds scavenged near human settlements for food scraps and rice kernels respectively — and were slowly tamed. At first humans may have kept the jungle fowl around mainly for sport — pitting the cocks against each other for games and wagers. The hens' ability to produce eggs — with or without a rooster — extended the utility of the species. Soon enough, the birds were what's for dinner — brought by traders westward to Europe and Africa. And eventually around the world
I may have romantic notions about the noble and beautiful jungle fowl, but the birds we have around today that hew closely to its ancestral genetic strain aren't particularly satisfying on a dining table; they are too sinewy and are better as stews or soup, not rich roasts for feasting.
On the other hand, the farmed descendants of that gladiatorial bird have become founts of culinary pleasure. If only we did not have to remember their nasty, brutish and short lives.
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(1) If you do, the longest-lived domestic chicken on record was more than 23 years old; otherwise expect about a dozen years.
This column reflects the personal views of the author and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
Howard Chua-Eoan is a columnist for Bloomberg Opinion covering culture and business. He previously served as Bloomberg Opinion's international editor and is a former news director at Time magazine.
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