The Truth about Chicken
This month’s issue of Gourmet magazine has a quite surprising, sensationalistic article by Daniel Zwerdling on American mass-production of chickens. I say surprising because morals and ethics have never been Gourmet’s beat, and I say sensationalistic because it is, with harrowing descriptions of chickens crippled by their unnaturally rapid growth and the brutal journey to the slaughterhouse, in which an estimated ten percent (or 900 million chickens) are maimed. There are two things I want to mention in connection with this article. The first is a text box of staggering figures that I have reproduced below, since I can’t find it online and I think the numbers are worth mulling over.
Number of broiler chickens produced in this country in 2005: 9 billion
Number of weeks it took for a broiler to reach market weight (around six pounds) in the 1950s: 17
Number of weeks it took for a broiler to reach that same market weight in 2006: 6
Estimated number of pounds of chicken consumed per American in 1975: 39
Estimated number of pounds of chicken consumed per American in 2006: 88
Approximate number of chickens processed per hour in the nation’s largest slaughterhouses: 25,000
The second is about Gourmet covering a topic this important—and flammable. When Gourmet was first published in January 1941, it may have been an odd time to welcome a magazine devoted to leisure pursuits—a potential paper shortage was already looming in a country gearing up for war. But even early issues of the magazine show it acting as an explicit codifier of a gourmet sensibility taking shape within the American middle class, showing Americans what it meant to be part of an affluent society after fifteen years of depression. Even today, Gourmet positions itself at the privileged top position in the triangulated discourse between consumers, the food industry, and the magazine—the mediating expert and an intuitive link to both. They’re authoritative. They’re standard setters. And the fact that they’re now at least occasionally holding forth on subjects like animal rights and factory farms and sustainability means that the activists have come a long, long way. Imagine! If Gourmet’s covering it, it’s mainstream. Which is exactly where discussion of subjects like these ought to be.
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Comments
It's deinitely a good sign that Gourmet is covering chicken factory farming. The conditions these animals are kept in are truly horrific. One issue not mentioned in the post (thought maybe it was in the Gourmet article) is avian influenza (bird flu) which is made more virulent by factory farming conditions. A great book to check out is Bird Flu: A Virus of Our Own Hatching which discusses the link between the rise in poultry factory farming and the increased number of bird flu outbreaks around the world.
It's really astonishing how much more chicken and other meat items we eat now as compared to several decades ago. I think the lesson is that we should strive to reduce the animal products in our diets. Vegetarianism is a great diet, but if you not ready for that, cutting back on animal products most days of the week is a good step.
Posted by:Andrea |June 12, 2007 11:24 AM
I absolutely agree with the applause given to Gourmet for printing this piece, but I beg to differ that if Gourmet is printing it, it's mainstream. It's a good sign, yes, but for at least the past four years, Ruth Reichl's work to instill a responsible journalism component in Gourmet (dare I say even a moral and ethical one) has produced some incredibly well-researched pieces, the likes of which I have not seen in any other epicurean publication on the market save for the former incarnation of Eating Well or maybe Vegetarian Times. During the past several years, Gourmet ran a piece on the drawn-out conspiracy by the government to suppress research about the dangers of trans-fats; the detriments of shrimp farming; the controversies surrounding Wal-Mart's foray into food retail, GMOs, farmed salmon, and on and on.
Furthermore, there are scads of epicurean publications on the newsstands, most of which are so bogged down in 5-minute meals, Food Network chef worship and the latest PR-funded culinary binge that they couldn't care less if you picked up boneless, skinless, shrink-wrapped Tyson for one of their recipes.
This primarily just to say, Gourmet is a damn good publication, and not just for the food porn and stellar recipes. No, I'm not on staff, sorry to say. Just don't be so surprised to see something "ethical" in its pages.
Posted by:Emily |June 19, 2007 4:55 PM