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In fact, industrialized chicken is in many respects hard to beat. Chicken flesh is healthier for humans than beef, and it lends itself to a wide array of culinary applications. It takes only about 2 pounds of feed to generate a pound of meat—this is what’s known as its feed conversion ratio—compared with the 6 pounds of feed required for a single pound of beef. What’s more, unlike pigs and cows, chickens don’t produce significant amounts of methane. Handle chickens right and you can repurpose their waste in a bunch of creative ways, including feeding it to cows and sheep. Sounds good, right?
The problem is, Americans eat 96 pounds of chicken per person per year. At that scale, it’s hard to be environmentally responsible. Chicken requires more water and power to process than any other meat (about 4,000 gallons per ton), and once that water is used it turns into toxic sludge. Also, in the middle of that lovely ball of meat is a set of internal organs full of pathogenic bacteria.
Then there’s man’s inhumanity to poultry. Factory chickens are raised under conditions that make the box Alec Guinness enjoyed in The Bridge on the River Kwai look like a suite at the Ritz. Their beaks sometimes have to be trimmed so they don’t peck each other to death in the cramped quarters, and they’re on a constant feed of antibiotics to try to stay ahead of the diseases that spread so quickly in hot, badly ventilated chicken houses. The best news for a feed chicken is that it’s probably not going to live more than 13 weeks.
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shaun james bockert 