Does chicken taste funny to you these days?

[Sanity Claws]

I'm not a big meat eater but recently started cooking chicken again, for my cats, not me.
It smells odd to me. Is it me or has factory farming changed the taste and smell of chicken?

[Warpy]

1. People recently here from Europe tell me they can't eat US commercially raised chicken

because there is a strong chemical flavor to it. In any case, factory farming has produced chicken flesh that can be cut with the side of a fork and that is very unnatural.

So yes, factory farming has changed chicken into something unrecognizable. If you want to taste real chicken, get something from Rosie at a health foods store. Yes, they are hideously expensive, non factory poultry has always been expensive. It's why promising a chicken in every pot was an example of an extravagant campaign promise until very recently.

You can't cut a real free range chicken breast with the side of a fork. It doesn't melt in your mouth. However, it doesn't have that weird chemical flavor and it does taste the way chicken did when I was a little kid.

I don't eat it often. When I do, I insist on the real thing. The fake thing gags me.

[Denninmi]

2. I grew my own chicken and turkey last summer.

What a night and day difference between that and the stuff from the store.

I found out how to make mine taste like factory farmed, mass market store chicken -- let it sit in my fridge about 10 days and turn stale.

[Warpy]

3. Put a tablespoon or so of Lysol in the brine

and you might have that taste down pat.

[wildeyed]

6. I am seriously considering this.

I raise chickens for eggs, but so far have not been tough enough to butcher the extra roos. I am wondering. can you raise turkeys in the city? My chickens do fine in my suburban yard, but I don't know anyone who does turkeys.

[Denninmi]

9. Well, as long as its legal, you could.

However, honestly, having done both now, I say stick with the Cornish Cross type chickens. The advantage of raising those over any other meat bird is enormous. You can harvest at 3 weeks for 1-2 lb Cornish hens, at 5 weeks for broiler/fryers that dress out at 4-5 lbs, and as 8-10 lb roasters at 8 weeks. Fast, easy, and a far more efficient feed conversion ration than turkeys or other poultry.

I still have a bunch of poultry in the freezer and am kind of sick of it right now. I'll probably do another batch in the spring, but will stick exclusively with the Cornish cross chickens, and will also order straight run cockerels even though they cost slightly more, because they grow bigger and faster than the hens.

[hedgehog]

18. Be aware that after a certain age - you can't eat those chickens.

We took out a rooster once after he stated going after me and the kids. After several hours in the pressure cooker, you still couldn't get a fork into him! That was one tough bird!

[Melissa G]

4. I ate chicken a few years back from St Martin's/ St Maarteens

while I was on vacation. It tasted like chicken from my childhood. Nothing commercial in The US tastes like that anymore.

http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcS8kuEiOQukzrBaodLadnkVeBlkNZ3xlBH8v1j8oMpwMjvpZ4Vg

[csziggy]

5. Aside from the crap factory raised poultry is fed

Many companies now brine or inject the meat with various concoctions. One article I read claimed some chicken has beef juices injected into it.

[GoCubsGo]

7. There's also the stress hormones...

Factory-farmed chickens are raised in horrendous conditions, where they can't even spread their wings, let alone walk around. And, the trip to the slaughterhouse isn't any better. The poor birds are likely oozing in stress hormones, and you know that's not going to make the flesh taste very good. I won't touch the stuff. Once in a while, I will splurge and get some free-range chicken, if it's on sale. It tastes like chicken. Quite frankly, I would rather have the fake chicken by Gardein, Morningstar Farms, Boca, Quorn...

[csziggy]

8. Yeah - while I have been buying cheap supermarket meat

I think it's time to move to responsibly raised meats. We've cut back on eating meat enough that it will not be a gigantic hit to the budget to do so. And I might be able to make deals directly with local farmers that raise their own. I know there is a grass fed cattle guy in the next county that was advertising meat for sale. The little National Heritage site country store down the road raises their own hogs for their famous smoked sausage and often has pork cheaper than the supermarkets. And there was a poultry farmer with free range chickens that was selling eggs and occasionally chicken meat.

The alternative is to raise my own beef - if I could physically do it. But I have the acreage and maybe could make a deal with someone to do the work in exchange for some of the meat.

The most difficult would be the chickens - there are foxes and coyote in the neighborhood so we couldn't let them be truly free range but could build them a moveable pen. I actually have some stock panels that would make an excellent pen, so it would just need a house and nests to make a really good habitat!

[Denninmi]

10. To help improve the flavor of factory farmed, mass production meat.

Soak it out in a solution of salt water with a little cider vinegar and lemon juice added to it -- about 1/2 cup of vinegar and 1/4 cup lemon juice per gallon of water with 2 T of salt added. Let it soak in this for about 2 hours. Add some ice cubes to keep it cold, or do it in the fridge.

Then, rinse well, and soak out again for about 20 minutes in plain, pure cold water.

Finally, before cooking, you can marinade in some buttermilk for a couple of hours, with your choice of seasonings if necessary.

This treatment helps. Doesn't take away ALL of the off flavors and odors, but it does help. You can poke holes or cut slits into thicker cuts to allow the solutions to penetrate deep into the meat.

[Sanity Claws]

11. Thanks for the feedback.

My cats won't even eat it. I'll never buy chicken again.
The cats will eat turkey and cornish hen without a problem.

As for me, I'm actually thinking of going vegetarian or at least near vegetarian. Meat has become disgusting.

[Major Nikon]

12. The biggest differences in taste are going to come from the feed used and the age of the chicken

You used to be able to get stewing hens years ago which were older and tougher, but they also had a lot more flavor.

[HopeHoops]

13. Why don't cannibals eat clowns?

They taste funny.


I know, old joke.

[Major Nikon]

16. ...

[enough]

14. Last year I rather sceptically bought a couple of organically grown free-range chickens

from a local farm that is specializing. The difference in these chickens from what I had been buying in the grocery store was astounding. It doesn't even seem like the same food. I have come to think of them as almost magic, so delicious and somehow restorative they seem. My 97 year old father-in-law had some chicken soup I made and called it "life-giving."

I am now a convert.

[htuttle]

15. America: Where chicken doesn't "taste like chicken".

I noticed this years ago when I started doing all of my meat shopping at a local food cooperative, and could only buy fancy free-range frou-frou chicken at $14 a piece.

I was so amazed at the taste, and so suddenly nostalgic about how chicken used to taste, that they are the only chickens that I buy anymore. I just don't buy quite as many.

I don't know what they heck they did to factory chickens here in the US, but they remind me of the Man-Made chicken in Eraserhead, now...I won't eat them. I'd rather do without.

[hedgehog]

19. I stick with the organic, free range - it's worth

the extra cost. I prefer the grass fed beef, also, although some think it tastes gamey.