Just Chicken

Last Sunday morning, March 8, as I was getting ready for church I heard some alarming facts about chicken. I just want to share them with you. I was listening to KFI 640 AM to the Jillian Michaels show. She does a fitness and health show Sunday mornings. No, it isn't the type of show to help get you in the mood for church, but it was something to listen to to keep my mind moving.

Jillian talked about chicken and the need to buy free range organic chicken. I haven't been a big subscriber to this type of meat because it is so costly and with 7 mouths to feed, price is VERY important. But the facts that she revealed, have prompted me to change some of my buying behaviors.

Chicken which isn't free range and isn't organically fed is fed arsenic laced feed. Something about the arsenic in the feed helps to fatten the chicken up quicker. The average person gets only 8.1 micrograms of arsenic from a serving of chicken. And chronic exposure to the arsenic in chicken is about 40 micrograms a day. But, arsenic is cummulative in it's effects. There is arsenic in our drinking water and many other aspects of our life (she didn't specify what, I think I might email her and ask her about it). But this is a direct quote.

Furthermore, because of the inhumane conditions the chickens live in, they are constantly fed a high diet of antibiotics. They ingest them and you eat it and then you ingest the antibiotics. It can create candida, yeast infections, and leaky gut syndrome. That's why so many people are talking about the benefits of probiotics. You can get probiotics in yogurt and nutritional supplements. We eat so much antibiotics in our non-organic meat foods. It's not just chicken, it's also in beef.

Next, when chickens go to the treatment plant, they are rinsed in chlorine to try to help kill some of the bacteria, which isn't always effective. Chlorine is not good for you.

After revealing all these gruesome details, she gave some helpful hints to detoxify our meals. The first thing we can do is to buy organic. You can find organic meat via the internet at Peaceful Pastures and Local Harvest. She definitely encourages everyone to go organic in every aspect of our eating. Today she was talking about raspberries. And if you eat non-organic raspberries, you are ingesting 7 different pesticides. Yikes!

Jillian also talked about a few brands that are better. She listed Tyson, Rocky Jr. Natural Chicken, Gerber Amish, and Smart Chicken. She advises to stay away from organ meats like liver and to skip eating the skin. Not only is the skin fattening, it also stores toxins.

When buying nonorganic chicken, make sure it is frozen. Freezing the chicken helps kill bacteria. She also said to be mindful of the packaging of chicken. If the packaging is leaky, drippy, or sticky skip it. It's likely contaminated and can get spread to other items in your shopping cart. Moreover, when handling raw chicken, act like you are handling contaminated meat. Cook food thoroughly and when you go out to dinner, be a food snob. Go only to Grade A restaurants.

After hearing all this grisly information, I was absolutely shocked. I don't want to feed toxic meats to my family, especially knowing that such toxins can build up over time and cause damage. I don't want my future or that of my family's cut short. My goal is to buy Tyson brand chicken frozen and buy organic free range chicken when it is on sale.

If you don't believe this information, Google it. You can check out her information on KFI 640 AM. She didn't have any show notes but you can go back and listen to that particular episode of the show.

On a happier note-

Now, knowing all this stuff, I'm going to rave about a chicken sandwich I sampled from Trader Joe's. I love that store. I really enjoy their food. I love their free food samples, more than once, their samples have been a source of inspiration for our family meals. In this case, it wasn't a family meal, it is more an adult meal. The sandwich is comprised of Trader Joe's Just Chicken. I believe that Trader Joe's chicken is organic, I'm not sure though, I'll be checking tomorrow. Whatever it is, it makes a tasty chicken sandwich. Their grilled chicken is sliced into nice sized pieces. The sandwich also had Havarti cheese. Now, I am not adventurous when it comes to cheeses, but I was hugely impressed when I ate this sandwich with this particular cheese. To be honest, I had never had Havarti cheese before. Wow! I didn't know that Havarti cheese is a great cheese for use in sandwiches. It melts great! The bread they used is Cracked Wheat Sourdough. You prepare the sandwich as if it is a grilled cheese sandwich and just butter the outside of the bread. That's it; it's not rocket science. In fact, if you really want a fancy sandwich I imagine you could make it in a panini grill. Or, to spice it up put some fresh leaves of basil in there. Use your imagination! Whatever you do, it is sure to turn out with great results.