The most shocking things about visiting my friend Scott in NoCal earlier this month: Friendly chickens.
I’m all for free range chickens, but I really wasn’t prepared to share a park with crowing roosters. And when Scott and I went to eat at Sunflower Drive-In (I recommend the nutty burger — It’s veggie), these chickens came right up to beg for food, puppy style.
It’s great to know they’re free to roam around, though I wonder how the owners keep track of their feather friends. Also — I’d imagine it’d be tough to kill and eat these things after they’ve become household pets. Some of Sunflowers patrons lovingly scratched the chickens’ heads — Something I was really afraid to do, cuz those beaks looked sharp!
I don’t eat chicken, and rarely eat eggs, but this chicken-as-pet thing really fascinated me — Especially after reading in blogging.la about an odd battle between the Humane Society and Trader Joe’s over eggs — which prompted TJ’s to promote a letter about their egg standards on their homepage.
Of course, what interested me about the blogging.la post was not the eggs, per se, but that, due to a silly comment by someone called Lee, the discussion deteriorated into bizarre insults (“I think FOX News is hiring, if you send them your resume, I’ll be a reference.”), name-calling (“keep your PETA-loving nose out of my kitchen”) and name-denying (“[my nose] is not PETA-loving”).
And less relatedly — To the right is Scott and I, after a few drinks, at Celestin’s in Sacramento. We miss you Scott — Move back.
Update 2/8/05: I ate chicken. In my defense, it was organic and hormone-free chicken…
Mother Earth News has an article over the increased nutritional content of eggs from free-range chickens allowed to eat greens and bugs and such in additon to any feed they are given.
Twice the vitimin E, 4x the beta carotene 10x the Omega-3 and less than HALF the cholesterol. Which to a middle aged guy like me is important.
The story notes that an Egg Producers group claims on their website that how the chickens are housed — if they have identical feed — has no effect on nutrition content. But they are, of course, not that straight forward about it, and attempt to imply that the difference in feed that comes with different housing has no value too. Which is false, of course.
Maybe an “eggstra” special look at the issue around Easter time? Grin.
Comment by Roger, Gone Green — October 31, 2005 @ 11:12 am
Chocolate eggs, perhaps ;) Thanks for the links! Super informative –
Comment by Siel — October 31, 2005 @ 11:12 pm
I like the chicken roaming around the house. It reminds me of our farm. Chickens are great, though they could be messy at times. However, they are good pets and make some interesting sounds. The best thing is that they are ready to be cooked anytime.
Comment by Jim Online — November 14, 2005 @ 9:30 pm