Saturday, July 11, 2009

The Chicken Experiment


























OK..... Just a warning, this might get a little gross. Lyle and I were not sure we should post these pictures. But it is a perfect illustration of one of the reasons our chicken is better than "store bought".

Lyle wanted to can three chickens, one of ours, a organic chicken and a regular store bought chicken. He tried to do exactly the same thing to each chicken. First he stuffed it in a jar. Next he filled each jar with water. Then he put them all in the canner, filled the canner a third of the way with water and cooked them. He became frustrated with the plan when some of the water started to boil out of the jars (there was no lid on the jars, and no lid on the canner). So finally at about 10:30 pm he gave up on the experiment, placed the lid over the canner and we went to bed. The next morning things got busy on the farm with chores and the chicken experiment was forgotten. When I came into the house at around 12:30 to make lunch there was an icky smell in the kitchen. I called Lyle in and told him that he needed to take care of his mess, it was stinking up the house. He said that it couldn't smell bad, it had only been 14 hours. BOY was he wrong! We got the jars out of the water and started to take some pictures........ maybe the experiment had worked. The jar with our chicken (as you can see in the photo) had clear broth, a little yellow fat on the top and did not smell bad (it smelled like a cooked chicken). The second jar was the chicken from Coleman organics. It did not look so good. The water in the coleman chicken jar was hard to see through. It had white and purple floaty things in it. The fat on the top was a very pale yellow. Then came the real test, I smelled it. EWWWW..... I don't know how many of you have smelled spoiled chicken before, but yuck! The smell was pretty bad. The last jar we checked was a Tyson chicken from Walmart. There was no way you could see through the "broth". There was gobs of purple and white gunk in it. The fat on the top was grey. So I got brave and took a whiff......... I ended up leaning on the fridge and choking , trying to keep from throwing up. The smell was putrid! Now remember..... each chicken was treated exactly the same, and this smell test was conducted 14 hours after they were put in the cooker.

What more can we say.......... our chicken is safe, tastes great and is worth the money!!!!


Just a side note........ organic chickens are fed differently than conventionally raised chickens, but they are both processed the same. If you want more information do a web search for factory farmed chicken. Or ask us we would be happy to give you some sites to do research, or tell you what our research has found.

Happy eating !

4 comments:

  1. OK, that was pretty gross!! But how do you find home raised chickens in Florence, OR? For when we get home, I mean.

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  2. Sorry Jackie lol. We can help you find someone close to Florence when you get home. We belong to the pastured poultry association and can get an address ofsome growers there (if there are any). You could come visit us and take home chickens.

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  3. I'm sorry to say that is just gross! I can't imagine the smell nor do i want to smell it.

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  4. Ugh. My dad always tells me I need to eat "real" organic food but the more I am educated about how food is processed the stronger my resolve is to follow my dad's advice! Really interesting experiment. Thanks for putting this on your blog.

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