Finger-Lickin' Bad
Ewwww! I had no idea it was this bad.
A person driving through the South might notice the chicken houses dotting the hills and flatlands. He might marvel at the larger ones, as long as a football field. He might react to their gagging stench for a moment, and then forget as he travels on. But those who live near the structures -- stuffed with as many as 25,000 chickens each -- combat the odor and health hazards daily.
'There's a horrible odor, a stench, and I have flies and rodents digging in, trying to get into my house,' says Bernadine Edwards, whose 39-acre farm near Owensboro, Ky., is surrounded by 108 chicken houses within a two-mile radius. 'It is unbelievable.'
The 65-year-old school bus driver, who recently bought a purifier to help her breathe easier in her home, says the value of her property has plummeted since the chicken houses arrived in the early 1990s. 'I'm too old to start over,' she says. 'I can't afford to. My house is paid for.'
Edwards is not alone. Over the last 15 years, the country has seen a boom in chicken farming. Today, the industry is serving a cocktail of injustice and pollution to rural residents, and most of them aren't in a position to fight back.
I'll bet half of this upsurge in chicken consumption is due to chicken nuggets. Whenever I make my runs to Costo, I always gawk at the bags of "chicken dinosaurs" in the baskets of people who obviously have children. While I am childless, I still have an adverse reaction to the idea that we have a nation of children being raised on Chicken Mc Nuggets. I see toddlers sitting in carts, munching on them as parents make after-work grocery store runs and it drives me crazy! I've heard a lot of moms defend their children's steady diet of the little finger food (to the point where some claim their children won't eat anything else) and I guess that is why I don't have kids. Seriously though, married or not, if my days are promised to be so hectic that all I have time to feed my kids are animal shaped chicken pieces, I think I'd need to bypass child bearing.
my state @ 4:53 AM :: Permalink
3 Comments
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3 Comments:
I'm with you on that one! Who wants to eat reconstituted chicken parts? I'm proud to say at almost 3 Alexis has never had a chicken McNugget! When we go out to eat I let her have all white chicken strips, but at home we are a chicken strip and nugget free zone! Ick!
Granted fast food wasn't as out of control when I grew up as it is now, I learned how to cook when I was really young. I was a very shy kid who, many times, opted to sit in the kitchens of my friends and watch their moms cook while my sister played with my friends. So, by the time I was a latch key kid at 10, I knew how to make food when I got home from school and by 12 could pretty much cook Sunday dinner. I know when I am working too much when I find myself eating out a lot (and even then it usually isn't fast food) but I just don't see how folks fill their kids up with garbage. We had to cajole my mom into buying some of the things many people see as staples (like Hamburger Helper, Shake and Bake and Rice A Roni) only to find that we didn't like it.
My niece is a young adult now and (partially because she is frugal) will choose a homecooked meal over "junk" anyday ... A WHOLE lot of folks her age don't know anything but what we used to call "street" food (meaning something you didn't make at home).
Now, I do like to go out to eat, but as I tell folks, it is more for the social aspect - not the meals because I can make most things.
I love to cook. I always have. My mom let us help her out in the kitchen and cook thing on our own from a young age. I've already started involving Alexis in the process, because sadly I don't think a lot of kids these days learn how to cook.
My neighbor's teenage daughter asks me cooking questions all the time. I was making broth one day for soup and she asked me how I knew how to do that off the top of my head. I explained that I had been cooking for years and most of my cooking was off the top of my head. I asked her if her mom taught her how to cook and she said, "She's afraid I'll make a mess!" Sad, but true.
I can cook anything as well and usually better than a restaurant. We eat out occasionally (like tonight because Alexis is in rare form so Jamison is picking up something on the way home), but I'd rather cook the food so I know what's in it, especially Alexis' food because 90% of what she eats is organic.
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