"chicken" news and stories

Say you're in the meat aisle at the grocery store, choosing a chicken for tonight's dinner. The first bird claims to be "natural"; the next one doesn't. You put the first bird in your cart -- but are you getting what you think you're getting?

"Natural," according to the US Department of Agriculture, does not equal "unadulterated." Per the USDA, poultry can be labeled "natural" if it contains no artificial ingredients, preservatives, or added color. However, this leaves a lot of room for other additives, such as salt, water, or broth (all perfectly natural ingredients). Sometimes these additives can increase the bird's weight by upwards of 15 percent, according to the Associated Press -- which strikes some politicians and consumer advocates as (you guessed it) unnatural.

One politician pushing for more clarity in labeling is California Senator Barbara Boxer. In a statement last spring, Boxer pointed out that hidden sodium in a chicken misleadingly called "natural" creates a public health risk. "[T]here is nothing 'all natural' about chicken injected with sodium additives," she maintained. "Consider that a serving of poultry unaltered by additives contains about 40 to 65 milligrams of sodium, while sodium injected chicken can contain more than 330 mgs of sodium – five to eight times more salt per serving than a real natural chicken."

You might want to think twice before rinsing off raw chicken in your kitchen sink.

Recent studies by the British Food Standards Agency show that rinsing chicken can potentially spread bacteria on work surfaces in a three-foot radius, The Daily Telegraph reported. The report says up to 75 percent of consumers wash poultry before consuming it.

The FSA says 65 percent of raw chicken is contaminated with campylobacer, the most common cause of food poisoning, the paper reported. And while cooking will kill the bug, Campylobacter causes more than 300,000 cases of food poisoning and 15,000 hospitalizations a year in England and Wales.

Wander around Paris, and you're bound to find some of the best street food on the planet. Sidewalk crêperies are the boon to every tourist with a brain addled from trying to match noun and verb in the native tongue without scrambling for the phrase book yet again. Whisper-thin delicate pancakes filled with combinations of ham and creamy cheese or, as in this photo, chicken and spinach, are an answered prayer.

In Brittany, they invented the art of the crêpe, and typically make savory versions with buckwheat flour, which gives them tang. But all-purpose flour works just as well. To make your own bit of Brittany, try this chicken-and-spinach crêpe recipe from Kitchen Daily.

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One of my favorite Mexican chefs, Roberto Santibañez (of Brooklyn restaurant Fonda), once told me that the nickname for Mexico City natives like himself is limones, because they love fresh lime with almost everything they eat. And rightfully so. Lime adds a crisp high note to simple dishes, from chunks of mango to a margarita, to meats like chicken and fish.

Marinated in lime juice, tomato salsa and Dijon mustard, chicken gets lively, as in this recipe. (If you don't want to grill the marinated meat, you can also pan sauté it.) And once you get the limones thing going, try this robust Mexican chicken-lime soup from Kitchen Daily contributor Caroline Bates.

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You've read the articles, heard the evidence: "It's better for your health; it's better for the environment." Yeah, yeah, yeah. You pass one of those trucks on the interstate stuffed full of miserable chickens and think to yourself, "I really should stop eating meat," only to find yourself at the next exit cruising through the drive-thru at KFC asking for extra crispy.

Well, for anyone who has ever flirted with vegetarianism but, regrettably, can only stomach tofu if it's fried in bacon grease, there's good news on the horizon. As John Cloud reports in Time, food scientists at the University of Missouri have engineered what may be the biggest advancement in vegan cuisine since the much-mocked Tofurky: fake chicken that, lo and behold, actually tastes like chicken.

The secret is apparently not so much in the flavor but in the texture, which isn't a surprise when you think about it: really, the only thing as bland as an unseasoned boneless chicken breast may be the mix of soy protein, wheat flour and water that they make the fake stuff out of. The difference is in the chew. Cloud claims the success of the Missouri scientists was that their invention "disjoins the way chicken does, with a few random strands of 'meat' hanging loosely." (Um, the wording alone may be enough to turn anyone vegan.)