The other day I decided to try an experiment. I bought identical chicken breasts. Two organic, two normal. I wanted to see if I could tell the difference between them after they were cooked.
The normal ones didn’t list ingredients, so I don’t know if they add saltwater or preservatives or whatever. This is socialist Germany, so I’m assuming this package would have to have a little red siren on it if they did.
Given the generally high meat quality on this continent, I feel like the organic breasts sort of need to ‘splain why they’re almost three times more expensive.
Maybe it’s just the lighting, but I must admit, the organic breasts looked nicer raw. They have clearly been bred to conform to the golden ratio, whereas the non-organics are shaped like Bolivia.
I kept the cooking method simple: Dried on paper towels, salted and peppered, fried in butter.
Verdict: The organic breasts tasted noticeably better. More juice, more chickeney flavor, less athletic little sinew to get stuck in your teeth.
But the real question is whether the slightly superior taste is worth the significantly higher price. And the answer, obviously, is fuck no. On the basis of this experiment, I’m definitely gonna keep eating non-organic chicken. Sorry planet, I tried.
another consideration may be animal welfare. A cheap chicken is quite likely to be a chicken intensively reared in a pretty unpleasant noisy shed, given a crap diet, lots of drugs, artificial light, and perhaps no room to move or enjoy life in it’s cage. That’s why it’s cheap.
I beg to differ with you, I buy the organic. It is soooo worth it. To each his own.
I don’t even really buy meat, and probably most of what I end up eating in Asian restaurants has been bred in captivity. But I buy organic vegetables and free range eggs, and often you can taste the difference – worth paying a little bit more.
The planet is gonna be fine – we’re the ones that are fucked š
Anyway … read the book Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer. And after that, trust me, if you ever buy meat again, it’ll be organic …
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