The Dark Side to Chicken You Need to Know

Certain “truths” we have grown up with can be difficult to accept as false when we initially learn they are untrue, or in the case of chicken, have changed.

Did you grow up “knowing” that milk was good for you and built strong bones? I did. The only problem is the fact, yes fact, that the industrialized nations who consume the most milk have the weakest bones or highest incidence of osteoporosis.

Similarly, if someone asked you to order the meat with the lowest saturated fat and gave you the choice between beef, pork, and chicken, would you choose chicken? You’d be right… decades ago, but not now.

Chicken is a high-fat product.

Getting a “whiff” of how fat chicken has become, the beef industry commissioned a trial comparing beef, chicken, and fish’s impact on raising cholesterol via its saturated fat content. Would you believe there was no difference? It’s true.

Chicken currently is 10 times “fattier” than it was a century ago this according to the USDA. A chicken serving a hundred years ago contained only 2 grams of fat per serving, but now it’s over 20 grams of animal fat per serving. That’s double the fat found in ice cream. Does that mean you should eat beef? No!!! Elevated, bad cholesterol contributes to the major degenerative diseases killing so many Americans – namely heart disease and diabetes. Since the animal products just mentioned all raise cholesterol doesn’t mean nothing can be done to lower cholesterol. The solution is below.

The American Heart Association (AHA) officially and strongly recommends reducing saturated fat intake to 5% of all calories. Where are saturated fats found and what might 5% equate to?

Meat and dairy products are the major sources of saturated fat, and a mere two pats of butter, one “fast food” chicken breast or two cubes of cheese would complete your daily allowance of saturated fat. As Dr Greger from nutritionfacts.org puts it: “two meals per week can be packed with meat, dairy and junk, but the entire rest of the week would need to be unprocessed plant foods” to comply with the AHA recommendations.

It turns out it’s not only what you choose NOT to eat, but what you choose TO eat that makes a difference. To get the biggest dietary “bang for your grocery store buck”, choose unprocessed plant foods. Cutting down on meats and dairy products lowered bad cholesterol a modest 5-10%, but healthy plant-based diets full of vegetables, fruits, beans, and legumes, and zero animal products plummeted bad cholesterol by 35%. And it happened quickly.

Imagine if a drug worked within weeks, took cholesterol down that much, and had zero side effects!

What happened to the poor chicken? Like so many of us, it got fat.

Today’s chickens are mostly fat, containing up to three times more fat than protein. Why? Like us, it’s about what the chicken eats and how much exercise it gets. We may be tethered to our desks hindering our exercise efforts, but chickens are not allowed to exercise in the main. And like us, their bodies are over-fat and under-muscled. Does eating fat animals make us fat? Apparently it does. Add antibiotics, growth hormones, and GMO feed, and you have one unhealthy chicken.

I know. There’s a part of you that doesn’t want to know this. I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news but the truth is the truth. Please don’t come away from this thinking it doesn’t matter what you eat so you may as well eat whatever you want. The truth about chicken is sad, but there are plenty of delicious foods available to you that will make your tummy happy, your heart healthy and your waistline slimmer.

Visit our recipes on this site and make an effort to eat less animal products and more plants. You will be happier that you did, I promise.

Root cause medicine works!