Chicken or Chicken?!

As a child growing up in a small community where my grandmother owned a farm, every fall we would butcher chickens, so I always had plenty of fresh chicken to eat at home.

After turning five and entering the school system, my real chicken eating patterns began to decay. It was here were I got my first tastes of chicken nuggets, chicken patties, chicken strips and so on. Anything with white meat on the inside and a coat of brown seasoning on the outside could be made out as something chicken. Although the fake chicken smells similar to real chicken, it doesn’t quite taste the same. The fake chicken has a lot more salt and seasonings, along with that slight bit of greasiness that we all enjoy, which makes it taste better. Perhaps its better taste is also a subconscious positive association made from the social environment of numerous new friends while first enjoying the fake food.

When the nutrition facts from a typical chicken patty are compared to a serving of the real chicken, one can realize that the real chicken is definitely a better option. The chicken patty has 29% fat whereas the chicken only has 8%. Chicken patties contain 9 grams of protein in relationship to the same calorie amount of real chicken that has 43 grams of protein.

I would love to go back to eating real chicken all of the time, simply due to its nutritional values; however, in our current society real chicken is rarely an option. It is so much easier to access fake chicken via fast food restaurants or our local commons, than to actually go to the grocery store, pick out a chicken breast and prepare it. After I have a kitchen and the time needed to prepare chicken, I will no doubt go back to eating real chicken, but until then, Chicken products will have to do.