Poultry Eaters do the Funky Chicken

While working on a story about extreme dog breeding, our reporter was told over and over again to check out how farm animals—especially chickens—are bred. In a few short weeks, she discovered yet another example of the human capacity for shaping animals to our own dubious ends.

For the first time in recent memory, Americans are consuming more chicken per person than beef. The typical adult now chomps around 60 pounds a year of the birds and the chart below makes the trend clear. If you’re among those visiting the Colonel or other poultry purveyors, your reasons probably have to do either with chicken’s reputation as a healthier source of protein or its lower cost. Indeed, chicken is lower in fat than beef, making it potentially less of a contributor to cardiovascular disease. And some studies have associated chicken with a lowered risk of colon cancer.

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