On Saturday morning, I went about my weekly journey to my favorite big box store, The Big “C”, in Brooklyn. This trip was different; however, since my lovely landlord was coming with me on this adventure, for the first time.  It is always fun to have company on a trip, but it is especially fun when said company owns a CAR!  Dunt dunt dunnnn! Score one for not having to lug all my stuff on the D train. I had my weekly list ready, so there would be no dilly dallying around.  Well… not much anyway. Above all, I was most definitely going to stick to my mandatory budget.

All was going well. We were cruising through the aisle uninterrupted because we got there right when it opened. No screaming kids. No overwrought parents. Not too many behemoth carts to get around.  It was just me, my new companion and my favorite store…and a few other shoppers.  But it all seemed to come to a halt, however, when we came to the meat department.  No, I didn’t get impaled by a cart from the Granny trying to snatch up a rotisserie chicken, although that has happened before.  This was a bird of a whole different feather. My lovely landlord was on a mission to find “Happy Chickens.”  A friend of hers had said she was able to find “Happy Chickens” at Costco.  What’s a happy chicken you ask? I wanted to know the same thing. To my friend, it means birds that are in sun lit houses with the ability to roam outside.  No hormones, no antibiotics, organic, local, if possible, and definitely vegetarian fed (I thought all chickens were vegetarians… boy was I wrong).
So we find a brand of chickens marked “Natural, Organic, 100% Vegetarian, No added Hormones, No Preservatives, No Antibiotics, Dairy Free, humanly raised, sustainably farmed, Soy Free, USDA Organic”.  Okay, this list reminded me of the MSRP sticker from my last car. It was a lot to take in and I wasn’t even sure what half of it meant. What I did notice though, is that nowhere on the package, did it denote the words that she desperately wanted to see:  Free Range.  We looked and looked and looked. Was it Free Range? Or wasn’t it? We weren’t sure. She went off to look for a staff member to ask. I on the other hand, went to ogle the Sushi grade Ahi Tuna, and Wild Sockeye Salmon… dreaming of Hawaiian Poke.
We finally found a reluctant staff member to help us. He too picked up the package and began to read (as if we hadn’t already thought to do that).  He quickly said, “Nope, I guess not” and sauntered away. We stood scratching our heads for a few more moments. I even tried to look the company up on my Crackberry, but it wouldn’t cooperate. So we gave up. But I was left wondering about this brand of chickens and vowing to check their website when I got home.
Fast forward to last night when I couldn’t sleep and lie staring at the ceiling until 2 AM. I decided to get up and check that doggone site. What I found was even MORE confusing.  According to their website “Since 1875 (omitting company name) has pioneered the natural and organic animal raising practices that represent the highest standard of meat production in the United States.” Okay that sounds good so far.  “With 100% vegetarian diets and no animal bi-products … We never use antibiotics or growth hormones. We allow our animals to grow at their natural pace, with open air access in a comfortable, reduced-stress environment.” GREAT! Problem solved, they are free range. . . right? But what does that even mean: free range? Well, ask the USDA, and you’d STILL be confused. They have no REAL hard fast standards for what farmers can and cannot label free range, except to say the following: producers must demonstrate to the Agency that the poultry has been allowed access to the outside (not whether or not they actually DO go out).
Sooo… the USDA pretty much leaves it largely up to the individual farmers as far as how much (or little) time the chickens actually spend outside, if they actually GO outside at all, doesn’t matter what’s in that yard (gravel, dirt, whatever),  but it most certainly does not give them “free range” or the pastoral existence I was imagining.
If you asked the love of my life, he’d say “Of course not, it’s a marketing gimmick.” But, I can’t believe that is the way it works on every farm; this bait and switch. Well thankfully that is NOT the way it worked at this particular farm.  As they point out on their website:
What does free range mean? What is the difference between free range chickens and conventional chickens??(company name) chickens get approximately one square foot per bird, which is significantly more space per bird than those raised in conventional poultry operations. Depending upon the ranch, the pens outside are 50% to 100% of the size of the inside houses. Beginning at approximately four weeks of age, when the birds are fully feathered and able to withstand both exposure to the sun and cooler outside temperatures, the birds are allowed to roam outside of the house beginning about mid-morning, and are then ushered back inside the house around 5 pm. They are locked inside the house at night to protect them from predators. There are multiple outside access doors on the sides of the house for the chickens to use the outdoor pen during the day.”
“One square foot, that’s nothing!”, You’d think. After watching Food Inc, reading books and articles on the subject, I learned that the average non free range chicken gets INCHES to live in their ENTIRE LIFE at many farms. But hey I live in NYC I totally understand. 1 square foot is like an NYC apartment. It may not seem that big to other people but it is PRIZE REAL ESTATE! These are definitely happier chickens then the alternative. Hooray for “Happy Chickens”. Well, sort of happy chicken. I mean they are being breed for slaughter how happy can they REALLY be, right? So now my land lord will be glad to know that they do, in fact, have her “Happy Chickens” at the Big “C”.
I on the other hand, had one more nagging question: What is vegetarian fed? Their site said the chickens are fed organic corn and soy that contains no animal fat or bi-products. But wait didn’t it say before that this Organic “Happy Chicken” was SOY FREE? Yep, it sure did. I mean yes, it is good the chickens aren’t eating other animal’s fat and/or bi-products, cannibalistic chickens remind me of an old sci-fi movie I watched with my dad, BUT, and this is a big BUT… why are the chickens being fed corn and soy! And is it non genetically modified corn and soy products, I ask? Ugh!  It was 2:30 am by this point and I just couldn’t bring myself to even ponder that question any more. I simply sent the company an email requesting that information and happily went off to sleep… wondering if I’d ever get an answer.
And now, even as I type this, part of me realizes just how screwed up the food system is in this country. It is great that this particular brand is doing SOO much more for their chickens then most producers. Let’s applaud them for that. But, they aren’t perfect.  And more annoying still is the fact that they don’t HAVE TO DO IT! There seems to be very little legislation regarding what companies can and cannot do, how big a lie they can tell consumers, and more importantly… we as consumers don’t have an easy way to know what we are getting, or even where we are getting it FROM!
Alas, with the hubbub surrounding the multiple E. Coli & Salmonella outbreaks around the country: eggs, meat, spinach, you name it, raging on. I just have to ask. . . If I am what I eat… Don’t I at least deserve to know WHAT I’m eating, how it was raised, and what it could do to me? Just saying…