Well, since the title of this section of the forum IS "Meat Birds ETC", I would expect that most of the people who post over here are either eating the chickens they raise, or planning to, or at least contemplating it. We sure eat ours.
Happyslappyfarm, here's some labels from various brands:
Pilgrim's Pride:
Ingredients:
Chicken
Solution Ingredients: Chicken Broth, Salt, Carrageenan.
GLUTEN FREE
Carrageenan is from seaweed, not a bad thing IMO, but I don't see any reason to add anything to a fresh chicken. I don't normally add anything to mine, unless I brine an older bird, but really, I often just don't bother, and ya know, they taste really good, without being injected or soaked.
Pilgrim's Pride and Foster Farms are the only two I found that just openly
tell you what's in the birds. PP show's the list if you click on the button, and FF says there's nothing in the chicken but chicken.
Foster Farms:
"Our Whole Chickens are 100% natural and delicious with no added salt, chemicals or artificial taste enhancers."
One area of the website stated outright: "There's nothing in our chicken but chicken!" But is it all the same chicken? That
could mean broth from
other chickens is added. (I don't think it is, but you see how easily a person can be misled.)
Tyson: I don't know, I never found anyplace that listed the ingredients, and on the website, they
never state outright, like Foster Farms does, that nothing is added.
Perdue: also very evasive about what is actually in the chicken. If you see it in the store, you can read the label there, and see what's in it, but they aren't about to show you on the website.
This site,
http://www.healthyaging.net/articlelive/articles/93/1/SALTWATER-INJECTED-ALL-NATURAL-FRESH-CHICKEN-/Page1.html
is interesting, and shows how much salt water can be added. One person commented about a chicken protein isolate that is often used. That person seemed to be in favor of stuff being injected into the birds, which seems weird to me. I know I've often seen other ingredients on fresh whole chicken and turkey packages.
"Natural flavoring" can be any number of things that most of us would not consider natural at all.
So, anyway, I think we'd all be better off if we stopped letting corporations cook for us. They just don't do it the way we would at home, even when the label says comforting things like "Home-style", "Old Fashioned" etc. Read the labels and see what kind of crap they have listed that you don't even know what the heck it is. I've managed to cook since I was a kid without ever adding monosodium glutamate, BHT, glycerel monostearate, sodium phosphate, and many other ingredients that corporation don't seem to be able to cook without. Some of these things may be harmful, some may be totally benign,
but we don't need them. I think the idea that food should last
forever on the shelf has caused a lot of problems. I know I do better if I limit the weird stuff I consume. Normally, I don't eat any of that stuff, but once in a while, usually when traveling, I'll eat several meals of foods I wouldn't eat at home. It almost always makes me feel icky for a few days, until I get it flushed back out of my system. If I ate that way all the time, I might think that icky feeling was normal.
