Fairly new to the chicken adventure, I've had people ask me how we can stand eating the chickens we watch grow from fluffy balls to magestic plumed creatures with full personalities.
After a few years I've come up with some keys to being able to eat my dinner without thinking too hard about where it came from:
Step 1: Don't name the chicken! And try to keep your children from naming it, too! That just makes it worse as you're lifting your laden fork to your lips. Some names may be unavoidable, such as, "the big white rooster", but at leat it's impersonal. If you plan on eating your laying hens after their egg-laying days have come and gone, and you must absolutely name them to keep them straight, give them non-human names, such as Cotton, Snowy, Freckles, and the such. The last thing you want to do is kill the chicken you named after your dear, departed Aunt Mildred! Some of the names in my coop include Sahara, Swan, Pepper, Streak, Midnight, Cocoa, Caramel, and Sprinkles. We even named one Cordon Bleu, but the neighbor's dog got that one!
Step 2: Process more than one chicken at a time. It's a lot easier to lose track of "who" you're eating if you don't really know in the first place! Even better, after you process them, put them in the freezer for 6 months--you won't even remember what they looked like.
Step 3: Cook it so that it doesn't look like chicken. Put it in a casserole, make a chicken salad, but if you're just getting started, don't pull the whole chicken out of the crock pot on Sunday afternoon and expect the family to gobble it up!
If you're still having problems, then as a last resort, move to step 4: Have someone else do it! If the next time you see your chicken it looks a lot like what you'd get in the grocery store, it's harder for the brain to make the connection!
Good luck to all of you who are just starting on this new way of life. I hope these steps make this healthier way of eating chicken easier for you to stomach!
Step 1: Don't name the chicken! And try to keep your children from naming it, too! That just makes it worse as you're lifting your laden fork to your lips. Some names may be unavoidable, such as, "the big white rooster", but at leat it's impersonal. If you plan on eating your laying hens after their egg-laying days have come and gone, and you must absolutely name them to keep them straight, give them non-human names, such as Cotton, Snowy, Freckles, and the such. The last thing you want to do is kill the chicken you named after your dear, departed Aunt Mildred! Some of the names in my coop include Sahara, Swan, Pepper, Streak, Midnight, Cocoa, Caramel, and Sprinkles. We even named one Cordon Bleu, but the neighbor's dog got that one!
Step 2: Process more than one chicken at a time. It's a lot easier to lose track of "who" you're eating if you don't really know in the first place! Even better, after you process them, put them in the freezer for 6 months--you won't even remember what they looked like.
Step 3: Cook it so that it doesn't look like chicken. Put it in a casserole, make a chicken salad, but if you're just getting started, don't pull the whole chicken out of the crock pot on Sunday afternoon and expect the family to gobble it up!
If you're still having problems, then as a last resort, move to step 4: Have someone else do it! If the next time you see your chicken it looks a lot like what you'd get in the grocery store, it's harder for the brain to make the connection!
Good luck to all of you who are just starting on this new way of life. I hope these steps make this healthier way of eating chicken easier for you to stomach!
