Walking in Philadelphia the other day, I saw a sign on the window of a Boston Market (fast food store). The sign read:
$1.99 Whole Chicken!
and as I kept walking I thought wow, that's pretty cheap.
Then it hit me, and I stopped walking. Wow. That's really cheap. Think about it. Here is a very shortened list of what needs to happen before You can sell a whole chicken for $1.99. You have to
- Incubate the egg and hatch it (or buy the little chick and transport her over)
- Feed the chick for 3-4 months
- Keep her healthy
- Kill her
- Pluck her feathers
- Clean her body
- Ship her body to wherever (refrigerated)
- Cook the body
- Put the body in a container
Which leads us to the same conclusion: Hatching, raising, killing, shipping, and preparing a living being--an entire cycle of life--costs less than $1.99.
But wait, it gets even better. A scary thing occurred to me. Think about any pet You've ever met. Let's say a little one, about the size of a chicken. Maybe a cat. Think about the first 3 months of that cat's life. How much did the cat food cost? Would You say, hmm, more than $1.99?
If You can feed a chicken for 3-4 months, make her gain weight, and still make a profit after selling her for $1.99, I think that's pretty bad news in terms of the quality of the food that chicken was eating.
And, of course, the people eating her.
Brr.
