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.
2 comments:
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.
that's exactly a reason why we should eat non veg. Well the chicken can eat any kind of food. mostly cellulose and can digest it but humans lack that ability also a lot of solar energy captured by plants goes into making the cellulose hence by eating non veg we are getting that energy which would have been otherwise useless.
one more though think about what fishes eat? in a way by eating fish we are using solar energy otherwise wasted in sea.
I'm thinking that commercially produced chicken feed (which is dirt cheap) can sustain a few hectares of chicken at once, and remember, they may not be allowed to roam.
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