They aren’t in pain, which isn’t typical for a broiler in 2020,” Wadiak says. And these birds are free to forage during the daylight hours. Each chicken house at Cooks Venture holds a third the fowl that is crammed inside traditional factory-farm quarters. Their proprietary bird-a three-way cross between a Transylvanian Naked Neck, a heritage Delaware, and an unnamed breed developed by Evans’ grandfather-matures in 60 to 65 days, as opposed to the usual 40 or so. Last year, the two launched a company called Cooks Venture with no lesser ambition than to fix our nation’s poultry problem. He’s since partnered with one such farmer: Blake Evans, whose family’s third-generation operation in Decatur, Arkansas, was among the first to raise slow-growing chickens at scale. Wadiak, the founder of Blue Apron, worked closely with many of the farmers who supplied the meal kits’ raw ingredients before stepping down as COO in 2017. ![]() “As thoughtful consumers, we need to consider that.” Get the recipe for Orange- and Herb-Roasted Spatchcock Chicken Courtesy Cook’s Venture “Those chicks suffer from the minute they hatch,” Wadiak says. The result? A bland, antibiotic-laced product born of cruelty. These freakishly fast-growing birds don’t have immune systems robust enough to stay healthy in overcrowded chicken houses. And the vast majority of our poultry, even the organic free-range kind, comes from a handful of breeds designed to fatten up quick and yield mostly white meat-”efficient feed-conversion” in industry speak. Last year, we devoured almost 100 pounds of the poultry, per capita, nearly double the amount of beef or pork that each of us, on average, consumed. Roasted, grilled, pressed into nuggets-Americans sure do love chicken. This story originally featured on Saveur. There are no requirements for a chicken to be labeled all-natural and if you see it, you should probably assume it is anything but.įor more, check out this chicken labeling chart from the ASPCA.Matt Wadiak, co-founder and CEO of Cooks Venture, at the operation’s 800-acre farm in Decatur, Arkansas, hopes to fix our nation’s poultry problem. This is a marketing term and means nothing. In many cases, poultry coops are set up so that the chickens don't even use the outdoor space. ![]() "Free-range" is meant to indicate that chickens had access to the outdoors but there is almost no requirement for how much or how big that outdoor space is. This is another label you've likely seen on sides of egg cartons and chicken packages that is misleading once you dive into the criteria. The USDA requires chicken labels to be "accurate" but without any formal guidelines, this one has quite a bit of wiggle room. Pasture-raised chickenīecause there's no legal definition of this term, "pasture-raised" is hard to verify, though it implies birds spent significant time outdoors and in a pasture. This means the chickens were not routinely given preventative antibiotics, which many deem harmful, but it doesn't mean they weren't given antibiotics if they got sick. ![]() No antibiotics or chicken raised without antibiotics The chicken label doesn't signal anything about a chicken's quality of life or humane practices during their life or death and, in many cases, organic chickens still experience a lot of factory farming's most notorious practices. The "organic" label is a good one to look out for but keep in mind it really just means that the chickens have been fed a certified organic diet and often - but not always - means the farming practices used in feeding the birds are better. Cage confinement, hormones and subtherapeutic antibiotics are prohibited at all levels, standards extend to transport and slaughter and compliance with them is verified by auditors on every farm. According to the ASPCA, each successive level represents progressively higher welfare and includes all requirements of those below it. This six-level rating program for animals raised for meat and eggs is slightly more complex.
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