Chicken Healthier Than Beef? Think Again
If you thought that eating chicken is a more healthier option to eating beef – think again. In the following article, I will describe why eating beef is far more nutritiously healthy than chicken and indeed pork.
In modern day chicken farming, 99.9% of all chickens sold in the world come from mass producing indoor farms where they almost never see daylight, get fresh air and wallow in their own faeces. Despite many chickens being labelled organic, the majority of farm owners find a loophole in how they are able to market their chickens and eggs to give the perception that chickens are fed and treated more favourably.
Quite shockingly, they are bred to grow from egg to a full adult in 42 days – that’s an incredible accelerated factor of 65 compared to the normal growing process for the animal and such scientific manipulation brings with it a whole host of problems for the bird and for the quality of meat we consume. Suffice to say that as soon as science interferes with the normal process of mother nature, there will be detrimental nutritional consequences.
For many years, people have generally consumed much less red meat thinking that white meat is more healthier maybe because they think white meat is more leaner. Let me tell you – that’s absolutely false!
Modern chicken farming raises the animals in very inhumane environments where were can be tens of thousands of chickens crammed into a single room and this is what they can be categorised as ‘free range’. They suffer from ammonia burn from all the rotting waste that’s built up which can cause ulcers on in their eyes and affecting their joints.
We Can Eat Raw Fish & A Rare Steak ….. So Why Can’t We Eat Raw Chicken?
How many times have you seen someone pop into a restaurant and ask for a chicken sandwich cooked rare?
Well, quite simply it doesn’t happen because of the risk of salmonella or e-coli poisoning which are pathogenic microbes in the chicken yet are not present in other animal meat.
It’s to do with the filthy environments the chickens are raised in. Incidentally, we all have these microbes in our bodies that are generally neutral and therefore harmless but, if we suffer environmental changes that causes us stress, these microbes can go from being harmless to pathogenic just like what happens to factory farmed chickens. As such they are pumped full of drugs and antibiotics so stop diseases from spreading rapidly and is also one of the main reasons why bacteria have evolved in becoming resistant to antibiotics.
This also explains why, when you buy raw chicken from the supermarket and are cutting it into pieces at home, you have to thoroughly clean and sterilise the knives, cutting board along with disinfecting your hands afterwards otherwise, the resident microbes will cause problems. It also explains why, when you cook chicken, it has to be absolutely thoroughly cooked so that all the pathogens are killed in the cooking process.
Chicken is the most genetically manipulated animal protein specifically produced for human consumption.
Because of the way beef is raised along with being fed a much healthier feed, the nutrients in beef are between 25 to 30% more than chicken.
Why Is Raw Chicken Meat Flavoured?
Next time you pop into your local supermarket and buy chicken, check the label and you’ll see that the producers add ‘flavouring’. If you’re wondering why, it’s because without this artificial flavouring, the meat wouldn’t taste much good and that’s because of the conditions they are kept in and how quickly they are reared, the quality of the meat is very poor. They are made to grow so fast, the bird doesn’t have the chance to develop chemicals that naturally flavours the animal meat.
Why Do They Add Colouring?
Again, because of the way in which chickens are artificially reared so quickly, colouring is added to make it look like healthy meat and appetising to consumers. Without colouring, the meat would look very grey and seemingly unhealthy.
It’s high In Omega 6 Fatty Acids
The ratio of Omega 6 to Omega 3 is approximately 14:1 which is extremely high and thus making the meat very inflammatory.. Ideally this ration should be 1:1. We already consume up-to 10 times more Omega 6 in our daily diets so you don’t want to have an excessive amount in your diet because it’s been proven to be the main cause of degenerative diseases such as diabetes & heart disease as well as being a significant contributor for cancer cells and Alzheimer’s disease. Compare this ratio to beef (see below) and you’ll understand why beef is much more healthier.
What Are ‘Rendered Ingredients’ In Raw Chicken Production?
This is what manufacturers do to modify some parts of the chicken such as boiling off the fat. One particular component they remove is yellow grease which is recycled cooking oil from restaurants, oil that has been used in deep frying for weeks even months and waste oil. Because such oils cannot be dumped in landfill sites, they mix it with animal feed for chickens which then ultimately ends up in our bodies.
Not Convinced? How About Low Nutrition
Let me compare the nutritional content between beef and chicken. To even the playing field, the figures represent conventionally reared beef against the majority of farmed chicken. If values for grass-fed beef were to be compared, the nutritional content would be substantially higher
Beef vs Chicken
Beef Chicken
Vitamin B12 2.64ug 0.3ug
Choline. 82.4mg 65.9mg
Folate 7.1mg 2.9mg
Iron 2.6mg 1.26mg
Potassium 318mg 223mg
Zinc 6.31ug 1.94ug
Omega 6 to 3 Ratio 6:3 14:1
As you can see from the figures above, the nutrition values across the board are much better than farm produced chicken.
