Chicken
Are you older than 30 and remember chicken tasting better when you were a kid? You’re not imagining it. Chickens today are much larger and slaughtered younger than they were in the 1980s. The change actually started in the 1940s, when chickens started to be super-sized by farmers trying desperately to make more money and chickens have been getting bigger (and less delicious) ever since.
As Melanie Warner explains in the book Pandora’s Lunchbox: How Processed Food Took Over the American Meal, most chicken sold in the U.S. today lacks flavor because of its extremely short lifespan, lack of natural sunlight, and unfortunately limited diet of corn and soy.
If you want to get some flavorful chicken, it’s going to cost you. So-called heritage chickens, breeds established before the mid-20th century, can reportedly be tastier. But they’re also much more expensive than the average bird you’ll find at the supermarket.
