The true cost of the Costco rotisserie chicken

I've stopped buying the roasted chickens from our Costco a few years ago, I personally find them to be undercooked and have a wierd rubbery texture. I prefer the ones from our grocery stores.

This treatment isn’t unique to Costco. Or to chicken.

If you purchase meat, you’re participating in these practices.

I mean, let’s be real, we should include dairy and eggs in that, too.

I've never had one, but have been told that if the meat is rubbery, it means they were given something to grow quickly. I find that a lot of places like KFC and Popeyes have rubbery or stringy chicken. Sad.

They aren't *given anything* to make them grow that quickly. Rather, they have been selectively bred to grow quickly and to have oversized breasts.

The same could be said for so much of our food. We are subsidizing the production of cheap, low quality food that is destroying our environment and our health. All hail industrial food! It's really disgusting on so many levels.

In my house, we have moved away from industrial food to local in season as much as possible for this reason. We are fortunate enough to have the resources to do so and live in an area with fabulous local producers and a strong market for them.

I agree that it’s the standard treatment. It’s very sad IMO.

We also buy our meat and poultry (and eggs) from a local farm that raises and slaughters their animals humanely. We get the Applegate “humanely raised” brand for stuff like lunch meat. It’s not perfect, but better than others. It’s expensive, so we also just eat less meat. Smaller portions, less often.

Actually a lot has to do with the grain mixture that the birds are being fed.  Closer to the end of the cycle, a feed containing ingredients to make the skin crackle when cooking is added.  

I don't know the exact name, and it would probably be a different name than is in Canada.  Family are broiler growers and this has been discussed many times over the years.

Why are you questioning me on this issue?  

Do not paint every meat producer with that broad brush. I personally find that to be an attack on me. Shame on you.

My husband, myself, and our children spend everyday of every year producing high quality beef in humane conditions. Our goal is to be profitable, and profitable enough to justify the extreme amount of time and hard work we put into it. But our livestock is never abused. It is fed very high quality forage and grain that we also raise ourself. Everyday is spent working hard to keep our livestock comfortable and healthy. The beef cattle are inside confinement barns. They are not packed tight. They can move freely and can lay down if they want. But they are not given so much room that they can injure themselves. They always have fresh clean water - ALWAYS. Our family will go without before the livestock does. They are cool in the summer and warm in the winter. Could someone with an agenda go in and film inside these barns and make it look bad - absofuckinglutly. Are some animals produced in a manner that I don't agree with - yes. Chickens and turkeys are bred to be heavy breasted. I don't like that anymore than a lot of you do.

I watched a grown man break down in tears because every bird in his turkey barns had to be euthanized (that is not a pretty process) because bird flu had been detected in one of his barns. Every barn had to be euthanized. He will recoup his money. But that was not why he broke down. His life was dedicated to raising clean healthy birds, and just killing them about killed him.

We had a situation were a large amount of our cattle had fallen into a pit. My husband contacted our insurance. We could not quickly euthanize them. The only way we could file a claim is if the cattle drowned. DROWNED. My husband risked his life by quickly building a device to allow the cattle to walk up out of this pit. And I am not kidding when I say he risked his life. I was on the edge of hysteria at one point in fear for his life. He said he would die before he let all those cattle drown. So your comment really pissed me off.

Getting locally farm raised meat is ideal, but good luck feeding the population with that. It is too expensive. And it is only getting worse.

Consider yourself lucky if you can choose to never buy a $4.99 chicken to feed your family, because that is all you can afford.

People who know nothing about agriculture can conjure up the most inflammatory statements that are not fact based, or the facts are skewed to their agenda.

This 100%! My husband is a grain farmer, although we currently have laying chickens and have raised a few beef in years past. I had a very long post typed out, and deleted it. Suffice to say unless you live this life you have absolutely no idea what it entails and the unimaginable stress family farmers are under. It is one of the deadliest professions, and there is a reason farmers are so highly at risk for death by suicide.

You could research where the meat at your local grocery chain comes from.  Independent farmers, not corporate congromulates, would be a way to find out.

Find out where the local meat processing plant gets their meat from.  

Stay away from huge meat processing plans as they usually get their food from the huge non-family farm.