Month: September 2019

Chlorinated chicken is bad; it is gross. Do you ever wonder why the chicken from the supermarket is smelly, slimy, and discolored? What is that liquid in the package, much of it absorbed into that plastic diaper between your meat and the styrofoam package? That is chlorine and fecal water, fecal soup. While the practice is illegal in Europe, 97% of American chicken is soaked in chlorine during the chilling process. The reasons why is more gross than the practice itself.

The reason chlorine is “necessary” is because of poor living conditions and poor butchering practices. Diseases run rampant in the world of factory farming, where birds live in filth, crammed into rooms with thousands of other birds. When these chickens are brought to slaughter they are covered in fecal matter and the bedding they’ve been wading in for their whole existence. Now, when it’s time for the evisceration, the conveyor belt style processing is mechanized and imprecise. It is common for intestines to not be fully removed during evisceration or to be nicked. This is where the fecal component of fecal soup originates. These chickens are eventually dumped into a large vat of cold water, with chlorine in it to “sterilize” the meat. Studies have shown that this is not even effective though. What does happen is this mixture of chlorine and fecal matter and water is absorbed into the chicken. But this isn’t the way it has to be.

How we do it

We raise our chickens in a humane manner. They live on pasture, moving to fresh grass everyday. While factory chickens wade through their own manure, ours are moved out of it before it even begins to build up. What’s left behind is some of the best fertilizer you can imagine, rejuvenating the soil. Once it’s time for our chickens to be processed, they are butchered by hand, no stray intestines are left hanging from birds, no fecal matter being thrown about. Whereas the factory bird is soaked in the nasty chlorine mix, our birds are quickly dipped in an organic hydrogen peroxide and vinegar mix before being air dried.

When you cut open a Bailey Family Farm chicken, you won’t smell any of the nastiness you grow accustomed to smelling with supermarket chicken. You won’t get that slimy,sticky feeling either. What you will get is real, authentic meat unadulterated by chemicals or human negligence. Another benefit of air chilling is you won’t lose near as much weight while cooking the chicken, as little as 4% weight loss from evaporation. Your instincts know the difference between good food and bad food. When you’re grossed out by the meat you are about to cook, it is probably for good reason. No amount of chlorine can undo this.

Please stay in touch with us to learn more about how you can support local, humane farming. To learn how to buy, click here.

We are thrilled to announce our partnership with Smok’d Meats to produce beyond organic chicken stock! Our friends at Smok’d are simmering some of our chicken backs along with a mix of veggies and seasonings to create a stock that you have to try. This rich stock is cooked down to offer an even more deep, rich flavor. You can cut it down with water or use it more concentrated, we’ll leave that for you to decide. This stock is sold ready to use and is made from beyond organic, pasture raised chickens to deliver only the highest quality product.

Why chicken stock

Consuming bone broths and stocks is a key to human health. This is not hyperbole, bones really do hold so many nutrients within them that we dearly need to thrive. Some of these nutrients are calcium, magnesium, phosphorous, just to name a few. Bone marrow contains vitamins A & K, iron,fatty acids, selenium, etc. All of the above listed nutrients and minerals can help reduce inflammation, control or stave off osteoporosis, or even aid in sleep and weight loss.

The problem is, if you haven’t noticed, it’s kind of difficult to ingest bones. Humans can’t chew and digest them the way some animals do and the modern American diet contains less and less meat with the bone still attached. This is where the magic of stocks and broths come in. By cooking down bones with a mix of vegetables and seasonings you concentrate all of these benefits into liquid form that can be consumed in so many ways.

How do I use this

At one point I remember thinking chicken stock is great but how do I use it? I knew that it could be used in soups and chicken and dumplings but that’s a pretty small list. Then I started playing around with stock, like using it instead of water to cook rice, make sauces (think alfredo, marinara, and curry sauces), and even steaming vegetables. Of course don’t forget making gravy. The uses of chicken stock are only limited by your imagination.

However you choose to use it, we really do recommend that you try a quart. At $8.00/qt we believe it is priced very affordably for the premium product that it is. We will have it every week at the Bartlett Farmers Market or you can always come by the farm, just give us a call at 901-340-2849.

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