Who Are Chickens?
You might think you know "what" chickens are—feathered birds, "sandwich filling," or bodies wrapped tightly in plastic and Styrofoam at the meat counter—but maybe you've never thought about "who" they are.
Fun Chicken Facts
When allowed to enjoy fresh air, sunshine, and companionship, chickens are remarkable animals, each with a distinct personality. People who've rescued chickens or kept chickens as companions know that they're like dogs, celebrating "Mom and Dad's" return home with excited sounds. They're feathered "lap dogs," known to snuggle up to be petted, making little sounds of contentment. In free-roaming flocks, a rooster will guard his hens as they take dust baths, shelter their babies under their wing, and develop complex social relationships—a "pecking order."
Frightening Chicken Facts
On the flip side, billions of chickens go from shell to hell on factory farms. Female chicks are debeaked, their tiny beaks—and often part of their tongue or face—burned off with hot blade. Their brothers, "useless" to the egg industry, are tossed in plastic bags to suffocate to death. Hens used as egg layers are total prisoners, spending their entire lives in cramped, filthy wire cages, unable even to spread one wing. Every part of their existence is mechanized—conveyor belts roll food by and their eggs away. When their productivity slows, they're purposely starved to force more eggs out of them (a process called "forced molting"). When their egg production declines because of illness or age or stress, no vet is called. The hens are 
simply yanked from their cages, often suffering broken wings and legs, thrown onto a truck for a frightening ride in all weather extremes to the slaughterhouse. There they are hung upside down, screeching and frightened. Their throats are slit and their withered bodies ground up for soup and pie fillings.
"Broilers" are raised in huge, crowded windowless sheds and pumped full of antibiotics to keep them from dropping dead from diseases caused and amplified by overcrowding and living in their own waste. Crippled birds live with chronic leg pain, bowed legs, rickets, arthritis, and other ailments—unable to reach food and water. Bred for maximum breast meat, their little legs cannot adequately support their weight. Many die of thirst and starvation. When they are between 6 to 8 weeks old, they're slaughtered.
Chicken flesh is not a health food. In addition to hormones and antibiotics, chicken is loaded with fat and cholesterol—exactly as much as beef, 25 milligrams per ounce, even without the skin. (One egg packs 213 milligrams of cholesterol!) Folks who devour drumsticks and other chicken parts up their odds of heart disease, cancer, stroke, obesity, and other meat-related ailments.
Click here for more information on chickens.
Try this tasty vegan take on the original.
Buffalo Wing-Dings
Seitan or "wheat meat"—an amazing ready-made food available in health food stores and some supermarkets—is a tasty and low-fat stand-in for the "real thing." Try it in everything from Buffalo wings and "chicken" salads to sandwiches and stir-fries.
Ingredients
2 lbs. seitan, cut into strips
3 Tbsp. ketchup
2 Tbsp. soy sauce
2 tsp. sugar
1/2 tsp. ground ginger
1/2 tsp. crushed red pepper
Water
1 Tbsp. cornstarch
Preparation
In a 12-inch skillet over medium-high heat, brown the seitan on both sides. Add the ketchup, soy sauce, sugar, ginger, crushed red pepper, and 3/4 cup water. Heat to boiling, then reduce the heat, cover, and simmer for 5 to 10 minutes. In a small bowl, mix together the cornstarch with 2 Tbsp. water, stirring until the cornstarch is dissolved. Gradually stir the cornstarch mixture into the seitan mixture and cook until the sauce boils and thickens slightly. Serve immediately.
Makes 6 to 8 servings.
