The Chris Effect

There are a bunch of arguable notions about the animal kingdom I have trouble accepting on faith. We evolved from apes. Flies are integral to the food chain. Cows contribute more to global warming than cars. There are more chickens on the planet than humans.

Naturally, I have a beef with all these crazy notions, but the last one I had to think about. If it’s true, then there’s at least, if not more, than seven billion chickens roaming the countryside. You know how big that number is? If you earned one-hundred dollars every MINUTE you worked at your full-time job, without any vacation, it would take you over five-hundred years to make that amount. So yeah, that’s a lot.

Could there really be that many chickens? And if so, why? I’ll tell you why: because we eat them. That many. We, as humans, eat a lot of freaking chickens. Just think about your average Chinese food restaurant. How many dishes include chicken? Chicken chow mein, chicken balls, chicken fried rice, sesame chicken, lemon chicken, orange chicken, kung pao chicken, Szechuan Chicken, chicken stir-fry, curry chicken, chicken teriyaki, General Tao’s chicken…the list goes on. And those are just the Chinese.

What about chicken wings? Nearly every restaurant offers these tasty treats (and most are apparently award-worthy). Let’s not forget that these things only come two to a bird. Unless, of course, you count the legs too, then it’s four to a bird. Still, you wolf down a dozen or two during a meal and that’s about five or six chickens right there, in ONE meal. What about your friends, or other patrons? How many chickens get slaughtered each night just for chicken wings? And let’s not forget about other dishes: chicken fingers, chicken sandwiches, you get the idea. It’ must take a couple hundred chickens to keep an average restaurant going EVERY DAY.

Now consider the franchises where chickens are the main course. KFC, Popeye’s, Swiss Chalet, Wild Wing, Chubby Chicken, etc. It probably takes a boatload of chickens to run your local KFC every day.

But what if you feel like chicken tonight, and want to cook your own? Why, you can just hop on down to the grocery store and buy all the chicken you want! Be it whole chickens, or just slabs of chicken breasts. Boxed chicken nuggets or a HungryMan tv dinner. Shake’N’Bake chicken or chicken gravy. Chicken weiners or freshly sliced cajun chicken. Chicken pot pie or Mrs. Hackenbirger’s Chicken O’s breakfast cereal. Or maybe you don’t have time for a meal – just grab a chicken shake and you’ll be good to go.

Just how many chickens do you think you consume in a year anyway? Even if you’re a strict vegetarian you probably ingest a few every now and then. Maybe you sleep munch on leftovers. Maybe that pint of blood you received at the hospital came from a meat lover. Maybe you pass a KFC twice a day to and from work; after a year of that you’ve probably breathed in a whole chicken or two. Whatever the case, you’ve got chicken in you.

So just how many chickens does it take to run not just a restaurant or a grocery store, but for your entire city for a day? What about a year? What about your whole country? The world?

Maybe seven billion isn’t enough.

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This entry was posted on February 10, 2010 at 00:51 and is filed under Rants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.