Interesting Chicken Historical Facts
It is believed that the modern chicken used for baked meat and other dish is descended from the Red Jungle Fowl. This species of bird was first domesticated in the northern parts of India and Southeast Asia more than 4,000 years ago.
Also about 4,000 years ago, the Egyptians built very large incubators made of bricks. The incubators could hold up to 10,000 chicks at a time. In around 600 BC, Babylonians depicted chicken in their carvings.
During the Middle Ages, chicken was the most popular meat. People believed that the meat was easier to digest.
In the 1980s, breast meat constituted 10% of the chicken’s total weight. By 2007, that number has increased to 21%.
During the Second World War, consumption of chicken in the US increased because there was a decrease in availability of beef and veal.
About 95% of restaurants in the US have chicken on the menu. The most popular dish is fried chicken, accounting for over 50% of chicken entrees ordered in the US.
In 2003, the average number of pounds consumed by an American in a year is 81.5 pounds. In 2007, the number has increased to 84.9 pounds per year. Cornish and White Rock are the most popular breeds for consumption in the US.
Other Interesting Trivia About the Chicken
There are workers called chicken sexers. What their job entails is separating female from male chicks. To do this, a sexer holds a chick to a 300-watt bulb to examine external patterns. Females are kept for egg laying, while males are raised for consumption. A professional sexer can examine one thousand chicks per hour with an accuracy of 98%. That’s 8,000 chicks per day.
In the year 2000, China had the largest population of chickens in the world. About 3.6 billion of them lived in China. The next largest population was found in the US, where there were 1.7 billion chickens. This was followed by Indonesia (1 billion), Brazil (950 million), and Mexico (476 million).
Gainesville, Georgia is the “Chicken Capital of the World”. There, eating the meat with fork is considered illegal.
Chicken skin color range from yellow to cream-colored. The color of skin depends on the type of feed given to the animal.
You can freeze chicken meat for up to two years and it will not change in color or flavor.
Baked chicken is the one of the easiest and healthiest of all dishes. When internal temperature of baked meat has reached 160 – 170 degrees F (as measured by meat thermometer), it is considered safe to eat. The pinkish tinge of baked meat is caused by hemoglobin in meat tissues that has turned into a heat-stable color.