Free range chicken - does it really taste better?

[phaelon56]

I'll confess to only having "free range chicken" on two occasions. Once was when I paid through the nose for some at a Wegman's Grocery and used it for a Thai influenced dish (albeit not spicy). I wanted to really impress a woman I was cooking for a dinner for and it worked but not because of the chicken. The second time was at a picnic lunch/dinner at the home of an eGulleteer. On that occasion it was eaten cold, having been cooked the previous day.

I identify with and understand the rationale behind supporting smaller farmers, sustainable agriculture and more traditional (and more humane) animal husbandry methods. No need to debate those issues here. I'm more interested in the actual taste and texture. I recognize that some grocery store chicken is better than others but I've brined and grilled some chicken this summer that tasted every bit as good as the free range chicken I've tried.

So..... what is it?

• - My palate just isn't discerning enough (I can readily accept this)
  - I didn't have the right brand. Some free range chickens are more free than others
  - I didn't do a true blind test A/B comparison but might taste the difference if I did so
  - The Emperor's New Clothes syndrome - people just think it tastes better
  - It's an ethical choice that people feel comfortable with now that the nature of "factory farms" is widely understood
  - It either is or is perceived to be "healthier"
  

Or is it it something else?

[andiesenji]

There are several interesting things about free range chickens.

First, the meat has more color, they are more active and develop increased circulation and capillary formation and even when fully cooked the meat will retain a rosy quality that may make one think it is underdone. This is the way farm raised chickens always looked but if you have never seen one it doesn't look quite right. There is also more flavor in the meat because of a more diversified diet which includes greens and other foods not fed to battery-raised chickens.

The meat mass on the wings, thighs and legs is larger because of greater muscle mass developed from being allowed to roam free. Conversely the breast mass is slightly smaller.

The heart and gizzard are also larger but the liver is slightly smaller.

However, not all "free-range" chickens are actually free range. You have to know the supplier. True free-range chickens are not confined during the day but are allowed to roam free in an area planted with greens for them to feed on along with whole grains and commercial feeds specifically developed for birds for meat production or for egg-laying production. They are confined at night where they are safe from predators.

Some so called free-range chickens are confined most of the time and allowed to "range" in a small area where only commercial feed is available.

Tricky semantics.

The breeds differ also. Some breeds thrive better as free ranging and some just have better flavor. I buy from a local farmer his "old" hens that have been egg producers for stewing hens.

These are very large birds, Wyandotte and Buff Orpingtons, and, as is desirable in a stewing hen, have a much larger amount of fat than any battery raised bird.

They are also good for slow roasting. The meat may be a little tougher than in a grocery store chicken but the flavor is far superior.

The birds that are bred for rapid growth and meat production do not have the best flavor.

If you can find a local supplier of real free range chickens call them and ask what breed they raise and where you can find their product for sale.

[Carrot Top]

One of the other forms of 'free-range' chicken that is being touted is neither exactly free-ranging nor enclosed....they are confined in medium-large wood and chicken wire pyramid-shaped structures that are hauled around to different parts of the pasture during their growth.

Seems to me a lot of your thoughts apply to the question, phaelon. I've also read of a recent testing (I think it was Cooks Illustrated) where the kosher chickens came out as the preferred chicken among all the other choices, including 'free range' varieties.

[fifi]

I live in suburbia, far away from the kindly farmer that might be able to supply me with a bird that was chasing bugs and flapping in the sun an hour earlier. That utopia doesn't exist for a great majority of us. So... I go to my local grocery and see what is on offer. Ah Ha! There is "Laura's" something or other. (I suspect that the name is a tug for baby boomers that grew up with "Little House on the Prairie".)

I take my prize home, slather it with goose fat and salt, and shove it in the oven. This is my ultimate simple recipe for chicken from David Rosengarten. The results were underwhelming. Not a lot of flavor, to be sure. I could continue to use this chicken to feel all warmy and green. But I did go back to my industrial Butterball chicken that tastes like a chicken until something better comes along. BTW... This isn't the first "organic, free range, blah blah blah" chicken that I have been disappointed in.

[phaelon56]

So I'm not alone and not crazy. Perhaps I'm both but for different reasons.

Andiesenji's explanation makes great sense to me. I'm fortunate enough (depending on how one looks at it) to be close enough to "the sticks" that I should be able to locate a source for better birds than the local grocery sells as "free range". Our local farmers market has a vendor selling grass fed beef (locally raised with no hormones, no anti-biotics etc.). She also has heirloom turkeys - I'll look into what other poultry may be available.

Our only local Kosher meat market closed years ago but I'm sure Wegman's has Kosher chickens - can't believe that our local Orthodox community is driving all the way to Rochester for chicken.

[Pan]

My father likes to buy Amish free-range chickens or, failing that, Murray's. Free range chickens tend not to have been fed cod liver oil, so they do taste clearly better in my opinion. I do recognize that some fakery is going on with so-called "free-range chickens" that really are not, though, as mentioned above.

Edited September 28, 2004 by Pan (log)

[kiliki]

I didn't actually know that anyone was saying they TASTE better-I've never been under the impression that was their appeal. Everyone I know that buys them (including myself) does so for reasons you mentioned in your first post (and it is easy here to find them from local growers).

[Pan]

I didn't actually know that anyone was saying they TASTE better

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Now you do!

Probably the best-tasting chickens I ever ate were free-range village chickens in Malaysia. No antibiotics, no cod liver oil, fed on rice plus whatever they scrounged while running around the neighborhood. They were muscular and did have to be cooked twice as long as the industrial chickens that have no life, however.

[Stone]

My understanding is that true free-range chickens don't necessarily taste better or worse because the producer can't monitor the chickens' food as well. The inconsistency in their diet leads to inconsistency in their taste.

[Busboy]

I like free-rangers because I think the white meat cooks up juicier -- and gives you a little margin or error when roasting a whole bird.

I think they taste better, too, but I'm not so convinced that I'd wager money on it. Could be that we just became better chicken-cookers at about the same time we started buying better chickens. (Come to think of it, that is when my wife learned the magic spatchcock trick).

[Yuki]

I think it depends on the breed too, the chicken I get in Hong Kong, even if it is from the supermarket, have a much stronger chicken taste and less meat than the chicken I can generally get in Canada's supermarket. Lots of chicken in North America probably got a breast implant too..........

One of the best chicken I tasted was during a hiking trip, the hike took around a couple hours and eventually we reached a shack on the mountain side. Their specialty is chicken congee, you can see chicken walking near the shack. They kill the chicken on the spot and put it in the congee.

[fifi]

I did have something odd happen a couple of years ago. I shop infrequently at a large Asian market here. I don't usually buy meat there but they do have the best pork. One day, I did notice chicken backs and bits left over from trimming and it was packaged for making stock. I was in need of stock so I couldn't pass that up. I put the stock in the fridge to solidify the fat as usual. The next morning I took it out and the fat was still semi-liquid. I have since referred to that as my encounter with polyunsaturated chicken. Obviously, that chicken had eaten a different diet of some kind. The stock was very good but not something to do a happy dance about.

Hmmm... Maybe I should try some of that chicken.

[Carrot Top]

My understanding is that true free-range chickens don't necessarily taste better or worse because the producer can't monitor the chickens' food as well.  The inconsistency in their diet leads to inconsistency in their taste.

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This is something that poultry farmers who have a mind to, can and do address.

There are a vast amount of 'feed systems' that can be used to develop the taste of the birds. Different combinations of grains are used to supplement the 'free-range' diet.

Of course, the better the feed, the more expensive the final product becomes.

And often the price of organic feed, specifically, is so prohibitive for the small poultry farmer that they do not use it.

Chicken farming is not at all a glamorous business. Lots of hard and dirty work is involved...culminating in the final dressing and cleaning of the birds, which is onerous. Personally I've known two small 'free-range' chicken farmers who went out of business because of this part in particular.

Even with equipment to make it easier (a de-feathering machine and a supersonic boiling vat to remove pinfeathers) there is still a lot of messy stinky butchering to do...and small time rural farmers (usually younger folk looking for a better way of life with purer food) can not even get the old-timers who know how to do it to come to work for them at butchering time (when lots of chickens come to the right size)...for factory work is much easier and pays better!

Chicken, free-range, is a lovely (and it can be a tasty idea...till you have to kill it and clean it yourself OR pay the price it demands....)

[flapjack willy]

Free range is very tricky. As stated above, true free range birds are allowed access to all sorts of feed and enviormental conditions. This can and does lead to an incosistent taste, and a product that will very in size as well. Factory raised or what we call "commodity chicken" in the wholesale business is just what you may fear it is; birds that have been de-beaked, crammed into tiny cages and feed a feed blend that may include their own waste material amongst other things.

In my humble opinion, the best chicken lives a life somewhere in the middle. Low density confinement for living conditions, lots of fresh water, sunshine and fresh air ( their attitude does influence their taste) and most important of all the feed that they eat.

I sell, at the wholesale level, a bird that meets the above requirements and it is absolutely outstanding. The grower feeds the birds an all natural diet and has a protocal where the feed is tested everyday. This bird sells for about twice the cost of commodity, but once you get a chef to try it they never leave it.

I will ask the grower if he wants me to share his name with y'all and if he would like to consider any new ways to distribute the product.

By the way, now he is getting into raising pitade's, guiena's chuckers and bobwhite quail. This guy is way out front as far as the poultry business is concerned.

[Mottmott]

Aside from issues of taste, for health reasons I would go with free range chickens that have not been fed antibiotics or hormones and which are, preferable organic. Though I do think they taste better.

edited for a spelling error

Edited September 29, 2004 by Mottmott (log)

[marie-louise]

I think the organic, free range chickens we get in the SF Bay Area (Rosie brand) taste much better than the Foster Farms brand. My definition of "better" is that they have a more intense chicken flavor. They also have a little firmer texture without being dry. I recall hearing Jacques Pepin say once that French Bresse (sp?) chickens are also more intensely flavored-perhaps they are also free-range?

Even if they didn't taste better, I would still buy them because I don't want to eat antibiotics, hormones, and God knows what else in my food.

Edited to add this link to Rosie (and Rocky) chickens: http://www.petalumapoultry.com/products/index.html

Edited September 29, 2004 by marie-louise (log)

[Pan]

Flapjack, I'm glad you're putting in your two cents, and I'm sure you produce an excellent product, but I have a lot of trouble with the idea that confining chickens improves them in any way I can imagine, except if you'd rather not deal with the longer cooking times an active, muscular chicken requires. My 5th/6th-grade girlfriend's father had a coop of white chickens that were confined at all times, outside and with some exposure to the sun. I think there was space between the floorboards such that a lot of the crap went down to the ground a few feet below, keeping the environment in the coop from becoming disgustingly filthy. The chickens weren't de-beaked and could move around. Perhaps you'd call it moderate confinement; I don't know, but my perception was that those chickens were in a crowded environment that stunted their development because they never learned to fend for themselves, and I felt that they were dumber than the average bird, and rather pathetic. Of course, several of those things would be pretty hard to prove. But I think chickens need some land to run around in. Of course, that's in an ideal world, and we all know we don't have one.

[snowangel]

My free range chickens (which I get from an out of town cooperative) have been tended by 4-H kids, and when I get a chicken, it is in a plastic bag with the name of the student who tended said chicken on the label. It is wonderful.

It takes me back to those days when my grandmother and I would head out to her cousin's house and kill a few chickens.

These are the best chickens ever. I love calling them by the raiser's names when I put them on the table.

[kjente2]

I will generally ask whether it is a "scratch chicken" or they are using free range as an organically fed chicken. It was a rude day of awakening when I learned that I'd have to ask what free range meant to whomever I was purchasing from. Rosie is what I purchase in California. If you happen to be in Minnesota, there is a woman at the Minneapolis Farmers Market that drives down from St. Cloud on weekends that had the best chickens I've ever tasted.

[bleudauvergne]

Interesting topic.

I stand by andiesenji's point about the breed. The breed definitely does affect taste. If it's your priority to do some research into that you'll be in a better position to choose a chicken that's more likely to taste better. For my normal everyday chicken, I buy from my butcher who has sourced a very good product. Although they are are raised in open air, most importantly, they are a breed that are on the whole slow growers, instead of the requisite 6 weeks for your average industrial chicken to reach 1,2 kilos, they are rasied to a 1,2 kilo weight in 12 weeks. They taste much better.

Another lab experiment is this: Break 2 eggs, one free range and one from the industrially raised chicken, and take a look at them. I've noticed that the yolks are larger and darker from the free range chickens. Does this make the better egg? I think so.

[fifi]

My free range chickens (which I get from an out of town cooperative) have been tended by 4-H kids, and when I get a chicken, it is in a plastic bag with the name of the student who tended said chicken on the label.  It is wonderful.

It takes me back to those days when my grandmother and I would head out to her cousin's house and kill a few chickens.

These are the best chickens ever.  I love calling them by the raiser's names when I put them on the table.

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Now THAT is a great idea! Some of our more outlying high schools have active 4-H programs. My sister is on the Chicken Committee for the Houston Rodeo and Livestock Show so I will bet that they have some contacts. I could also call the school districts around here. Hmmm... I wonder what other lovingly raised beasties might be on offer. At least the kids would know that their animals would be going to a place where all of their care would be appreciated.

[Carrot Top]

Hmmm... I wonder what other lovingly raised beasties might be on offer. At least the kids would know that their animals would be going to a place where all of their care would be appreciated.

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Generally any livestock that are raised (unless they decide to keep it as a pet) are sold. Pigs, lambs, goats, rabbits...I think that some of the profit goes to the 4-H participant and part goes to the 4-H Club. On the larger livestock, there is a bidding process that usually happens at the end of the 'shows'...and if you win, you get your picture taken with the prize piggy or whatever...and posted in the local newspapers. Good for business in small rural towns, and good for local gossip...who bought what!

If you do buy a larger animal, remember to count in the cost of having it transported (unless you can haul it yourself!) to the local processing plant, and factor in their costs, too.

Not a simple enterprise, but a very real and connected one.

[chickenlady]

My answer to whether free range chickens taste better is a definitive... sometimes.

When I can afford it and they are available, I buy organic, free range chickens from a local grower. And sometimes they are absolutely the most chickenly-delicious thing every to grace my table. Sometimes they are a bit bland and chewy; not bad, but not any better than a good conventional chicken. All of which I completely expect, because by their very free-rangyness (nice use of made up words, huh?) they are not all receiving the same exact level of care/exercise/food intake as each other.

For the true free range chicken--I'm not talking about these pseudo free-rangers, who in reality may never have set foot outside; they only have to have access to the outside to be considered free range--I don't see a solution to this inconsistency in flavor and texture. I raise chickens myself and some of them are just lazy birds who want to spend all day hatching nonexistant eggs, some roam the neighborhood. They eat different things at different times of the year. There are so many variables!

But I'll still keep buying the local chickens when I can, because of the great flavor and texture of a really good one, along with all the other reasons for choosing local organic foods.

[Bux]

As has already been stated in one way or another, all other things being equal, the free range chicken is very likely to taste better, but all things are never equal. We've been satisfied with a number of brands of free range chickens that have eventually gone down hill. As the brand sells better and better, more farmers are supplying that brand and presumably, they all adhere to a certain minimum standard, but they all don't produce as tasty a chicken. As has also been stated, "free range" means a lot of different things and thus may not mean much on a label.

[Carrot Top]

Sometimes the taste of the chicken can be affected by the wine. Not that you've cooked it in, mind you, but the one you are drinking with it.

A fine bottle of fat soul warming Burgundy does wonders.