Why We Eat So Much Chicken

Overview

Americans eat about 103 pounds of chicken per person every year, which is roughly one chicken every five days. But how did chicken become such an important part of the American diet? The rise of the modern chicken industry involved thousands of years of history, wartime meat shortages, government-sponsored breeding contests, industrial farming, fast food, and even a bizarre Twitter feud. In this episode of Weird History Food, we trace the surprising history of how chicken went from a relatively ordinary bird to one of the most popular foods in America and how the fast food industry, chicken breeding, and modern agriculture transformed what Americans eat.