Tasting Like Chicken

Published October 22, 2012 | By Iowadawg

Its evolutionary origins.

Illustration by Robert Neubecker.

At least once a week, someone tells me that some food other than chicken “tastes like chicken.” People throw the analogy around constantly. Virtually any meat that is pale in color, firm in texture, and lacking a strong flavor is subjected to the chicken comparison.

Why chicken? It’s probably at least in part because most of us haven’t eaten very many types of meat. The meat universe of a typical American carnivore is limited to chicken, turkey, beef, pork, and perhaps lamb. That’s a pretty narrow selection in a world that includes more than 10,000 species of birds—let alone the rest of the vertebrate world. (And saying that things “taste like chicken,” it appears, is a distinctly American habit.)

The range of species I’ve heard compared to chicken, flavor-wise, is very broad across the evolutionary spectrum: various birds, of course, but also snakes, lizards, small mammals, certain fish. Which made me wonder: Can we trace the taste of chicken back down the evolutionary tree to a common ancestor? What was the first creature in evolutionary history that tasted like chicken? And for how long in the Earth’s history has life been tasting like chicken? Something had to come first, and I don’t think it was either the chicken or the egg.

In order to answer this question, we need to start with chickens and work our way back through the evolutionary family tree.

Does chicken taste like chicken? Don’t laugh—this is an important question. Even lifelong chicken eaters usually have a very narrow experience because the birds sold in grocery stores are usually one of a very few breeds that have been designed to grow a lot of breast meat very quickly in factory-farm settings. A Plymouth roasting hen slaughtered for market at 7 weeks does not make for the same eating experience as a 2-year-old Rhode Island Red. I once ate a bantam rooster that tasted more like iguana than a grocery store chicken.

I posed a question for a group of friends on Facebook, asking them whether they thought Cornish game hens taste like chicken. Some of the respondents were adamant that the little birds have their own flavor and texture that hardly resembles chicken. What I didn’t mention when I asked the question was the fact that Cornish game hens are simply ordinary chickens slaughtered at a younger age. Our idea of what chicken tastes like seems to be as informed by our expectations as by our palate.

A consensus has emerged in the scientific community that chickens and other birds are probably the direct descendants of dinosaurs. I have lost many good nights of sleep wondering what various species of dinosaurs tasted like, but the fact is that we don’t have any left to eat. Other than birds, the closest living relatives that we have to eat are the crocodilians, which date back to at least 250 million years ago.

Continue reading HERE.

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Maybe they see the end? And want to unload their crap asap?

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Human tresses

Hairy old myths

The power of pilosity

BLONDES are dumber and brunettes more dependable. Or so it is said. But it is redheads who have long been the more feared, revered, loathed and loved; hence the rumour that it takes more than an average dose of anaesthetic to sedate a carrot-top. As Sylvia Plath, herself a Titian tigress of sorts, once remarked, “Out of the ash I rise with my red hair, and eat men like air.”

Man’s fascination with hair is almost as old as humanity itself. But humans have been cutting and coiffing their hair for at least 25,000 years, mostly with the aim of pleasing themselves and distancing or differentiating themselves from others. Yves le Fur, curator of a new show about hair at the Quai Branly museum in Paris, is well aware that one of the earliest depictions of styled hair is a paleolithic figurine known as the Venus of Brassempouy, which was discovered in south-west France in 1894. But he hides his anthropological light under a bushel and draws visitors into “Cheveux Chéris” with a quick tour d’horizon of stylists, styles and styled, from Gina Lollobrigida to Ingres and the sirens of Ulysses.

Iran’s global cyber war-room is secretly hosted by Hizballah in Beirut

Iran’s secret cyber war-room is located at Hizballah’s secret internal security apparatus headquarters in the Shiite Dahya district of South Beirut, debkafile’s exclusive intelligence and counterterrorism sources reveal. The hackers and cyber experts who recently attacked American banks and Saudi oil sites and which guided an Iranian stealth drone into Israeli airspace on Oct. 6, operate from Hizballah’s premises in Beirut and its secret bunkers.

Wafiq Safa is head of the security apparatus and also deputy of the Iranian general, Hossein Mahadavi, who serves as the liaison and coordination officer with Hizballah in Lebanon.Safa’s son is married to the Hizballah chief Hassan Nasrallah’s sister.

Cyber intelligence experts explain Tehran uses its Lebanese surrogate to host its global digital war-room – firstly, to disguise the source of its cyber offensives and keep Iran clear of blame; secondly, because the Hizballah facility is protected from electronic penetration by exceptionally efficient firewalls.

MORE.

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MIA Search

Navy divers, assigned to Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit 2, Company 4, and the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, stand with the American flag, and the POW/MIA flag on the wreckage of a B-17 bomber that was shot down and sank during World War II during a dive Oct. 19, 2012. The team is deployed alongside JPAC aboard the USNS Grapple as part of a 30-day underwater recovery mission for an unaccounted-for service member who went missing during the crash. U.S. Navy photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Martin Carey

via.

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Feds Give Welfare to the Dead, Deny Medicare to the Living

The federal government has been paying welfare benefits to the dead and withholding Medicare benefits from the living, according to a new report from the Inspector General (IG) of the Social Security Administration (SSA).

The report, released October 12, set out to determine whether some individuals were improperly receiving Supplemental Security Income (SSI) payments after having their Medicare benefits terminated because they were considered deceased. SSI, which provides income support to needy individuals who are aged, blind, or disabled, is administered directly by the SSA. Medicare, which provides health insurance to the aged and disabled, is administered by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, but the SSA determines who is eligible to receive Medicare benefits and maintains the benefit records. Thus, one would expect the SSA to terminate both SSI and Medicare benefits for a particular beneficiary when the agency is notified that the beneficiary has passed away.

In most cases that is what occurs. However, the IG discovered that as of March 2012, 52 individuals were still receiving SSI benefits despite the fact that their Medicare benefits had been terminated because the SSA believed they had died.

Upon further investigation, the IG found that 30 of the 52 individuals were indeed deceased and should have had their SSI benefits terminated. “SSA overpaid these deceased individuals $405,357 in SSI payments for an average of 23 months,” the report says. Thirteen dead persons had been receiving benefits for over two years; one of them had even been raking in the dough for more than three years.

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Just two reasons why the USA does not need the United Nations

There are more than two reasons but hitting these two now.

The United nations is a blood sucking organization that seeks to impose international law upon the United States, totally overruling and superseding the American Constitution.

First off we have the U.N. ‘Special Rapporteur on Counter-Terrorism and Human Rights’ Ben Emmerson warning Americans NOT to elect Mitt Romney.

Why? Romney might be a ‘democratic mandate for torture.’

“The UN’s Ben Emmerson was referring to Romney’s refusal to rule out the use of waterboarding in interrogating terror detainees, a practice that President Barack Obama has ended.

Colin Perkel of The Canadian Press reported Emmerson’s remarks from a symposium in Toronto on the impact of 9/11 on human rights:

“The re-introduction of torture under a Romney administration would significantly increase the threat levels to (Americans) at home and abroad,” Emmerson said.

“Such a policy, if adopted, would expose the American people to risks the Obama administration is not currently exposing them to.”

Not as dangerous as the United Nations has become to America’s freedom and liberty as stated in our Constitution. The founding fathers knew what they were doing when they wrote our Constitution.

What’s the problem with the above policy should Romney win the election?

I have no problem with using whatever means are required to obtain information from terrorists when national security is at stake.

If that means waterboarding, insects in a box, creating ‘jinns’, 24 hour loud rock and roll, then this is what needs to be done.

I agree 100% with what you will read in the next feed. PatriotUSA

Here is a bit about Mr. Emmerson.

This is the article from Breitbart.com.

UN Warns Americans: Do Not Elect Mitt Romney

Read the rest here from Patriot’s Corner

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WASHINGTON – President Obama and Mitt Romney were spending the final hours before their third and final debate — a potentially decisive bout that will focus on foreign policy — studying hard, as new polling reinforces the view that Romney’s surge out of their first debate has made the race too close to call.

With two weeks until Election Day, neither candidate is likely to get another chance after Monday night to articulate his platform to such a broad audience. The debate offers the usual mix of opportunity and peril for the candidates. One slip-up could drive coverage for days, with precious few left on the calendar. A strong performance by either could turn a post-debate bounce into an Election Day victory.

And the race is tight enough for any needle-moving out of Monday night’s debate to make a difference. An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll on Sunday showed the president and Romney tied at 47 percent. A new Politico/George Washington University Battleground tracking poll showed Romney leading 49-47 percent — marking the first time the Republican nominee has led since May.

The 90-minute faceoff at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Fla., offers the candidates their last opportunity to stand one-on-one before tens of millions of Americans and command their undivided attention before next month’s election. Both candidates largely dropped out of sight and devoted their weekends to debate preparations, a sure sign of the high importance they attach to the event.

The debate is likely to get testy. In the last round, the two candidates repeatedly interrupted each other, and the moderator, as they jostled for time. The sensitive subject of the Libya terror attack is also expected to be a top issue Monday night.

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Another leftist po’d at obama!

Politico:
Monday’s presidential debate focuses on foreign policy and Cindy Sheehan has been a vocal critic of American foreign policy following the 2004 death of her son, Casey, while he was serving in Iraq.

Sheehan tells POLITICO in an email that, if the president claims to have had a strong term with regards to foreign policy, she’s not going to buy it. [...]

“As to the issue of war and peace — he has not been an improvement over Bush. The health care ‘reform’ was just another corporate giveaway and written by the industries that profit. Obama has expanded oil leases and been a failure regarding the environment — he is pushing charter schools and set up traditional schools to fail. Of course on the jobs’ front, Obama has been a dismal failure and many very progressive steps need to be taken to get us out of that hole, but I am afraid Obama will not take them,” she said.

“I see Obama as another able servant of the 1 percent despite some rhetorical nods to issues that I care about (mostly for votes). I was giving a talk the other day and I said that I ALMOST feel sorry for George Bush — there was so much hatred and invective flung at him (I know, I was guilty of this, too), but he must notice that Obama is continuing most of his policies and has been even congratulated by Dick Cheney, for example, and he must be wondering where’s the call from the left for Obama’s impeachment or trial for crimes against humanity. To my credit, I have been calling for these things for Obama as hard as I did with Bush.”

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Russell Means dead at 72

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — Russell Means never shunned attention. Whether leading Native Americans in railing against broken federal treaties, appearing in a Hollywood blockbuster or advocating a sovereign American Indian nation within U.S. borders, the activist who helped lead the 1973 uprising at Wounded Knee reveled in the spotlight.

But it was only on his terms. Openly critical of mainstream media, the onetime leader of the American Indian Movement often refused interviews and verbally blasted journalists who showed up to cover his public appearances. Instead, he chose to speak to his fan base through YouTube videos and blog posts on his personal website.

When he did speak out publicly, he remained steadfast in his defense of AIM. He found himself dogged for decades by questions about the group’s alleged involvement in the slaying of a tribe member and the several gun battles with federal officers during the 71-day occupation of Wounded Knee, but denied the group ever promoted violence.

Means, who announced in August 2011 that he had developed inoperable throat cancer but told The Associated Press he was forgoing mainstream medical treatments in favor of traditional American Indian remedies, died early Monday at his ranch in in Porcupine, S.D., Oglala Sioux Tribe spokeswoman Donna Salomon said. He was 72.
MORE

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A Baracktober Surprise Courtesy Of Iran?

At first it was, then it wasn’t. I think it was a trial balloon of sorts. Nonetheless it needs to be discussed and called out preemptively, lest the left confuses/accuses conservative realism that this is a last ditch election gimmick with cynicism.