move; movement would make them more muscular and less tender to chew. And it was oddly quiet, as if these genetically manipulated creatures had been bred to hush up. Their silence was probably a side effect of all the hormones, antibiotics, and other chemicals pumped in so that they could be, mercifully, slaughtered as 3.5 pounds of product in seven weeks.
What chance did Mike and Michele Thompson — and their six kids — have against this? In front of the bio-sealed Gold Kist factory, I looked down at the feather in my hand, the wild quill that had fluttered out of the sky. The contrast between the freedom of that hawk, flushed out of an evergreen into the morning sky, andthe industrial birds numbed by chemicals, deprived of sunlight and freedom, suggested a frightening metaphor for the way we humans have come to live in a flattening world.
IT SMELLED LIKE CHICKEN at Bobby Lu’s Diner in Siler City, ten miles up the road from Jackie’s. As I walked through the restaurant to an open booth, I noticed that nearly all of the fifty or so customers were eating chicken. Broiled, fried, cordon bleu; fat chicken legs and breasts, chemically pumped-up Gold Kist pickings.
Having seen, and smelled, the bio-sealed Gold Kist factory, I felt nauseous and skimmed the menu for something that wasn’t chicken. I ordered a cheese sandwich with taters and salad. The customers, nearly all of them white, seemed to have a nearly identical glow, or lack thereof, a kind of sheen. I wondered what the effect of eating chemically enhanced food over decades has on our bodies. Do we become like factory chickens when we avoid exercise, work and live most of our lives indoors, and eat chemically altered food?
Also, is there an unconscious effect of being so close to the source of so much pain? Maybe I was imagining things, but I could almost feel the Gold Kist factory’s dread in the air, an invisible violence like radio transmissions.
I had spent much of the past decade in places where humans still live in relative harmony with nature and one another, in the Global South where the land hasn’t yet been domesticated, nor culture industrialized. Sociologists point out that American kids today can identify a thousand corporate logos but less than ten native plants and animals that live around their homes. Are we, like Gold Kist chickens, evolving in artificially manufactured, rather than natural, ways?
THAT NIGHT, UNDERT HE STARS, I made myself a second meal: over an open fire beside the 12 × 12, I grilled my five-pound broiler.In the end, I had decided that it wasn’t in me to kill a chicken myself, and Mike did it for me. Perhaps in the future I’d see it differently and be able to participate in that natural process: steward an animal’s healthy growth; take its life, with reverence; and ingest its energy into my own. I wasn’t there yet. However, it certainly was in me to support the Thompsons’ free-range agriculture. I sat down to eat, alone, with care.
In each bite, all that flavor connected with the Thompsons. After seeing the Gold Kist plant and its chicken in Bobby Lu’s, I appreciated the Thompsons’ efforts even more. They were taking a stand and attempting, on their quirky little farm, to heal a ruptured relationship with the earth’s natural rhythms. In the fire and moonlight, I looked at each bite before I ate it, smelled it, felt the flesh on my tongue, exploring the texture and the taste.
Mindful eating restored some of my balance, but not all. I was too aware of how complexly interwoven our society’s problems are. Each time I biked up the highway, I’d feel the asphalt harden inside. At the Quick-N-Easy convenience store, four miles from the 12 × 12, I sometimes encountered fights, nagging, and even viciousness between people, as if our factory-farmed Flat World causes us to go a bit nuts and peck each other. Once when I was shopping there, a man yelled at his wife in the parking lot: “Maybe if you didn’t pick
What chance did Mike and Michele Thompson — and their six kids — have against this? In front of the bio-sealed Gold Kist factory, I looked down at the feather in my hand, the wild quill that had fluttered out of the sky. The contrast between the freedom of that hawk, flushed out of an evergreen into the morning sky, andthe industrial birds numbed by chemicals, deprived of sunlight and freedom, suggested a frightening metaphor for the way we humans have come to live in a flattening world.
IT SMELLED LIKE CHICKEN at Bobby Lu’s Diner in Siler City, ten miles up the road from Jackie’s. As I walked through the restaurant to an open booth, I noticed that nearly all of the fifty or so customers were eating chicken. Broiled, fried, cordon bleu; fat chicken legs and breasts, chemically pumped-up Gold Kist pickings.
Having seen, and smelled, the bio-sealed Gold Kist factory, I felt nauseous and skimmed the menu for something that wasn’t chicken. I ordered a cheese sandwich with taters and salad. The customers, nearly all of them white, seemed to have a nearly identical glow, or lack thereof, a kind of sheen. I wondered what the effect of eating chemically enhanced food over decades has on our bodies. Do we become like factory chickens when we avoid exercise, work and live most of our lives indoors, and eat chemically altered food?
Also, is there an unconscious effect of being so close to the source of so much pain? Maybe I was imagining things, but I could almost feel the Gold Kist factory’s dread in the air, an invisible violence like radio transmissions.
I had spent much of the past decade in places where humans still live in relative harmony with nature and one another, in the Global South where the land hasn’t yet been domesticated, nor culture industrialized. Sociologists point out that American kids today can identify a thousand corporate logos but less than ten native plants and animals that live around their homes. Are we, like Gold Kist chickens, evolving in artificially manufactured, rather than natural, ways?
THAT NIGHT, UNDERT HE STARS, I made myself a second meal: over an open fire beside the 12 × 12, I grilled my five-pound broiler.In the end, I had decided that it wasn’t in me to kill a chicken myself, and Mike did it for me. Perhaps in the future I’d see it differently and be able to participate in that natural process: steward an animal’s healthy growth; take its life, with reverence; and ingest its energy into my own. I wasn’t there yet. However, it certainly was in me to support the Thompsons’ free-range agriculture. I sat down to eat, alone, with care.
In each bite, all that flavor connected with the Thompsons. After seeing the Gold Kist plant and its chicken in Bobby Lu’s, I appreciated the Thompsons’ efforts even more. They were taking a stand and attempting, on their quirky little farm, to heal a ruptured relationship with the earth’s natural rhythms. In the fire and moonlight, I looked at each bite before I ate it, smelled it, felt the flesh on my tongue, exploring the texture and the taste.
Mindful eating restored some of my balance, but not all. I was too aware of how complexly interwoven our society’s problems are. Each time I biked up the highway, I’d feel the asphalt harden inside. At the Quick-N-Easy convenience store, four miles from the 12 × 12, I sometimes encountered fights, nagging, and even viciousness between people, as if our factory-farmed Flat World causes us to go a bit nuts and peck each other. Once when I was shopping there, a man yelled at his wife in the parking lot: “Maybe if you didn’t pick
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