Does anybody know where I can buy 'drug free' chickens in the Sosua area?
Also, nobody has really answered my question regarding the small size of the 'drugged' up chickens. The biggest chickens available in the local supermarkets are approx 3lb in weight. What's the point of pumping the chickens full of drugs if that's as big as they grow? If they're given growth hormones surely they'd be bigger and if they're given oestrogen based drugs, I imagine they'd be bigger because of the water retention, as in the UK.
In the UK the supermarket chickens are much bigger than this and are quite watery and tasteless. By comparison the supermarket chickens here have a much better flavour and are not so 'watery'. Why the difference? Would it be the breed or are they using different drugs or different quantities of drugs? Surely the chickens can't be so small to start off with that 3lb is the maximum weight that can be achieved with drugs? I would have thought that would make it hardly worth it for the farmer. Wouldn't the pattern of normal 'Dominican Enterprise' ensure that they 'took it to the max'........
First, they (the chicken) are not being given GH (growth hormone). A shot of GH would be more expensive as the chicken itself... and would reduce fat content too. They are given Estrogens for it's side effect of water retention only... that's why it will shrink in your frying pan... the water is evaporating (so is part of the money you paid for the meat). It's just to put more weigth on the scale comes selling time.
In Europe chicken lives for 20-some days... so growth (weight gaining) is accelerated. I agree with you, chicken is better here... I am told by an ex-farmer that in big production they live for 40-some days... slower growth = better meat.
I would not bet on that some free roaming campo chicken could or would not likely be "on" something too. You may have seen the several veterinarian stores around, which typically carry big layout of all sorts of drugs. The climate is ideal for many sickness', especially in chicken and pork and people here have no problem feeding their animals with what ever bears some distant promise of cure or prevention.
Big indoor-production chicken and pork MUST be on antibacterial treatment, especiallya around here of it will die or make you sick.
But I must say that I like th food here... even some supermarket chicken has great taste.
Be also not fooled to think that hormones and antibiotics are only used in this or "these" countries... they are or have been used in most countries, developed ones to and that may also include most countries where most of us come from. CONTROL may be an different issue/problem in this and similar countries however.
... J-D.
gre:
