Forget the trade deficit. The real crisis is that Americans are shipping flavor overseas, to the tune of up to a billion dollars a year.* That's right, since we tend to prefer white chicken meat to dark by a factor of two to one, up to 30% of the dark meat produced in this country is exported. This despite the fact that dark meat has more flavor than white, is cheaper, and is much harder to dry out by overcooking. It has more fat, too, but still a lot less fat than many cuts of beef, ice cream, french fries, or lots of other things we all love to eat. Let's face it, the fat is what makes it taste better. So if you're tired of dry, overcooked, innocuous-tasting chicken breasts, give the legs and thighs a try.
Trans Fatty Blog, of course, advocates buying and eating whole chickens every time. Do the right thing, people. Let's keep flavor at home.
*I read this in a two-week old copy of the New York Times I found lying around. The article by Mark Bittman is still available online (Crossing Over to the Dark Side) but you have to pay to read it. Or you could do the old-fashioned thing and go read the hard copy at the library. (Does anybody do that anymore?)
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