I'm hoping that Fodors' expertise can answer my question - why are chickens sold in French supermarkets so yellow coloured?
I can't find anything on the labelling that tells me any extra ingredients have been added. Some (labelled 'jaune') are much yellower than others, but our chickens in Australia are completely white in comparison. Di

The color is very natural, unlike what you may find at home. It's the same in Spain,

Those are corn-fed chickens. You can get them in Australia but they are less common. I guess you could probably order them in if you live near a poultry shop.

Lavandula

They are cornfed. You can get cornfed chicken in the UK too.

Very yellow chickens are corn-fed, but Jaune is a breed of chicken from a specific area of France.
Look for Label Rouge on a chicken, whether it is black, white or yellow for a chicken which has had a good life.

Thanks for all those speedy answers!

I'll certainly hunt them down when I get home.

I recently found out that our supermarket chickens are bleached, and I also suspect somehow water is added in the process. When I roast one of ours, masses more water is left in the bottom of the roasting dish compared with here - using the same type of oven, on the same settings etc. Di

Are these AC chickens or normal chickens?

I visited a top level chicken house in France a few years back and they lived in this large roosting barn (no cages) and were let out during the day to walk in a field and small wood. They tended to just walk out one door, follow a circle and back in the next door but they had full access to the countryside.

How do they raise chickens in Oz?

This kind of explains it: http://ckenb.blogspot.nl/2010/02/lab...-chickens.html


I always buy Label Rouge chickens at my Dutch supermarket, bigger and tastier than agribusiness "plofkip", and not full of water.

(https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/plofkip)

Bilboburgler, we have a range of methods for raising chickens here in Australia. Probably similar to most countries.Same with eggs, everything from cage to proper free range.

Your story is funny, I guess nobody ever accused chickens of being smart!

To the OP, when you get home look for a good local butcher who sells proper ethically raised free range chickens. You might pay a fee dollars more but it's worth it. I haven't bought a supermarket chicken in years. I initially stopped buying supermarket chickens because the size of breast fillets had become a joke, they were huge and had an odd texture.

On another note, I hope Paris is as beautiful as ever, sigh.

Thanks for the link, het. That is a great explanation!
In reply to bil - unfortunately most of our chickens are battery raised, but I'm really going to find the right ones once I get home.
I can't eat our supermarket ones any more; I think somewhere in all that processing there are artificial preservatives being added - they definitely don't agree with my system!!! Di

>>"plofkip"<<

Not the most appetising of names.......

North American chickens are soaked in water containing chlorine bleach. That must remove some of the color.

However, I would imagine that there is also a relation to whether the hens lay white eggs or brown eggs. Since most eggs in North America are white and most eggs in Europe are brown, there might also be an influence in skin color. (The the color of the eggs have nothing to do with the color of the feathers but with the color of the ear lobes -- white or red.)

PatrickLondon, not the most appetising chicken either. White protein, no flavour, nothing to recommend it accept the price.

Here in New England, the commercial goes, "Brown eggs are local eggs and local eggs are fresh."

I believe our local brown eggs come from the chickens called Rhode Island Reds.

Egg color depends on breed.

Chicken color depends on feed. Purdue reportedly used to fed their chickens nasturtium petals to make them yellow. I don't know if they still do.

The only legal requirement for calling chickens "free range" is that they have access to an open door. They don't actually have to walk through it, or they may choose to -- they are free to range after all -- and then walk right back in. They just have to have the choice.

"Free range" and "organic" are not synonyms.

Most supermarket poultry is injected with salt water up to 5% of weight. This could be handy brining (good) or an attempt to give you less meat for your money (not so good) or to serve as a preservative since chicken goes off pretty quickly (depends on your point of view).

Thanks Ack - those dreaded preservatives are turning up in far more places than they're welcome, as far as I'm concerned. Seems to me that the preservative manufacturers have taken on board some marketing gurus who've promised to get their product into as many items as possible! Di