How much fat is really in your grilled chicken?

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Posted at 2:30PM, 12 March 2008 by Jenni Muir - Food writer

My husband can remember when chicken was an occasional treat. His family didn't even have it once a week when he was growing up. And as it was an occasional treat, they wouldn't give its fat content a second thought. (Mind you, they didn't give the fat content of their weekly Cornish pasties a second thought either!)

But these days, don't many of us buy chicken as our default healthy protein for midweek suppers? And maybe choose it over cheese, ham or beef in the sandwich chains because we assume it is low in fat? After all, for years we've been hearing nutrition advice to choose white poultry as the lean option, and we've come to love it. You might even say we've come to rely on it.

Yet research by the highly regarded Professor Michael Crawford and colleagues at London Metropolitan University has shown that chicken - whether battery farmed or organic - is no longer a lean choice. They compared 52 chickens from various supermarkets and found that there were three times the calories coming from fat as from protein.

Is it time we stopped listening to nutritional advice altogether?

'Consumers, and many nutritionists, still think chicken is a protein-rich product. But now it is a fat-rich product,' says Crawford. Which makes me wonder how long before this will be reflected in the calorie and fat counts used by the food industry on packaging, and by nutritionists in recipe calculations.

Or is it time we stopped listening to nutritional advice altogether? There is an interesting new book by American scientific journalist Michael Pollan regarded Michael Pollan called 'In Defence of Food' in which he argues that 'Thirty years of official nutritional advice has only made us sicker and fatter while ruining countless numbers of meals.' His advice is: 'Don't eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn't recognise as food'.

My great-grandmother certainly recognised chickens. What she wouldn't understand is why they weren't reared in a coop in the back yard.

Comments

zxcvbnm

12 March 2008, 10:42PM
zxcvbnm

2005 how up to date http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article376661.ece

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Jenni

14 March 2008, 5:42PM
Jenni

Professor Crawford has been measuring the fat content of chickens for 38 years and wrote to the Independent on this issue just recently. This only emphasises the point that consumers and many nutritionists continue to think mistakenly that chicken is low in fat. http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/letters-israel-and-gaza-790495.html

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Truffle

15 March 2008, 2:48PM
Truffle

Well I didn't know chicken was high fat and my daughters in law didn't know either. I'm not going to stop eating it but think what's the point of spreading butter over the breast before putting it in the oven. Think I'll stop that now.

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chowhound

25 March 2008, 2:18PM
chowhound

Fat content only one thing to worry about: http://bigbarn.co.uk/blog/?articleid=126

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Ella

28 March 2008, 7:38AM
Ella

The Pollan book is wonderful. In addition to his advice about what our grandmother's ate I like his simple: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."

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Foodlover

11 July 2008, 7:08PM
Foodlover

To prevent gelatine or aspic sticking to the pan or mould, first spray with PAM then pour the mixture in as usual, then place in the fridge. Once set let is sit at room temperature, turn over and it will slide out. www.letsgoeat.co.uk

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