For the Love of Chicken

Does chicken even need an introduction? It’s tasty. It’s versatile. I don’t know about you, but chicken is one of my all-time favourite foods. Up there with bananas and peanut butter. Not combined with them though. Chicken plays a starring role in my diet, so I’m going to shine a spotlight on the great features of poultry.

Nutritional Value

I’m sure you saw this one coming. I can’t not talk about all the nutrition chicken has to offer! It’s loaded with minerals like phosphorus (needed for healthy bones and DNA replication), potassium (used for nerve signals and muscles contractions) and magnesium (required for hundreds of biochemical reactions in the body, including energy production). Poultry is also a great source of vitamins like folate and vitamin B12, which are required for the production of healthy blood cells. [1]

Eating chicken will not only nourish you; it’ll keep you feeling full and satisfied. This is because it contains a moderate amount of fat and it’s loaded with protein. Fat is a vital macronutrient that your body needs to function properly (you can read about the important role fat plays in your body here: https://www.thesplendorousceliac.com/blog/in-defense-of-carbs-plus-a-cashew-chicken-recipe). Fat is energy-dense and moves more slowly through your gut compared to carbs and protein. Including fat in your diet is a great way to fuel your body and keep your appetite satisfied for longer.

As with all good things, the amount of fat you eat should be kept moderate. Eating too much fat, especially saturated fat, has been associated with heart disease and type 2 diabetes. With that in mind, chicken makes a healthy option because it contains less saturated fat compared to red meats like beef and pork. There are also unsaturated fats in chicken (ie: monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats), which are excellent for heart health. [1]

Protein is a very trendy nutrient right now and chicken has lots of it. Just 2 & 1/2 ounces of chicken contains 21 grams of protein [2]. That means a 6-ounce chicken breast has over 50 grams of protein! This nutrient is important for so many more reasons other than building and maintaining muscle mass. It’s required for tons of processes in the body, from digestion to hormone signalling to immune responses to fluid balance. Protein also takes longer to digest than carbs, so it keeps you feeling full longer. On top of that, because protein is digested more slowly, when you pair a good source of protein with carbs, that will help keep your blood sugar stable. The carbs you ate will take longer to enter your bloodstream, so you won’t experience a blood sugar spike and subsequent crash.

Environmental Impact

If you want to decrease your carbon footprint but don’t want to go vegetarian or vegan, eating chicken instead of red meat can help you do that. Replacing beef with chicken cuts your dietary carbon footprint in half! [3] This is largely because chickens are not ruminants. Ruminants are animals, like cows and goats, which burp up large amounts of methane due to the way their digestive tract functions. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas. Since chickens emit far less methane than other livestock, they have a lower impact on the environment. [3]

Raising chickens is gentler on the environment because they require one-tenth of the resources cows do (resources = land, feed, water, etc). This is partly because cattle are much larger than poultry, so they require more of everything to grow. Be that as it may, chickens are more efficient at converting feed into edible body mass. That means less feed is required to produce meat from a chicken versus the equivalent amount of meat from a cow. Producing animal feed requires land, fertilizer, and energy. Less feed translates to less of these resources being used in the process of feeding and raising chickens. [3]

In addition, pairing chicken with other sources of protein can help you decrease the environmental impact of your diet. I find that chicken goes great with plant-based sources of protein: curry with chickpeas and chicken; chili made of ground chicken and lentils; burritos filled with chicken and beans. Combining chicken with plant-based protein in your meal will help you decrease the amount of meat you’re eating. At the same time, you’re increasing plant foods in your diet. Both of these dietary habits are better for the environment!

Versatility

Chicken can be eaten at any mealtime and it can be added to a broad range of recipes. Including chicken in a recipe can elevate it’s nutritional value. For example, topping a salad with chopped chicken breast adds fat and protein, making the dish more filling (read about how I make vegetables more filling in this post: https://www.thesplendorousceliac.com/blog/my-feelings-about-raw-vegetables). And, fun fact: meat helps the body absorb non-heme iron (ie: iron from plant foods) [4]. So, if you mix chicken into recipes with vegetarian sources of iron (ex: tofu, beans, quinoa), that will increase the amount of iron your body is able to absorb from the dish.

Chicken can also be swapped into various recipes to make them healthier and more environmentally friendly. Try eating chicken sausage instead of pork sausage for breakfast. Use roasted chicken for your sandwich instead of deli meat when you’re packing your lunch. Make burger patties for dinner out of ground chicken rather than beef. Chicken has a very mild flavour, so you can easily substitute it into a recipe without making major taste disruptions. It also absorbs flavours quite well, making it a blank food-canvas with pretty much endless possibilities!

For a recipe that produces some juicy chicken that’s bursting with flavour, try this stir fry:

Sweet Sesame Ginger Chicken Stir Fry

Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients

Sesame ginger sauce

1/4 cup water

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/4 cup gluten free soy sauce *try a reduced sodium variety to make the sauce a bit healthier

1/4 cup maple syrup (or other sweetener)

1 tablespoon sesame oil

1 teaspoon sriracha

1 tablespoon ginger paste

1 teaspoon gluten free flour or cornstarch

Stir fry

1 tablespoon oil

3 cups broccoli, chopped

3 cups snap peas

2 large chicken breasts, cubed

Optional: garnish with sesame seeds, chia seeds, hemp hearts, etc

Instructions

1) Mix all sauce ingredients together in a small bowl and set aside.

2) Heat oil on medium-high heat in a large frying pan. Add the broccoli and snap peas. Cook until they start to soften, about 5 minutes.

3) Add the chicken to the pan. Cook until the chicken is no longer pink (5-7 minutes) and then add the sauce.

4) Reduce heat to medium-low and continue cooking until the chicken is cooked all the way through.

5) Turn the heat all the way down to low and let the sauce simmer until it has thickened.

6) For a meal that’s higher in fibre and protein, serve on top of cooked quinoa instead of rice.

What’s your favourite chicken recipe?

References:

[1] Canadian Nutrition File. (2018) Chicken, broiler, breast, meat, roasted. Government of Canada. <https://food-nutrition.canada.ca/cnf-fce/report-rapport.do>. Accessed April 10, 2020.

[2] HealthLinkBC. (2019) Quick Nutrition Check for Protein. Dietitian Services at HealthLinkBC. <https://www.healthlinkbc.ca/healthy-eating/quick-nutrition-check-protein>. Accessed April 10, 2020.

[3] Leahy, S. (2019) Choosing chicken over beef cuts our carbon footprints a surprising amount. National Geographic. <https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/06/choosing-chicken-over-beef-cuts-carbon-footprint-surprising-amount/#close> Accessed April 10, 2020.

[4] Lewin, J. (2020) How to get more iron from the diet. Medical News Today. <https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/322272> Accessed April 10, 2020.