Worth It, Not Worth It

A new feature to Public Musings in 2019 will be the game Worth It, Not Worth It. I will examine recent purchases, etc, to determine whether they are: Worth It or Not Worth It.

Game #1: Organic Chicken

Most things in American life have improved since I was a child. Cars, computers, restaurants, you get the idea. But one thing has noticeably declined in American life and you guessed it: that thing is chicken. Store bought chicken today makes me want to puke. It costs like 1.99 a pound and is incredibly cheap, but do you eat this stuff? Disgusting. I get most of meat from Costco and the steak and salmon is just as good or better than Whole Foods, but the chicken? In the words of my 3-year old: YUCK! A chicken breast today is 3x as large as a chicken breast should be.

Over the break, we ate chicken at an average family Chinese restaurant and it tasted quite good, especially compared to the chicken I've grown used to. My father-in-law informed me the Chinese use what they call "running chickens," that are raised in a way where they run around a lot so the meat is leaner and the chicken is smaller. The Chinese believe they taste better and guess what? The Chinese are right.

So...what to do? I don't live near a Chinese market, so I thought I'd try the smallest Organic Whole Foods chicken. This chicken was about 3x as expensive as the 1.99 a pound chicken. I made the chicken in an Insta pot (wrongly, it turns out) and yet, the entire family ate it and was satisfied. Then I made the leftovers into congee (again in the Insta pot). We used the entire chicken! And are actually eating it rather than letting the disgusting leftovers sit in the fridge for a week before tossing it out in a purge.

My verdict for Organic Chicken? WORTH IT!