Plain cooked chicken calories isn’t exactly a dieter’s main worry.  A single cup contains about 200 calories, is high in niacin, vitamin B6 and protein. 

Compare that with barbecued chicken wings or fried chicken and you are going to double or triple the calories and increase your fat intake.

As with many food items, look for recipes that do not use oil or fat.  If every calories counts, then look to chicken salads or use chicken sparingly for flavor and protein.

One downside to chicken is its cholesterol content.  A plain cup of diced chicken (about 5 ounces) contains just over a third of the daily recommended cholesterol input.  If your doctor prescribes a “heart healthy” diet, then keep the portion size small.

A Chicken in YOUR backyard!

10. Start by removing the skin – that is where the calories are.  Or simply buy boneless and skinless white meat for convenience.

9. Extreme high calories in a fast food chicken sandwich – Crispy FlameThrower Chicken Sandwich from Dairy Queen weighing in at 860 calories.

8. Calorie conscious fast food chicken sandwich – Chargrilled Chicken Sandwich from Chick-Fil-A – only 260 calories

7. COLOR OF SKIN – From FoodReference.com: “Chicken skin color varies from cream-colored to yellow. Skin color is a result of the type of feed eaten by the chicken, not a measure of nutritional value, flavor, tenderness or fat content. Color preferences vary in different sections of the country, so growers use the type of feed which produces the desired color.” http://www.foodreference.com/html/fchicken.html

6. White meat vs. dark meat – which wins?  That depends: there are slightly fewer calories in white meat but dark wins handily when it comes to iron, B vitamins and other nutrients.

5. Jerk Chicken – The term jerk refers to heavily spiced and often spicy hot seasonings which are dry rubbed or wet marinated.  Jerk recipes have their origins in Jamaica and the Carribean in general as a way of preserving meat similar to “jerky” or dried meat.  See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamaican_jerk_spice for more information.

4. You are probably aware that eating raw or partially cooked chicken is dangerous because of salmonella. Chicken must always be cooked thoroughly to 167° F  (75° C) as measured using a meat thermometer pierced into the center of the meat.

3. Chicken bones can be boiled with vegetables and spices to make chicken stock and are a great starting point for flavorful chicken soup.

2. Chickens that are raised specifically for meat are called broilers.

1. Capons are castrated male chickens.  They were once commonly available in the US, but are hard to find today.  Chefs prefer them for their fattier, tastier meat.

Cooking Light Cook’s Essential Recipe Collection – 58 recipes for healthy, low fat meals.  Easily obtained for less than $10.
Betty Crocker’s Best Chicken Cookbook – A popular classic, need we say more? Inexpensive, too.

There are over 60 chicken breeds.  An amazing compendium of detail on each breed, complete with information on egg color, origins, behavior, etc. , is maintained by John Henderson of Ithaca College.

There’s a huge renewed interest in keeping backyard birds – you don’t need much room at all and it’s easy.  Witness the incredible following on the BackYardChickens.com web site. 

Raising Chickens

Are you in an urban environment?  Check out http://www.urbanchickens.org for lots of good information and advice.

Chickens not legal in your neighborhood?  Lots of people are pressuring their local government to allow small backyard flocks.  You’ll find support and advice on sites like http://urbanchickenunderground.blogspot.com/

Just how popular is this trend??  If Martha Stewart is in on the game, then it must be big time.  She recently had a show on backyard chickens – as reported on urbanchickens.net

Start at your local hardware or feed store (in the springtime) or shop online at places like Murray McMurray or My Pet Chicken http://www.mypetchicken.com McMurray has a minimum order requirement of 25 while MPC has the advantage of a low minimum order of just 3.

From the NYTimes – Health Halo Can Hide the Calories

…They’ve found that all of us, even professional dieticians, make systematic mistakes when estimating how many calories are on a plate. Experiments showed that putting a “low fat” label on food caused everyone, especially overweight people, to underestimate its calories, to eat bigger helpings and to indulge in other foods.

The researchers found that customers at McDonald’s were more accurate at estimating the calories in their meal than were customers at Subway, apparently because of the health halo created by advertisements like one showing that a Subway sandwich had a third the fat of a Big Mac. The health halo from Subway also affected what else people chose to eat, Dr. Chandon and Dr. Wansink reported last year after giving people a chance to order either a Big Mac or a 12-inch Italian sandwich from Subway.

Even though the Subway sandwich had more calories than the Big Mac, the people ordering it were more likely to add a large nondiet soda and cookies to the order. So while they may have felt virtuous, they ended up with meals averaging 56 percent more calories than the meals ordered from McDonald’s…