IS CHICKEN REALLY GOOD FOR YOU? Eleven-year-old Aiyetoro Hinds tackles the meaty issue in a school science project

Getting weighed: Aiyetoro weighs one of his young chicks

March 18, 2008 — Not to ruffle anyone's feathers but eating chicken may not be as healthy as you think. A small study conducted by an 11-year-old at Somersfield Academy has changed his family's view.

Aiyetoro Hinds looked at the impact of chicken feed on the rate of growth of the animals. In a study for a school science project he raised six chickens — three on fortified chicken feed, and three on organic chicken feed.

The experiment lasted 16 days and he said the results did not surprise him. "I found out that fortified feed really does make them fatter, faster," he said. "This didn't surprise me. I expected it, but I was surprised by their behaviour."

Aiyetoro bought all six chicks from Wadson's farm when they were two days old. He separated them into two groups of three and, for identification purposes, marked the feathers of each with a coloured pen. Each group of chicks was kept in its own cage.

"I used a light on the cages to keep the chicks warm. They had to be kept at 95 degrees," he said. "I fed them water and their feed every day and I weighed them every other day."

In the first week, Aiyetoro said it was quickly clear that the chickens on organic feed had more energy. "They were always moving around, playing with each other, pecking at each other and chirping a lot," he said. " The chicks on fortified feed just sat around doing nothing. They looked lazy.

"But as they got older I could see the effects of the steroids kicking in with the fortified feed chicks," he said. "They were stronger and started acting right up. They acted wild. They would rip up everything in their cage, the newspaper bedding, they would turn over their food trays and water."

The two cages were next to each other and Aiyetoro said the organic chicks looked a little afraid of the ones on fortified feed. "They would huddle away from them," he said. And he said the organic chickens never became unruly. "They always pecked at each other but they didn't rip up stuff like the fortified feed chickens."

Although the actual experiment only lasted 16 days, Aiyetoro kept the chickens for six weeks so that he could present them with his findings at the school's science fair. As the weeks progressed he said the aggressive behaviour of the chickens on fortified feed intensified.

"Kiki got to be the biggest one and in the end she really bullied the other two. She would keep them away from the food and eat it all herself," he said.

Although he only set out to find which food made chickens fatter faster, Aiyetoro said his study seemed to show that fortified feed causes aggressive behaviour in chickens. "This is because of the ingredients in the fortified feed," he said. "Until I did this experiment I had no idea what chickens were actually eating and how bad it is for them and for us who eat those chickens," he said. "It makes me sad now to know what the animals go through."

Aiyetoro with the help of his mother also dissected two chickens (not any of those in the experiment), one organic and one fed fortified feed.

"We saw a big difference in their organs and in the amount of fat in their bodies," he said. "The fortified feed chicken had very small organs that were very dark — almost black and full of fat. The kidney, heart, liver and neck especially had loads of fat," he said.

"The organic chicken's organs had a better colour — pinkish, and no fat."

Aiyetoro's mother Janet then baked both chickens with just a bit of salt. "We wanted to know if there was any difference in the taste," she said. "We found a big difference. The organic chicken was moist and had a natural flavour of chicken. The meat was firm and it cooked much faster than the fortified chicken," she added.

"The fortified chicken meat was very dry, it had no flavour and the meat just fell apart," she said.

After the experiment, Mrs. Hinds that she said she'll never eat regular chicken again.

"I will now only eat organic chicken although I'm turned off eating any chicken at the moment because we raised those chicks and bonded with them. Every time I see chicken on the plate I see their little heads," she said.

Aiyetoro too said he doesn't fancy eating chicken at the moment. He is concerned that it is a big industry and after his experiment, is convinced that it contributes to the obesity problem in humans. He also feels it is helping to make people more aggressive.

"I am worried that eating all this chicken is making people unhealthy. People think by eating chicken they are eating nutritious food but because of what the chickens have been fed, they can be hurting themselves," he said. "And I think this will get worse because what companies are putting in the feeds is getting worse. So people will get fatter because they can't stop eating the chicken that will taste so good."

Originally published in The Royal Gazette