Chicken prices at U.S. grocery stores have hit record highs and should stay elevated as Tyson Foods and other companies dial back poultry production to boost margins while inflation-weary shoppers buy chicken instead of beef and pork.
Higher chicken prices should improve earnings at top producers Tyson (TSN.N) and Pilgrim’s Pride (PPC.O), but will pinch consumers’ pockets as they try to save money by turning away from higher-end proteins. One index shows chicken producer profit margins at their highest in a year.
U.S. consumption of chicken is expected to exceed 100 pounds per person this year for the first time ever, data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture shows.
Beef consumption is forecast to drop to its lowest since 2018, as prices climb due to dwindling cattle supplies. Meanwhile, consumer spending cuts have knocked pork consumption to the lowest since 2015.
Arkansas-based Tyson, which sells all three types of meat, had to deal with a glut of chicken after earning massive profits when meat prices soared during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Now seems like a perfect time to squeeze the pennies out of the lower class, according to Tyson.
Also, Tyson meat is all trash anyway. Too bad other companies are participating. Isn’t this close to price fixing or something?
Somebody has to reset the Days Since We Fixed Prices clock at Tyson again.
Lol, that was only several years ago. But they were fined a pittance? Why would they continue to commit the same crimes when it’s wildly profitable?
It’s not a fine, it’s just a cost of doing business.
The only way to make them stop is to hurt their profits, but our corptocracy is too spineless to levy proper fines against businesses.
Or we could start tar and feathering boards of directors. We could even use chicken feathers!
Oligarchy is the word you’re trying for.
Not only are their fines small, but they also implicate others in their schemes that have to pay higher fines, so they also are able to prove the competition they conspire with out of the market
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I’m not even a vegetarian, but most of America is really sleeping on tofu. It’s delicious, versatile and affordable. I love cooking with it.
There are multiple meals I genuinely prefer tofu to the original protein.
I eat plenty of tofu and would still rather have most anything else.
Honestly, that’s probably how you’re preparing it or a personal quirk. Over a billion people eat it regularly, it’s probably in a huge number of peoples favorite meals, it absolutely can be prepared so that most people enjoy it well enough to eat regularly without going nuts
Two billion people eat insects and mealworms. Doesn’t mean I’m about to start.
That’s fine, but you recognize that insects aren’t an inherently “bad” food source, right? They’re not even fundamentally different from shellfish.
I don’t want to eat insects either, but I also don’t want to eat chicken wings (probably for the same reason most people don’t want to eat insects, I’m squeamish). I don’t believe that chicken wings are objectively a bad food, though. They’re obviously not, because so many people love them.
Yeah, it’s all food. But there’s enough things out there that I already like, that I don’t need to delve into a world of weird shit for sustenance.
Also, I like chicken but the figure up there in the article of 100lb a year seems astronomical to me. I doubt I even eat a third of that.
Perfectly understandable. I just get annoyed when people act like tofu is inherently bad or must taste shitty.
For the number of meals in a year, there’s 1095 (365 * 3), not including forth meals, snacks, etc. For 100 pounds, let’s convert it to ounces, so 1600 oz.
Assuming 8 oz (half pound) for a single meal meal. Normal weight of a single chicken breast is 6 ounces, but there are some factors I’m not sure about (is bone weight included, raw or cooked weight, etc), so rounding up to 8 to cover those.
That works out to 200 meals with 8 oz chicken to reach the 100 pounds goal. This means not even a quarter of the usual 1095 meals in a year, but rather only around 18% is chicken based. I was a bit skeptical as well, but this seems easier to reach than I thought.
This in some ways justifies all those pounds of meat from hunting I accrued in playing Oregon Trail lol.
I believe you are wrong. It’s all personal preference and if you didn’t grow up eating it regularly then you’re probably not going to enjoy it as a substitute long term.
I like it and use it in a variety of things. I’m also aware enough to know that I like and prefer other things more. Typically meat but sometimes mushroom, depending on the dish.
Same way I like chicken, beef, pork, and other meats. I have preferences and preferring one over any other doesn’t mean I’m making the others wrong.
I have preferences and preferring one over any other doesn’t mean I’m making the others wrong.
Absolutely not, it could be a personal quirk. I have literally over a hundred recipes for zucchini, and I’ve won multiple awards for one of my zucchini dishes. Zucchini is always going to be meh at best for me, because it’s a personal preference. Maybe tofu is like that for you, but it’s not true for everyone.
I tried tofu for the first time as a teenager and didn’t eat it regularly until my 20s. It’s now in several of my favorite things to eat. However, it can be finicky, and I don’t always like how others prepare it. I’m obviously also not representative of every person, but it’s not an impossible thing to learn to like or even rare for adult vegetarians/vegans to develop a serious taste for.
It’s hard to get in certain places and people don’t understand the different varieties. If anyone reading this wants to try it, check your local Asian grocer if you’re lucky enough to have one.
IMO Thai food does vegetarian better than anyone.
I think Indian and Korean food can beat Thai
Indian food is next level when done correctly. It’s so good that it replaced a large chunk of British food for the British after they invaded India and realised that the Indians were on to something
Depends. You do a lot better price-wise with dry beans.
If you consider drained weight, canned beans are usually about $1 for a 15oz can in my area, which yields about half a pound of drained beans. So, $2/lb
Chicken is anywhere from $1 to $8/lb but I’ve been averaging about $2/lb. It’s our main protein source and I watch for sales and stock up.
The most expensive ingredient in my falafel burgers is the cardamom. Small price to pay considering how dirt cheap all the other ingredients are and that they’re mad delicious 😋😋😋
Everytime I’ve tried Falafel I’ve found it to be more or less like a ball of dry oatmeal with about the same flavour. Am I just being real unlucky?
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Yes, most definitely. Dry and tasteless are not words I associate with falafel, it sounds like something went horribly wrong there
The base taste is pretty mild, like a baked potato, but then you add spices and eat it along with other things
Dry falafel is the worst. Yes, it can be better, but also you need to have a yogurt sauce, some cucumbers, tomatoes, and tabbouleh. You don’t eat a hamburger patty plain, right?
Ah that sounds like the key to what I’ve been missing. I didn’t realize it was meant to be mixed with anything else. Thanks I’ll have to try it again.
Uh. Am I not supposed to eat a hamburger patty plain? Lol. It’s just a flattened meatball after all…
You can, but if you’re doing that, you should be mixing stuff into the meat. Personally I like to make them plain so that I can make a bunch, freeze them, and put different toppings on.
So not with my hands like a neanderthal? Hmm…
It’s way better if you feed all the ingredients through a meat grinder (the irony is not lost on me), rather than a food processor. Think corn meal texture vs flour texture.
Also, deep fry it. Baking it just isn’t nearly as good.
You’ve had falafel that tasted as good as oatmeal?
You lucky bastard.
Fresh plants that we’ve bought from all of our local stores do not keep, even in the fridge. Anything fresh we have found needs to be eaten within 2-3 days before it starts turning. I’m not about to go to multiple stores 2-3 times a week to get what I need, only to waste money if I don’t have the time or energy to make a fresh meal every day of the week.
Anything plant based that’s pre-prepared and/or frozen tends to be anywhere from $6-12 per “meal”. I’m over 6’2" and 215lbs and the “meals” are more like half a meal for me.
Unless you are ONLY eating beans or rice. Yes, from what I’ve seen, eating plant based diets is very expensive.
I am interested in the one comment mentioning replacing chicken with tofu though. Some of the pre-made tofu meals I’ve had were pretty good. I’ve never cooked with it though. My family hasn’t really eaten beef or pork in years since all of the studies came out linking red meat to cancer. I also have a liver condition that docs recommend avoiding red meat entirely as well.
There are actually a lot of canned and frozen plants other than beans and rice. Tofu is really good (also rising in price, but still not as bad as meat), and keeps an extremely long time in the fridge. I get a bunch of no salt added canned vegetables for super cheap because I have disabilities and I cannot prepare everything from scratch, and make a really good vegetable soup full of protein from peas and beans, for really cheap. The reason I get no salt added is because then I can add bouillon and spices to make my own broth, which would be grossly salty if I also used salted canned food. Although the number of cans vary, we call it 9 Can Soup. Because that’s what it had the first time. I also use fresh potatoes if I have any on hand. One of the cans are usually tomato sauce. Sometimes I’ll add a few cans of salted veggies if I got them from a food bank, I just rinse them.
Yeah man Tofu is a great complete protein! But is tricky to cook and if you don’t do something special with it, it will taste like nothing and feels mushy. This is why tofu gets a bad rap.
If you are interested in cooking with tofu! Here is a killer tofu marinade I do. I am in love with this tofu and would eat it like cereal every morning if I could. This goes well with any Asian, rice or veggie dish:
Ginger-seseme tofu:
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Firm or extra firm tofu
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Take the package of tofu and cut it open with a knife, it looks like you can open it with your hands but you cannot. Keep this package as a marinade binn for later
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drain all the water from the package and squeeze the water out of the tofu by placing it between some heavy things or even with your hands, the more water out the more flavor in but try to keep the shape intact
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Now mix together the marinade in a bowl with:
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup rice vinegar
2 tablespoons lime juice
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon minced ginger
1 tablespoon siracha
1 tablespoon sesame oil
2 cloves garlic minced
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Cut up the freshly squeezed tofu into dice sized cubes and place them back into the original container
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Add the marinade into the container with the tofu and put into a fridge, let sit anywhere from 30mins - 4 hrs
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Finally, bake in an oven set to 425f or air fryer set to high for 30mins flipping half way.
Protip! - freeze and thaw the package of tofu. Something about freezing tofu alters it’s structure, this allows wore water to be drained and more marinade to be absorbed, almost 2x more!
If you try hope you enjoy!
I know that was a lot so if you want quick foolproof tofu that solves the texture problem but relies on the flooring of what it is put with:
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Press water out of the tofu like above
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Cut the tofu into the same dice sized cubes or shred it into a mixing bowl with your hands
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Toss with 1.5 tablespoons of cornstarch
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Fry tofu in oil, flipping until golden brown
Phew’ this was all phone typed, hope it makes sense. <3
Edit: fix formatting
Baked tofu is really good. I will press it and cut it into cubes, combine with potato starch, extra virgin olive oil, salt and pepper, and a pinch of MSG and bake that on parchment paper. It’s quick and easy to add some nice protein to bean and cheese burritos (rice, cabbage, salsa, lime, whatever else you have), or throw it in a store bought salad for extra calories.
The cut raw cubes will keep in a container in the refrigerator for at least a few days so I’ll cut it all up on Monday and maybe prep a sauce or two and use the tofu and the sauce in different dishes in the week.
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I’m not about to go to multiple stores 2-3 times a week to get what I need
That’s called “shopping”. It’s very common.
How many times a week do you go grocery shopping and how many different stores do you go to? Personally, I don’t know anyone who goes grocery shopping more than once a week, or MAYBE twice if their regular grocery store doesn’t have what they need.
Europe would shock you to your core. There are people who go to multiple stores every day.
I often stop at the grocery store on my way home from work.
I’d love to be able to walk to both, but we’re not quite there yet.
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Someone gave you a thoughtful response from their personal experience, and THAT is your reply?
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Typical spoiled person response. “I can do it, why can’t everyone else in the world?”
cry more
Cool solution to the problem.
You’re OG comment insinuated that eating plants is cheap, yet you didn’t take into account the possibility that you either a) make more than others. b) live in a lower cost of living area than others. c) live in a great area that has many options for food diversity. d) that every store near you always has stock of everything you want and maybe other places aren’t so fortunate.
Our area is so over populated, we have to go to like 5 grocery stores throughout the county every week to get everything we want/need.
Maybe don’t be so close minded and consider that where you live and what you pay is available to everyone.
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I’m doing more meatless meals due to this and dietary requirements.
I’d recommend fitgreenmind on YouTube I was trying some of her recipes and they are very good.
Thanks
If it works for OPEC, why wouldn’t it work for others? Regulation of corporations is a no-brainer because they’re sociopathic in nature.
If corporations really have personhood, why can’t they go to jail for crimes against the community?
ally have personhood, why can’t they go to jail for crimes against the community?
Well, you see, thats because big corpos are run by rich people.
and only laws that benefit them may be allowed to pass.
I knew Tyson was a trash company, but this is blatantly predatory; up there with Nestle. They won’t get any more of my money, but I wish there was an easy way to know which house (store) brands are using Tyson.
I was shocked and completely changed my diet recently when I noticed that the price per pound for chicken was greater than the price per pound for tofu. Now I’m experimenting with making my own tempeh at home.
Look into textured vegetable protein, too. It doesn’t have much taste of its own, but gives a ground-beef-like texture when you add it to pasta sauce. Wicked cheap, when you take into account that it’s dehydrated.
Edit: good room temperature shelf life, too.
Less chickens being slaughtered is fine by me. Maybe beef and pork producers also wanna ‘boost margins’
You’re gonna be paying ten dollars for a spaghetti squash and looking at four dollar avocados once the farmers catch on and the demand equalizers lol. People need to eat.
Produce is waaay less conglomerated into massive corporations. Its just too easy to grow produce for anyone to control the market. To a point where if produce gets too expensive, I can just grow it myself.
Monsanto owns a lot of the farms now.
If the farmers can sell it for ten, I can sell them fresher for 9. “People need to eat” no, corporations are robbing you blind.
What are you talking about? And how do I stop corporations from robbing me blind then–by simply not eating chicken? You act like the solution is to simply “change behavior x” which I am doing constantly. I am continuously reevaluation my expenses and trying to find alternative solutions. The reason I’m eating chicken is because it was the cheapest option for the longest time. Are you suggesting I grow and butcher my own chickens? And why are you refuting the fact that people need to eat when it is an irrefutable truth? If people stop eating protein rich meat, the cost of protein rich veggies and other supplements will skyrocket, and here we are having this conversation again.
I’m talking about exploiting corporate price gouging.
I don’t pay for meat. My last grocery bill was for $113 for a week’s worth of food. I know you chicken eaters can’t beat that.
It doesn’t matter that “people need to eat” is an irrefutable truth. It’s bullshit. Meat is optional and you know it, so you use the “iRrEfUtAbLe tRuTh” as if it’s a competent smokescreen for repeating the same conclusion as before.
90% of the things you do and own are optional, and the environmental impact from meat is miniscule in comparison to you even existing at all. Save your silly caps insults for somebody else, vegetarian-farmer-troll-man haha.
The advice is given. Keep paying for less food if that’s what you think is the smartest thing to do.
I am glad I stocked up on chicken thighs from my local butcher shop a few weeks ago. Was something like 99 cents/pound. Now I’m seeing them sitting at $1.70/pound.
But chicken quarters are 89 cents a pound. It’s weird how the pricing works.
More desirable cuts cost more. Quarters are in less demand than thighs.
5 pounds of chicken breasts are like 20+ bucks at my local grocery store, chicken thighs are half that price (or lower, I think I got a BOGO for the thighs)
Line…line go up?
Tyson chicken is garbage
I mean this sucks but you could also just not eat any chicken.
I think you may have missed the part where people are eating chicken because the prices of beef and pork are through the roof.
What if there was some crazy option that didnt involve any of the those?
Cannibalism is illegal, and risky, trust me.
There’s always roadkill
Imagine if that crazy option would also be a lot less accessible to poor people who live in food deserts. But, as usual, they don’t matter.
I went vegan in a food desert. Beans, rice, greens, lentils, potatoes, etc. are available in the same areas where you can buy the carcasses of sentient beings and are generally cheaper than the cruelest option.
Really? Because I haven’t seen most of those in a Dollar General. But I have seen ramen. Beef and chicken ramen. Which is what some poor people survive on.
This is how i know youre lying to make a point. I literally buy beans at my dollar general. The idea youve never seen beans or rice or pasta or bread or other staples at a dollar store is insane.
Because all Dollar Generals have exactly the same products in them. That’s why I must be lying to make a point. Because they’re all exactly the same in every way. And you know this because you’ve gone to every single one. That’s how you know I’m lying to make a point.
Poor people in food deserts should push local governments to open a public grocery. They can’t because corporations buy off their political leaders.
I think i fit that bill pretty well in rural mississippi
well, we shouldn’t be eating them either
Someone is upset by the concept of us not eating animals
Idunno, I’ve managed to eat none of the three for like six years now and I’m still kicking
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$1.79/lb boneless skinless
a few weeks ago hereright now.I guess you’re just assuming prices are the same everywhere. I wish it was.
Yeah just let them eat cake
Comments like this make me realize how awful the average persons diet is when they dont even know what beans and rice are lmao. Literally the cheapest foods are vegan. I eat beans, rice, pasta. Pb&Js. Apples ,bananas, sauteed veggies. If you have even a basic grasp of cooking this is the cheapest way to eat and still delicious
Yeah i know what the expression is. My point was the absolute ignorance to think that the only cheap food is meat, and that vegans eat super expensive bougie fake meat all day. Instead of cheap foods that are diet staples around the entire planet
Comments like this remind me about how little so many people know about nutrition, largely due to the influence of absolute nutjobs like Sylvester Graham and John Harvey Kellogg.
I have no idea who those people are. But if you think people cant be healthy eating grains, legumes, fruits and vegetables you know literally nothing about health and fitness. Do you get your diet advice from roided out “carnivores” like liver king who take steroids and fistfulls of vitamin pills to survive their bacon and butter only diets?
Lol that’s ridiculous. Humans have been eating meat since…before they were humans. I don’t need to listen to any snake-oil selling influencer to know that lol.
And while it’s possible to have a healthy diet without meat, pretty much everywhere in the US that is a much more expensive diet than meat. Sure you can get cheap carbs. But those legumes, fruits, and vegetables are either impossible to find it much more expensive than the caloric equivalent of meat. Whole neighborhoods are reliant on stores like Dollar General or Family Dollar for their food. “Just don’t eat meat” is an incredibly out-of-touch and privileged thing to say
Also Graham was the first Westerner to popularize vegetarianism. Kellogg was influenced by him and is responsible for a ton of pseudoscience food myths that still persist today. If you don’t know who they are… you might want to learn because they are probably the founders of what you believe today, and a lot of their ideas were rooted in pseudoscience, religion, and racism. Unless your vegetarianism comes from Asian religious practices of course. But this whole thread is relating an article on US prices. The history of Vegetarianism in the US has more people and complexity of course, but those are two of the most popular and historically influential figures.
Humans also raped each other and died in childbirth for just as long so i guess we should let those happen too. appeal to nature is a logical fallacy One of my biggest pet peeves when people talk about veganism is theyre inability to debate without their entire argument being nothing but fallacies. Its not different then arguing with a flat earther or a trump supporter.
The other thing that boils my blood is people invoking privilege as if they actually care about whatever community theyre hiding behind. Low meat diets are what most people throughout all of time and history have eaten. The meat heavy diets of the modern western world is an immense privilege. Go to a rural community in South America shoving whoppers in your mouth and see if thats how theyre eating. Meat is massively MASSIVELY subsidized.
Not to mention its the largest cause of environmental destruction on the planet. The number one cause of deforestation .and the cause of suffering for billions intelligent animals.
Do some actual research beyond googling “why is veganism bad” and then finding YouTube videos that support the ideas you already have. WatchDomion.org
You claim to have your “blood boiled” by people referring to history you think is irrelevant, but also use that same argument yourself? I’m not saying that every single custom on human history is perfect and needs to be maintained, but I’m not talking about something as fickle as human behavior. I’m talking about human biology. It’s possible that within my lifetime I might see genetic modification lead to a humanity that can survive on different nutrition. More realistically, I hope to see the development of lab-grown meat or other protein sources. But the reality is that for most Americans, a healthy and nutritious meat-free diet is incredibly expensive. Even then, some people (including my own partner) have medical conditions that necessitate eating animal protein.
It’s hilarious that you claim that I’m using fallacies similar to cults, when that’s the exact roots of vegetarianism. The founders advocated for celibacy and genital mutilation. Kellogg was hugely into eugenics.
It’s also hilarious that you’re accusing me of having a Western-centric view. Firstly, because I was very clear that I’m talking about the US because that’s the scope of the article. And funny you mention South America because Brazil is the 2nd largest producer of beef in the world behind the US. China is 3rd. Thinking Americans shove whoppers in their mouths is… incredibly strange. Whoppers haven’t been relevant in decades and fast food has been on the decline in America. Is that how you imagine “the poors” behave?
“Environmental destruction” is kind of vague, but you’re right that industrial agriculture is one of the larger causes of deforestation. That’s bad and we need to stop doing that. That means better practices and moving away from more environmentally damaging animals. Cows are pretty terribly inefficient and should probably be reduced to luxury beef products, and dairy can probably be reduced. The article this thread is discussing is relating to Chicken prices: a much more efficient and effective option that requires far less land and water use, produces great natural fertilizer as waste, and has far fewer emissions.
Which brings me to my last point: you mention the suffering of billions of intelligent animals. I’ll admit I really don’t care about your moral arguments. There’s billions of (allegedly) intelligent humans suffering right now. There’s billions of animals experiencing suffering at the hands of other animals. To exist is to suffer and induce suffering in others. So where do we draw lines? Do the plants we eat not suffer? The fungi? Microrganisms? Some day my own flesh will be consumed by something else: I am merely borrowing this carbon for a short while. I agree that most of the industrial-scale animal production induces far more suffering than it should in the pursuit of providing more profit to shareholders, but I am under no delusion that anything I eat will not experience any sort of suffering.
Laughs in vegetarian who grew up around chicken plants
As a vegan, fuck them chicken eaters
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Chicken holocaust enablers. I don’t want to come across as a crazy vegan (I’m not a vegan) but chickens are as intelligent as any other pet, if not more. My chickens recognize words and individual people, and are always figuring out sneaky ways to escape their enclosure. If we all raised our own chickens, there would be a lot less collective suffering on this planet. You only need to refill their feeder once a week, and you can compost their droppings to make pure fertilizer.
Edit: B…but my tendies!!! All I’m asking is for people to consider eating chicken less often and to consider the suffering they go through as a species. They evolved to live in the jungle, not a cage barely as big as them.
I raise my own chickens and love them very much. I’d also eat one if they got out of line, and I ate the males as soon as they were big enough (only hens allowed here locally). Its both an amazing food resource and source of joy seeing them every morning and giving them treats as they wander my yard. They are very happy.
I also buy chicken from the store still because I usually raise for eggs only. Point is, I am around chickens every day by choice and don’t see it the same way as you.
