"I Would Eat Dog Food Before I Would Eat MY Chickens"

There's a story here... involving Paula Deen... read on.

And, for those of you wondering about my girls' "chopped" recipe... as unappetizing as it may have seemed, they quite liked it.  Well, I should clarify, one daughter liked the noodles with the sauce (it was mostly ketchup, afterall), and they other just dug around for the marshmallows (yes, even when coated with the sauce - that dear has her momma's sweet tooth).  I managed a smidgen of a taste - marshmallows excluded, thank you - and tried to put on an approving face!  Oh, and they decided against adding the capers, after doing a "caper taste-test".  Every good chef knows what an ingredient tastes like before adding it to a dish!

The chicken industry breeds two kinds of birds: chickens raised for meat… and layer hens, who are specifically bred to produce large numbers of eggs. Within 24 hours of hatching, layer chicks are put into trays, and the males are separated out. These males grow too slowly to be worth raising for meat, so they are immediately put to death. … Probably the most common way to kill male chicks is by putting them – while fully conscious – into a grinder. On some occasions, these grinders fail to instantly chew up the chicks, so the resultant deaths are surely agonizing. (Source: Meat Market, Erik Marcus)