Rude Food by Vir Sanghvi: Take a bird’s-eye view
Much of the chicken available now is tasteless, with the texture of used lorry tires. Blame industrialised farming. But it’s hardly the only way to eat today
If you are a foodie, you probably know the answers to these two questions, but let me ask them anyway. What is the most flavourless non-vegetarian item available in India today? What is the best-selling non-vegetarian item available in India today?
Both questions have the same answer: Chicken.
I should also add eggs, which outsell chicken by a huge margin, and are usually pretty flavour-free if you buy the regular variety at grocery shops.
To take the second answer first: Most people are not aware just how much chicken dominates the non-vegetarian market in India. We consume up to five million metric tonnes of chicken every year.
This is far more than our consumption of goat/lamb or pork or beef/buffalo. It is even more than our consumption of all seafood put together.
And the numbers are growing. Chicken consumption is increasing by around 10% every year. Egg consumption is also growing though at a slightly lower rate. (Agriculture, on the other hand, is growing at only 1.5%.)
What accounts for this rise?
Simple: It’s the industrialisation of hens.
There was a time when chickens were raised by farmers. That practice does continue, but the bulk of the rise in chicken production comes from the growth of industrial chicken, or birds that are bred in huge numbers in industrial facilities.
There has been a global backlash against the techniques used in the industrial production of chickens, so I wont go over that ground again. Suffice it to say that when the Indian chicken industry was accused of using antibiotics as part of the rearing process, one defence was: Of course not, antibiotics are more expensive than the cost of our chickens.
But my concern today is with the poor quality of the finished product. Most industrial chickens are tasteless and have the texture of well-used lorry tires. The eggs are even worse, with watery whites, pale yolks and zero flavour. These are not the chickens or the eggs that your grandparents or your parents ate.
Why then are people eating so much chicken?
The reason that is usually offered is wrong. We think of chicken-eating as a Punjabi preference and regard the rise in chicken consumption as part of the Punjabification of our diet.
But that’s not true. Punjabis don’t actually eat much chicken. The average consumption of chicken in Punjab is 200 grams a month, less than half the consumption of a person in Bihar and much less than many other states.
What’s extraordinary is that consumption figures for states like Bengal and many others in the south, where there is no great chicken-eating tradition, are going up. Partly this is because chicken factories are coming up in these states making chicken more easily available.
But it’s also that chicken has become the meat of choice for people who have just begun to eat meat. Over 80% of Indians now eat meat or eggs, a rise of between 8% and 10% over the last decade. Most of these people find it easier to start with chicken, which seems like a ‘clean’ meat. It’s the same with eggs. All of my Gujarati cousins who abandoned the vegetarian traditions of our ancestors began by eating omelettes before graduating to the mothers of the eggs they had enjoyed.
Another factor is the rise in eating out. All of the great non-vegetarian dishes invented by our restaurant sector over the last few decades have been chicken-based, from Butter Chicken to Chicken Manchurian. The fast food sector is also happier pushing chicken over other kinds of meat mostly because of supply-side factors. And there is a strong perception among restaurateurs and hoteliers that in such cities as Delhi, chicken is the only non-vegetarian ingredient that sells. So, menus are loaded with chicken dishes. Even though the food in China, Thailand and Korea is not primarily chicken-based and pork outsells chicken, menus of East Asian restaurants in India rely on chicken on the grounds that industrial chicken is easier to source than pork, and because “customers only want to eat chicken”.
There is of course, a chicken-and-egg (sorry!) question here: Do people really love chicken so much ? Or have restaurants limited their choices by forcing so much chicken on them?
Whatever the truth, get used to eating tasteless chicken, because in nearly every industrialised country in the world, the chicken factories will eventually take over. They will use economies of scale and modern industrial practices to make sure that their chicken is cheaper than every other non-vegetarian option and will dominate the market.
What does that do to the taste factor? Well, frankly, it destroys it. I don’t like recommending expensive options over more moderately priced ones, but if you really like the taste of chicken then go, at least once, to Bukhara and order the tandoori chicken. Bukhara uses only free-range chickens raised by farmers, and you can taste the difference. That’s what chicken used to taste like.
But given that this is not an everyday option for most of us, and that the vast majority of restaurants are now buying industrial (or broiler) chickens, what is one to do?
It’s a question that has been bothering me over the last fortnight. For medical reasons that are too tedious to recount here I have been trying to reduce my consumption of red meat, which means that I have to eat a fair amount of chicken. Fortunately, we only eat free-range eggs at home (you can now get them easily from Amazon, Meatigo etc) but such is the dominance of the chicken industry that good quality free-range chicken is hard to source and is rarely an option at most restaurants. So, I have eaten more industrial chicken in the last fortnight than in the last five years.
Here are my tips on how to survive in a world where your chicken comes from a factory and not a farm.
First of all, because industrial chicken has a disgusting styrofoam-like texture, avoid dishes like roast chicken that use large parts of the whole bird. If you are eating East Asian food, order boneless dishes, where the chicken is cut into small pieces or little strips. Chicken keema works in texture terms. Or you can add texture by frying and crisping the chicken: A cutlet (schnitzel, Milanese etc) is one option, as is a variation thereof like a crispy chicken burger.
Secondly, remember that industrial chicken has very little flavour, so find ways of adding it. Masala is the obvious solution as are spicy East Asian flavours (Sichuan, Thai etc.) Treat chicken as a vehicle for strong flavours rather than something you eat because of its own flavour.
But do try and find something that works for you because you won’t be able to avoid industrial chicken and the real thing will soon fly away and its taste will become a mere memory.
From HT Brunch, September 13, 2025
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