My Portfolio
Welcome to my portfolio. Here you’ll find a selection of my work. Explore my projects to learn more about what I do.
Forever Nugget
Golden brown exterior, crunchy on the outside, soft meat on the inside. Chicken nuggets are the food of childhood. Delicious six pack of protein, but along with that are preservatives! Okay... so not the healthiest, but once in a while is fine... right? If only the meat used doesn't contain deadly bacterias and diseases such as Salmonella and Campylobacter.
The chickens used in most parts of the world and especially in fast food chains are called Broiler chicken. Broiler chickens were created in the -------- as a way to meet the demands of consumers.
MAIN PROBLEM: Broiler chickens have been modified to a horrendous mess. EXPLAIN MODIFICATION
Eating chickens could be said to be a necessary evil, or even just the law of the jungle. But going as far as to intentionally force disabilities onto them and raise them in unhealthy environments is unjustifiable. Chickens know how to live just as much as our children. Researcher Rosa Rugani, a psychologist at the institute of University of Padova, have found that chickens, at only a few days old, are capable of counting and doing math!
In life, how much does luck matter? Or is it appearance that has more weight? Or could it be intelligence? If you have it all and yet can’t get a job or just is not loving life, you are not alone. Chickens try as they might, will never get to cuddle in a spacious bed with their owners, —-----------(add more sad comparisons to pets) Chickens are treated like objects, a balloon we fill up as much as we like, and pop whenever we want. Chickens are contained in cells the size of their bodies, force fed till their stomachs bulge, and genetically modified to be a delicious piece of nugget for the price of walking and standing. Factories justify their actions by labeling them as broiler chickens. Yes, they make it seem as if all this is just a different species of chickens and has nothing to do with their handy work.
(Who section) Next to the sweet and sour dip is a box of six chicken nuggets, but do you know what those nuggets are made out of? If your answer is chicken, you are somewhat correct. The answer is frankenstein-chickens! Broiler chicken is a type of chicken genetically modified specifically for consumption. (Quote Poultry Palace of what a broiler chicken is——————) Taking a walk down the timeline, we arrive in the late 14th century. This was when the very first broiler chicken was created and named after a cooking method: broil. The name although self explanatory, the cruelty is not. From the moment they were born, to the moment of their demise, they never once had a good day, and all this was predetermined.
Problem with Broiler Chickens
(What) As soon as they peck their way out of the soft shell eggs, they are doused with vaccines to protect us consumers from harm. As a bird, they are precocial -able to walk, run, and even find food right after birth,
(Why)
(Counter) Is it mercy to have the broiler chicken's lives cut short? Broiler chickens are bred to be fast growing and thus rapidly gain pounds in a matter of weeks or even days. To compare, a typical chicken on average is five pounds by the time they are six years old; however, broiler chickens are already four pounds by the time they reach four weeks.
In my eyes, there is no difference between lab grown meat and broiler chickens. Some may call it karma, or perhaps it is the side effects of lack of care. The chickens are not the only ones being impacted by the genetic modifications, but the consumers as well. (Find better source) ----------- Omar Farooq, publisher of Ask Men India notes various health declines created by daily indigestion of broiler chickens. On the top of the list is food poision, followed by antibiotic resistance, dangerous growth hormones, and unhealthy fats. Considering the health problems America has been battling for the past decades, there seems to be a connection with being the country with the most broiler chickens. It would be fascinating and beneficial to have research on this correlation.
Research
Solutions
(Solutions) "Save what you love," a phrase by Jonathan Franzen, a writer/environmentalist. ---------------------. Another solution is more drastic, but rewarding. By switching from poultry to consuming other alternatives such as nuts and insects. (INSERT WATERMELON ARTICLE AS SUPPORT)--------------------.
(Pictures are in file ChickenB. Add later)----------
(Capabilities)
(Alternatives)
Insects have been found to contain bountiful consumption benefits ranging from various minerals to bountiful protein. Not to mention, they are low in calories. So why are we shying away from eating them? Because they are gross! Little creatures that have been walking and flying in who knows where, with their weird legs, weird eyes, weird everything! But... so are Broiler chickens. Worse, Broiler chickens are actually harmful to
Might I add, the carbon foot print difference between raising insects and raising Broiler chickens.
Global (Franken-chicken)
Advocates for Animals, an animal law firm based in the United Kingdom raised against the government of UK for
Grassroot
What can we do as ordinary human beings? In a span of ten weeks, I have experienced Twitter for the first time, and found a beautiful community of people who are fascinated by chickens, experts of the bird, researchers, farmers, and just passerby's. This random bunch of people interacting made me better understand the possibility of advocating online.
Social media is a kin to a giant bulletin board and hashtags are colored pins that help people find what they need. Sometimes, other things on the board attracts one's interests and a whole new world opens up. But it did not happen because of fate nor accident. It is by design, the media's algorithm is working.
(Summary)
Whether it be through substituting the meat, finding a voice for the chickens, going to court, all these things could be done. Some will take more time and effort than others, but all is a step closer to end this monstrosity. Evil hidden in plain sight, let's give the chickens some decency they most definitely deserve.
Join Advocates for Animals in pressuring the government. Or perhaps you would perfer
Counter
Could we live in a world without Broiler Chickens?
It is not easy to imagine
The research starts off with acquiring 74 domesticated chicks divided into groups of 15. At only a few hours old, the chicks were brought into the lab and raised in individual cages. In each cage were 7 bidimensional orange cardboard with an oval head and a rectangular neck, and black shapes for facial features, hung strategically so that the chicks could see them at every turn. It is critical for the cardboard to be hung as not only will it be at the peripheral height of the chicks, but it also creates movement which deepens the bond with the newborns. After three days of chilling in their cages, the chicks were brought out for training and soon after, testing.
Hopefully, unlike us, the chicks were too naive to have test anxiety. On the fourth day of their lives, the chicks were put to the test. In 20 consecutive trials, they were placed into a box with a partitioner. The partitioner was only there to keep the chicks from running to the objects immediately, and thus was transparent. To mimic equations, the researchers broke 7 orange carboards into two unequal groups and made them appear and disappear behind a wall. This disappearance and reappearing actions of the objects will prevent a research error of the chicks just going for what is more numerous purely by instinct. After that, the partitioner would be lifted and the chicks would have three minutes to roam free and answer the equation by going behind a wall. The researchers count answers by which wall the chicks go behind. Should less than three-fourths of the chick’s head and body be behind a wall, then that answer is not accepted as an answer, and the trial goes on.
The results show that there is a need for a prototype for the chicks to make a distinction. Aside from that, they are highly capable of picking out differences. Which not only helps with thriving in a community, but it also helps with math. The chicks that were able to distinguish the orange cupboards and their many faces, performed better and were capable of solving equations with higher sets of numbers.
Precociality is the norm in the world of aves. As soon as they are born, unlike us who are sitting ducks to the dangers of the world and are incapable of feeding ourselves, aves are able to feed themselves and move around right out of the egg. This is one of the reasons why Rosa Rugani chose to utilize chicks for this experiment. The other being it is easier to create a controlled environment when using chicks.
This is not lead researcher Rosa Rugani’s first rodeo. Since 2010, she has been experimenting with chicks and math. Way back in 2010, she first introduced this theory of chicks doing math to the world by testing perception of quantity with chicks’ natural instincts, represented in the form of imprint. Imprinting, for those who have never seen “Twilight,” is a process where a young animal knights anything it sees as its parent, and forms a deep bond with it. Going back to the experiment, she concluded, “Results showed that when exposed to sets of identical objects, chicks chose on the basis of the larger quantity of objects in a set.” But that was just the beginning, Rugani saw potential in the chicks, but also saw room for rebuttal. With that in mind, another experiment was conducted. This time, with a more neuro-take. In 2021, Rosa Rugani et al. published an article called, “Approach direction and accuracy, but not response times, show spatial-numerical association in chicks.” In this experiment, Rugani and her team aimed to observe how the brain of the chicks function while, you guessed it, solving simple equations. “Results of the sagittal test performed in binocular conditions of vision showed that day-old chicks correctly identified the target element, i.e., the fourth container. This evidence supports the outcomes of previous studies [24, 36–38] and sustains the idea that birds are precariously able to extract a spatial-ordinal rule to locate a food source…” The findings of the 2021 experiment later birthed another neurological research. Her latest research titled, “Passive Grouping Enhances Proto-Arithmetic Calculation for Leftward Correct Responses,” The chicks begin their academic days as soon as they are born. At only three days old, they are trained to familiarize themselves with the testing grounds. Each chick goes through twenty rounds of testing. The research consists of four rounds of different testing. In the first experiment, the objects was placed in a 1+1+1 vs. 1+1+1+1 sense. The second experiment in a 2+1 vs. 2+2 sense. The first and second experiment is done to test whether the chicks are capable of differentiating groupings of threes and fours whereas the third and fourth is made to distinguish between groups of four and five. (This process is done similarly throughout all of the mentioned research. It is a great method to prevent uncontrolled variables from affecting the results.) Later on in this experiment, the chick’s were made to have one eye covered at a time to test their left hemisphere versus their right hemisphere. The results conclude that the chicks depended more on their left hemisphere than their right to solve equations. Likewise, brain scans show that our left hemisphere is more active when solving arithmetics.
Works Cited:
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Global Animal Partnership. Why Should You Care About Broiler Chicken Welfare?, https://globalanimalpartnership.org/about/news/post/why-should-you-care-about-broiler-chicken-welfare/#:~:text=Approximately%2025%25%20of%20broiler%20chickens,and%2For%20rapid%20growth%20rates.
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Lindholm, Caroline. “Intermittent Fasting in Chickens : Physiological Mechanisms and Welfare Implications for Broiler Breeders.” Linköping Studies in Science and Technology. Dissertations, 2019, https://doi.org/10.3384/diss.diva-160814.
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The Humane League. “What Are Broiler Chickens and How Long Do They Live.” Thehumaneleague.Org, thehumaneleague.org/article/broiler-chickens. Accessed 28 May 2023.
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