Melt on your Tongue Chicken

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October 6, 2017

I cooked a chicken this week using the farmer’s wife’s recipe – Rebeca’s Melt-on-your-tongue Chicken. Oh, boy it was amazing! It was tender and juicy and did, in fact, feel like it was melting on your tongue. My kids loved it, too. So, what’s the secret? Well, it’s slow cooking. Why slow cooking? It all has to do with the collagen. Is collagen good for you? Yes, indeed.

Collagen is the most abundant protein in our bodies. It’s in our muscles, bones, skin, blood vessels, digestive system, and tendons. It gives our skin strength and elasticity; it is the “glue” that holds us together. We lose collagen naturally as we age and also from lifestyle factors like overexposure to sun, smoking, or eating too much sugar. Thankfully, eating foods that are rich in collagen can provide plenty of this essential protein.

There are 5 types of collagen, and chicken is high in type II collagen. The benefits of eating chicken collagen are many: arthritis relief, improve skin and hair, boosts immune system, improved digestive health, and enhanced athletic performance. This is not a new discovery. Generations have been prescribing chicken soup for illness. Miller’s Bio Farm’s chicken is packed with collagen. This is because our birds are truly pasture raised. They run, hop, and scratch through the fields, foraging for wild bugs and seeds. They are allowed to develop to be healthy and strong, building lots of collagen.

The best source of chicken collagen would be from chicken bone broth, slow cooked for 24 hours (chicken feet in particular are packed with collagen). However, a whole chicken has lots of collagen, too. The best way to extract collagen from a whole chicken is slow cooking. Collagen
begins to melt at about 160F and turns to a rich liquid, gelatin. This gives meat a lot of flavor and a wonderful silky texture. Denaturation of the collagen molecule is a kinetic process, and hence a function of both temperature and duration of heating. Cooking at low temperatures require long periods of time to liquefy collagen.

Rebeca’s recipe (see picture below) is super easy. Just rub the seasoning on and put in the oven in the morning. Then, at dinnertime, take it out of the oven. Voila! You have a tender, moist, collagen-rich chicken for dinner. This way of cooking chicken is great for a busy lifestyle. I like to serve my chicken with a collagen-rich gravy made from the pan drippings, a steamed vegetable with butter and bit of salt, and a simple grain like brown rice or quinoa.

Pastured Meat

Cooking

Health and Nutrition

Ugh greenwashed labels. What does it take to get ___ on a label anyway?

Not a fan of the confusing, greenwashed labels in store? Yea, me too! And it's especially real for me, because I'm responsible for getting our labels approved with the "powers that be". Here's a little story with a big inside scoop... I made new labels for our bone broth a little while ago. It didn't go as smoothly as planned. Why? I put the little icons about our farming practices on them. They look like this: Yup, despite being 100% accurate and true, they were denied!! We're not allowed to put those statements on our food labels. So, I asked the USDA guy, "What would it take to get those claims on the labels, anyway?" The answer was kinda shocking. First off, there's some guidance on wording. Silly technicalities in my opinion. For example, you can't use the term "No Spray" but you can say "Produced without the use of synthetic pesticides." Or another example is that you can't say "No Routine Antibiotics or Vaccines" but you can say "Raised without routine use of antibiotics or vaccines." Second, the processor needs to update their documents to provide traceability. In other words, they need to document how they make sure the bones for our bone broth don't get mixed up with bones from other farms. I mean, this is pretty simple, especially with small batch foods like ours. But the documentation needs to be meticulous. Drafting it in government-approved language can be time consuming and/or costly. And lastly, once you get the wording and process right, you need proof. This was the real shocker for me: Want to know what proof would suffice for all the claims above? A 2-3 sentence affidavit (AKA a super short letter) signed by all farmers that supply us. That's it!? This lead me to a bunch of questions: What if a company submits a letter from one farmer but actually has other farmers that supply them, too? What if a company changes farmers? Will they submit new letters?What if a company's farmers change their practices in the future? Will they immediately update their labels?Are the "powers that be" checking on this? Is anyone checking on this?Is this why most farms and food facilities don't allow outside people coming in? It seems to me that, if a business isn't doing what the label says, the only way to find out is via a whistleblower. And the only way to make them stop is to take them to court. You know, like what's happening with Vital Farms and their pasture raised egg claim right now. It seems to me that, all that good natural stuff on labels - grass fed, pasture raised, antibiotic free, etc - doesn't mean it's true. Certifications are a little better, but the same kinda thing can be said about those, too. This is why, at Miller's, we choose to NOT sell in stores. No wholesale for us. In fact, we don't even have an on farm store. We only sell directly to our customers via our website. And, we choose to only get certified for what's required. This way, we can make our own natural standards. And, we can provide you will all the info and proof you need. Descriptions, photos, blog posts, test results, and more. So, what do you think? Should we do the affidavit thing to get claims on our bone broth labels? What proof do you need to feel confident in your food choices? I'd love to hear from you. Comment below (no account required - just start typing) or contact us 😊

Should I choose animal rennet or vegetable rennet in my natural cheese?

Let’s take a look at what rennet is and why it’s used in cheesemaking, compare the different types of animal and vegetable rennets, check out the labeling requirements for rennet, and consider the potential health consequences. Keeping all this in mind, Miller’s Bio Farm aims to produce the most nutrient-dense, natural, A2/A2 cheese we can and gives you all the info you need to make the choice that’s best for your body!

Is yolk color is no longer a great indicator of the egg's nutrition?

It used to be true that, if your egg yolks were darker in color, then the better the egg's nutrition. Conscious consumers of the past would look for that deep orange yolk and stray away from lighter yellow yolks. It's sad, but this simply isn't the case anymore. Here's why you can't trust cheap store-bought eggs with orange yolks and need to know your farmer instead.

Melt on your Tongue Chicken

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Ugh greenwashed labels. What does it take to get ___ on a label anyway?

Should I choose animal rennet or vegetable rennet in my natural cheese?

Is yolk color is no longer a great indicator of the egg's nutrition?

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