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The Food Chain

Factual: Food & Drink

Examining what it takes to put food on your plate

The Food Chain examines the business, science and cultural significance of food, and what it takes to put food on your plate.

The Food Chain: Chicken: Too Much of a Good Thing?

Chicken: Too Much of a Good Thing?

08/08/2015

BBC World Service - The Food Chain, Chicken: Too Much of a Good Thing?

The Food Chain returns to explore one of the world's most important foods: the chicken.

Chicken is set to become the world’s most popular protein, but how did a shy Asian jungle bird come to dominate our diet? And does our taste for the bird put our lives at risk?

We explore one of the world’s most important foods - the chicken. It is set to become the world’s most popular protein in four years time, surpassing pork. But does our taste for our favourite bird put our lives at risk? We discuss how poultry farmers are becoming increasingly embattled as highly contagious strains of avian flu continue to spread across the world. And we explore the genetic journey the a jungle bird from south east Asia took to our universal plate- via an American supermarket contest. 

Featured voices:

Andrew Lawler: author Why the Chicken Crossed the World

John Oxford: Emeritus Professor of Virology at the University of London

Abou Simbel Ouattara: Egg farmer, Burkina Faso

Lee Perry-Gal: University of Haifa 

Wesley Batista, CEO JBS S.A

(Photo: Chickens being farmed. Credit: Thinkstock)

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