Playing Chicken - nutritional evaluation of prepared chicken and turkey products

HEALTHY COOK - AT - HOME POULTRY

Store-bought versions are no better. (The numbers in our chart look better, but that's only because they're for a three-or four-wing serving.) Banquet breads its wings before it fries them. That gives them twice as much fat and sat fat as any of the other store-bought wings we found. The company's slogan is "Bringing the family to the table." The operating table, maybe.Oil: Peanut oil, because of its high smoke point and good flavor, is recommended. Canola and safflower oils also work well.Poultry's hot. We now eat twice as much chicken and turkey as we did in 1970. But many of those breasts, thighs, drumsticks, and wings end up in the deep-fryer, where they pick up an unhealthy dose of saturated and trans fat.Burgers & PattiesSilver Key Senior Services, a local nonprofit that helps the elderly, needs food to fill 900 Thanksgiving baskets.The organization is seeking canned goods, boxed potatoes and macaroni and cheese. For more information, call Brian Williams at 227- 1359.If you're a meatball fan, check out Tyson Italian Style Chicken Meatballs or Shady Brook Farms Italian-Style Turkey Meatballs. They both have a tad too much sat fat for a Best Bite (and the Tyson has too much sodium), but they've got just one third the fat (and sat fat) of beef meatballs.Wampler's package lists "turkey" as the first ingredient. That can mean dark meat, light meat, and/or fat and skin.LAKELAND, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 1, 2000Time Trimmers. Short Cuts. Easy Beginnings. The answer to your what-to -throw-together-for-dinner woes is sitting right next to the raw chicken pieces in your supermarket's refrigerator case.Forget 'em. Most chicken or turkey burgers slash ground beef's sat fat down to two grams ... and give your taste buds something new to look forward to.Perdue Done It! Breaded Chicken Breast Tenderloins were so crispy and moist, you'd swear they were fried. And they're the only tenders we found that were made from the soft, juicy tenderloin meat. Too bad they missed a Best Bite by a half-gram of saturated fat.Say goodbye to your bucket of fried chicken. Get ready for healthy, delicious, no-effort poultry at home. It comes both breaded and unbreaded, frozen and fresh, cooked and raw. All you do is pop it in the oven or microwave and serve. Some can go right from package to plate.Just pop a bird into one of Home Depot's deep fryers and, in less than an hour, a flavorful, juicy turkey will be ready for dinner. Not only is this easier and quicker than the traditional method, it frees your oven for preparation of other dishes.Breaded Nuggets & TendersTenders are longer and larger than nuggets, and they're more likely to be made with (lower-fat) breast meat.Breaded Breasts & CutletsA six-piece order of McDonald's Chicken McNuggets has 17 grams of fat and 510 mg of sodium. Many packaged nuggets have at least that much fat, thanks to dark meat and skin. Some have almost 700 mg of sodium.Nature's Kitchen's (frozen) Chili Pepper Chicken Burgettes, for example, deliver the snappy Southwestern edge that the box promises. And the company's Savory Original and Portobello Mushroom Chicken Burgettes are moist and bursting with flavor. So were Banquet Grilled Hickory BBQ Chicken Breast Patties.Unbreaded Pre-cooked Breasts & StripsOther favorites: The Turkey Store's Garlic Herb, Lemon Pepper, and Teriyaki Chops and Filets.We found only one Best Bite nugget. But what a find. Health is Wealth Chicken Nuggets are moist, tender, and (like the company's other chicken products) are coated with whole-wheat breading.Our Best Bites have no more than eight grams of fat (no more than two of them saturated) and 480 milligrams of sodium. That's for a modest serving: about three ounces cooked (or the number of breasts, thighs, burgers, nuggets, etc., that comes closest to three ounces). If you eat more, don't forget to multiply.The basics:They're cooked strips, slices, diced chunks, or whole chicken parts. They come seasoned, and all turn you into a kitchen magician. Throw together a green salad or saute some vegetables and toss in a handful of chicken. Or use them in pasta, burritos, or chicken salad.Companies giveth, and companies taketh away. Look at Perdue Low Fat Italian Breaded Chicken Breast Cutlets. Each one has just three grams of fat--less than a third of the usual breaded chicken breast (that's the giveth). But the 700 mg of sodium is almost as much as you'd get in a nine-piece order of McDonald's Chicken McNuggets (that's the taketh). We found only one breaded patty--Tyson Breast Fillets--that kept both the fat and sodium in check.Founded in 1978, The Home Depot is the world's largest home improvement retailer with fiscal 1999 sales of $38.4 billion. The company employs approximately 230,000 associates and has 1,066 stores in 45 states, six Canadian provinces, Puerto Rico, Chile and Argentina. The company was recently named in the Top 10 Most Admired Companies in America by Fortune Magazine, which also ranked it as America's Most Admired Specialty Retailer for seven consecutive years. Its stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE:HD) and is included in the Dow Jones Industrial Average and Standard & Poor's 500 Index."All you need for a great meal is a good size turkey, a bit of propane and, of course, a cooker from The Home Depot," says Jody Shiver, Inside Garden Associate and cooking expert at The Home Depot in Lakeland.Nature's Kitchen can marinate for us any day. We didn't even mind that we had to broil its fabulously juicy Marinated Boneless Chicken Breasts. Pick up as much of the Mango Barbeque, Lemon Pepper, and Roasted Garlic and Italian Herb flavors as you can find. They're ready to broil right out of the package.And both McDonald's and most packaged nuggets are made with hydrogenated oils that add trans-fat insult to sat-fat injury. A six-piece order at McDonald's, for example, has two grams of trans in addition to its four grams of saturated fat.Consider the typical (quarter-pound before cooking) hamburger. Even if you make it with so-called "lean" ground beef (typically 20 percent fat), it'll run you six grams of sat fat (almost a third of a day's worth) and more than 200 calories. And those numbers are without the bun, cheese, mayo, or other fixings.Common sense precautions: Because of the high cooking temperatures, remember to exercise caution and use such things as old shoes and long pants, safety goggles, gloves, aprons, tongs. It may be a good idea to have a fire extinguisher nearby.There's a catch, though (isn't there always?) ... and it's not fat. While an unseasoned chicken breast has only 60 mg of sodium, most of these products contain chicken broth or a salt solution (to keep them moist and add flavor). And that can add up to a heap of sodium--more than 900 mg in, say, a three-ounce serving of Easy Beginnings Southwestern Chicken Breast Filets.Resist the urge. According to our analyses, deep-frying means that the average 12-wing order at a dinner house like Applebee's or T.G.I. Friday's could set you back 700 calories and use up about three-quarters of your day's quota for total fat, artery-clogging fat, and sodium, plus nearly a day's cholesterol. And that's if you don't touch the blue cheese dressing that they're usually served with.The Fraternal Order of Police, Colorado Lodge No. 9, is seeking donations of money and non-perishable food to deliver to the needy on Nov. 22. The group is putting together Thanksgiving baskets with a week's worth of food for a family of four. You can drop off money or food, or send a check to 1826 E. Platte Ave., Suite 200, Colorado Springs 80909.Springs Rescue Mission, a Christian charity that helps the homeless, is raising money for its annual pre-Thanksgiving Day meal. You can send a donation to Springs Rescue Mission, P.O. Box 2108, Dept. OGM3, Colorado Springs 80901-2108. For more information, call the organization at 632-1822.

Store-bought versions are no better. (The numbers in our chart look better, but that's only because they're for a three-or four-wing serving.) Banquet breads its wings before it fries them. That gives them twice as much fat and sat fat as any of the other store-bought wings we found. The company's slogan is "Bringing the family to the table." The operating table, maybe.

Author: Wendy Meltzer, Jayne Hurley