> After all, even pastured chicken tastes wildly better than conventional chicken.

As a farmer who used to raise pastured chicken, I was always happy to convert people to what real chicken is supposed to taste like.

I love chicken. Finding a chicken I love is surprisingly hard.

...so my father lives in a village in the north-west of Scotland; the butcher there did locally sourced everything (you could buy venison that had come off the local hills; he did amazing venison burgers, made from scrap venison cut with pork). His chickens came from, I think, Black Isle? But they were fantastic. Stuff half a lemon up its backside, rub with olive oil and rosemary, roast, serve with potatoes and plain boiled carrots and peas... sadly, he retired, and the place closed.

I haven't had roast chicken for ages. Dammit, I'm hungry now.

Is the difference simply that the meat is meat from a well fed, exercised chicken vs. a force fed obese monstrosity?

Kind of like eating me vs. eating an Olympian.

I pastured Cornish Cross, which is the standard broiler barn chickens. They are genetically predisposed to pack on as much muscle in as short a time span as possible. By the time they're ~ 9 to 10 weeks old, they are waddling giants, and I'd definitely not characterize them as exercised. :)

That said, the difference that being able to forage green grass and insects in the short period they were out on pasture (usually 4-6 weeks, weather dependent) was so remarkable in terms of the flavour and the texture of the meat, that we're effectively ruined for eating any other non-pastured chickens. The fat was rich and velvety, the dark meat was meaty and deep in flavour; everything was just moist and juicy and delicious.

We didn't do many on a yearly basis (about 1000 +/-), and I was primarily using them for fertilizing pasture that I was grazing with our dairy herd. The fact that they were spectacular eating was just a side benefit.

If you're ever able to track one down, I'd highly recommend giving one a go.

And as a quick point out, the feed conversion ratio [1] on poultry is pretty stellar. Anywhere from 1.5-3.5:1 is normal for feed:body weight increase.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed_conversion_ratio

Cornish Cross in particular are fantastic at converting feed into weight gain. In 10 weeks, you can go from a fluffy little ping pong ball sized chick to an almost 10lb live-weight bird. It's often unwise to raise them past that age, because the rate of weight gain puts so much stress on their internals that they'll frequently keel over from a heart condition. By the 8 to 9 week stage, they're already so heavy that they can only take a handful of steps because having to plop down and have a rest for a bit.

I always thought good chicken tasted a bit like pork and peanut butter. It's a strange taste, but it makes store bought chicken always feel like it's missing something.

Also, seemed like the Chicken was fried. Everything tastes great when it is fried.

That's definitely cheating. Then again, all kinds of people fry their chicken. A success story there is still meaningful if you're just eating it occasionally and always fried. You could mix it up with the seasonings if not the cooking method.

Also, I'm not sure how many chicken nuggets are sold (some quick calcs say ~23 lbs of fast food chicken per capita per year). But even just being able to replace those would be a ethical boon.

Well, a lot of people eat chicken fried; if this would fix environmental & animal torture issues then it still seems like a good plan.

Anything can be made to taste great with oil, seasoning, salt and sugar. Animal products don't have a monopoly on taste.

I first read that as "pasteurized" - and was very confused ;)