Every year millions of people sit down and watch the Superbowl and thousands of those people take part in the yearly tradition of messily stuffing their faces with buffalo wings. This is a very popular food ritual similar to eating turkey on Thanksgiving or Ham on Christmas. There are many ways to get this delicious snack, a common way is from most grocery stores where you can purchase a bag of 10-15 frozen wings you can cook at home. A more preferred way is buying from a restaurant, sports bar, or wing joint, where they are served hot and fresh for customers.
The different flavors of wings, like barbeque, ranch, and buffalo help to pique the interest of different people allowing wings to be enjoyed by all different types of people. Though the bone-in wings are more preferred for Superbowl times there are also boneless options for those people who don’t enjoy having to work to eat their wings off the bone. Though wings are most correlated with the Superbowl there are very many other delicious treats that are just as known to be associated with the day. Nachos, pizza, and chips are some of the other famous Super Bowl snacks that some people have created their own Super Bowl traditions around. Pizza is actually a huge competitor with wings, in 2018 the largest pizza company in the world sold enough pizzas to stretch across 5,000 football fields.
This company, Dominos, expects to sell 2 million pizzas this 2019 year and contribute 4 million of the 1.3 billion wings being consumed for the game. Before the increase in popularity for chicken wings and legs they were thought of as one of the most useless parts of the chicken and often wasted because of their lack of chicken and increase of bone. A few years ago the National Chicken Council took the opportunity to advertise their chicken wings during the Superbowl and it took off. Ever since it has been a common tradition in many people's homes to go out and get chicken wings before the big game. This cut of chicken was once seen as cheap and tossed aside, never really seen as a food that's worth anyone's time but ever since the increase in popularity and consumption of well over a billion of those tasty wings on game day wings have created a name for themselves and will forever be known for its Super Bowl Traditions and consumption numbers. We know that America consumes over 1.3 billion wings in just one day but what's the rest of the world's view on this Super Bowl snack? No other country has quite the same tradition based around wings and football but other countries do have other uses for chicken parts. Wings are most popular in the United States and China more than any other place, these countries together consume about 9 billion chickens a year.
The wings are most commonly given to the US and China but where does the rest of the bird go? China actually ends up purchasing the feet of the birds as well. The feathers are imported to Indonesia which is the top buyer of the 1.6 million tons of feathers produced each year out of the United States. The United States grinds up the feathers into feather meals and creates animal feed or plastic fortifiers for Indonesia to buy. Viscera gets most of the intestines to be ground and used as pet food or fertilizer. The wings and legs on a chicken were once the cheapest part but ever since the increase in consumption of well over a billion of those tasty wings on game day, the wings have doubled in price, consumption, and popularity. The Council's greatest decision was to advertise its wings during the Superbowl and it was extremely successful it took off and created many traditions. People loved it so much that traditions were created to eat it each year during this special game. Each year just on Superbowl Sunday alone the world consumes over 1 billion chicken wings. That's enough wings to circle the globe three times. 1.3 billion wings are enough for every man, woman, and child in the United States to eat four wings.
The Council is also currently petitioning the President and Congress to declare the Monday after the Super Bowl a federal holiday: “National Chicken Wing Appreciation Day”. If the number 1.3 billion wings being consumed on super bowl Sunday isn’t concerning to you then maybe it should be. With the extremely high number of wings consumed farms have to be able to match that number in chickens and the fact that one chicken only equals about 2-4 wings/legs it becomes very difficult to compete with these numbers naturally. Meaning these farms have to modify the genetics of these chickens to keep up with the requirements society demands. Food rituals are great to think about and take part in, they make you think differently about your food, most everyone in the world takes part in some sort of food ritual and it may be as simple as eating a burger or fries with your hands. Chicken makes up a large part of trading between countries, allowing each part of a chicken to ultimately end up all over the world. The Super Bowl’s wing ritual sold 1.3 billion chicken wings to be consumed in one day. It's pretty crazy to think about. Knowing that these wings were created from genetically modified chickens sort of makes you re-think the possibilities of science but at the same time, you have to question the health effects of modifying these animals genetics.
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National Chicken Council and World Watch Essay.
(2023, September 19). Edubirdie. Retrieved May 3, 2024, from https://edubirdie.com/examples/national-chicken-council-and-world-watch-essay/
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National Chicken Council and World Watch Essay [Internet]. Edubirdie.
2023 Sept 19 [cited 2024 May 3].
Available from: https://edubirdie.com/examples/national-chicken-council-and-world-watch-essay/
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