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Comment by klodolph | Hacker News Reader

I also find it interesting how much of a premium white meat commands at the grocery store. $10 might get me 1 lb (450 g) boneless chicken breast, or 3 lb (1400 g) boneless chicken thigh. Since one chicken produces slightly less thigh meat than breast meat, I can only assume that there is a huge disparity in demand.

I'm not complaining—I get the meat I prefer for a good price that way.

(Edit: To be clear, U.S.)

(Edit 2: I think I misremembered the prices: might have been 3 lb / 9 lb instead of 1 lb / 3 lb.)

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This does vary somewhat - when chicken thighs became a more trendy ingredient a few years ago prices for chicken thighs rose pretty dramatically. I mostly noticed because I was semi-regularly making a very simple slow-cooker chicken chili that used boneless skinless chicken thighs.

Also, where in the US are you paying $10/pound for chicken breast? In the Chicago area even "boutique" organic boneless/skinless chicken breast is seldom above $6/pound, regular full-price conventional chicken breast is typically $3-4 depending on where you shop, and B/S breast is often on sale for at or below $2/pound (rarely below $1.49/pound).

Perhaps OP was referring to the pre-cooked chicken available at the deli counter? That's typically a lot more expensive than buying it raw.

$10/lb seems insane to me. I routinely pay $2/lb for mine at Costco ($20 for a 10lb bag of frozen boneless/skinless chicken breast).

Even at Whole Foods the air cooled chick breast are rarely over 6.99 a pound and it seems like the norm for "boutique" chicken.

I think I got bone in breasts for around $3.79 a pound at publix this week.

I'm in upstate ny.

Small packages of chicken breast are typically $7/lb. Large packages at a wholesale club are $3/lb for Perdue, $2/lb for the mystery brand. Whole Foods is much higher.

We have a supermarket oligopoly that keeps prices high, I noticed supermarket prices in a few NYC stores were in line with warehouse clubs at home.

The inverse is true in Vietnam (not sure about elsewhere in SE Asia), where they consider the breasts to be the most undesirable part of the chicken.

It's a health thing. People have been taught that the dark meat is full of fat and the light meat is healthier.

It's kind of like choosing a Coke instead of a Mountain Dew for health reasons.

Except a moderate amount of protein and fat is good for you while highly processed sugar with little to no other nutrients in the mix is not.

I think the point of the parent comment is that choosing to eat white meat instead of dark meat for health reasons is nonsensical.

I'm not sure that's true - in the UK at least. Brits just seem to have a general aversion to anything other than breast meat as the other parts are considered "yucky" etc

My Korean friend had the same attitude (and claimed it was common in Korea). After several "correctly" cooked chicken breasts he changed his attitude.

Breast meat takes far less heat/time to cook than the rest of the chicken (comparatively) making it very easy to over cook. Rubbery chicken breast is much less appetizing than chicken thighs (etc).

Also beast meat in stew/soup is difficult (impossible?) to do right (so so easy to end up rubbery). But thighs in a stew are perfectly fine (can't really overcook).

I think it's really hard to get chicken breast wrong when you brine it. Brining is really the key to tastiness. Saltiness = Tastiness

Not necessarily saltiness, I usually marinate chicken breast in a mix of olive oil, lemon juice and various herbs. The taste is so much better than the "plain" one.

Price of 'commodity chicken' is largely set internationally, as has fascinating disparities, especially due to cross-pacific preferences.

An example is chicken feet. Around 300,000 tons of chicken feet are exported from the US mainly China, as a lot of Chinese cuisine has ways to cook these into something tasty. Think about how little chicken feet weigh, and how many make up a ton. That's a lot of feet. Necks too.

The contrast in prices for chicken breast and chicken wings seems most stark. Chicken wings are popular all over the world, but breast mainly in the Anglo world (US, US, AU, CA, NZ) and some of Europe. China doesn't have much frontness for breast. Here, chicken wings retail for 4 times the price of breast (wings about USD6 per kilo and breast USD1.5 per kilo) despite breasts being bone/skin free - commodity, non-brand chicken, a price disparity that is surely a function of cost of arbitrage (shipping and refrigeration). These are retail prices, largely frozen or pre-frozen.

I prefer a free range bird, chicken, duck, pheasant, from the farmyard. As in friend's parent's farm in the countryside. These go at a huge premium to factory stuff, but are also much longer lived and much tastier. Around USD 15-20 per bird depending on size and type.

Edit: Article on chicken and ratio of wing to breast prices http://freakonomics.com/2011/12/09/the-economics-of-chicken-...

> ...a lot of Chinese cuisine has ways to cook these into something tasty.

Not exactly. They just like chicken feet. Cultural palate. You can go to a dim sum place (if you have one available in your US town) and get dim sum. If you don't like them already, pretty good chance you won't like them off the cart.

> Not exactly. They just like chicken feet. Cultural palate.

ish.

Depends. Also true of tripe (dim sum example, usually also black bean and/or chili). Trust the taste buds. A good restaurant shouldn't serve something that's not good. So take anything off the cart, or menu. If it doesn't taste good, the restaurant isn't doing something right.

Disclaimer: I eat anything that is cooked with love and/or care, and other stuff too.

Even fresh whole squids are only $5-6 a pound. I'm guessing 95% of U.S. food consumption patterns are determined by people being too lazy or dumb to spend thirty seconds googling for how to prepare basic food items.

$10/lb for chicken breast is really high. I can get unpacked chicken breast for ~2 dollars a pound or the packaged Perdue breasts for 6.

In Berkeley I was getting squid for like $2/lb. It was great.

Breasts go below $3 here. Boneless thighs below $2.

That's at Walmart, but that's where an awful lot of Americans are buying some of their chicken.

I was going to post that the price of dark meat is actually inflated because we export it to Russia and other countries, it could be even cheaper! But then I saw this article: http://www.slate.com/articles/life/food/2011/01/the_dark_sid... which says that Russia is not importing as much of our chicken. Good! I prefer dark meat and I want it to be as cheap as possible for me in the US.

I too get the meat I prefer ever since I found this recipe,

https://www.buzzfeed.com/emilyhorng/travel-to-new-york-city-...

I never realized how much more flavour your able to get out of chicken thighs. I highly recommend it!

It's not uncommon to see thighs on sale for prices as low as $.79/pound, in my experience. There is more waste, with the skin, gristle and bone, compared to boneless breasts, but still.

The one that gets me is that you can often get boneless pork chops or loins for around $2/pound. Even the cheaper chuck cuts of beef that I like are usually double or triple the cost of pork.

That's simple supply and demand. American customers prefer white meat because it's lower in calories, and therefore viewed as healthier. It's also considered better for people on a low cholesterol diet. Outside the US, a higher premium is placed on taste, and so dark meat is preferred.

$11.99/lb at Harris Teeter for my locality. Thighs are $7.99.

http://grocery.harristeeter.com/pd/Smart-Chicken/Organic-Bon...

Those are some overpriced organic ones, though. While a valid choice, they're not representative of the norm.

That grocer has regular breasts at $3.99/lb:

http://grocery.harristeeter.com/pd/Harris-Teeter/Chicken-Bre...

or thighs at $3.49.

Maybe klodolph is talking about fresh while some others are reporting on frozen.

Here where I am, Ordinary chicken breast is $6-8 /lb. Organic breasts: $8-10 /lb. Frozen breasts can be $2.50-4 /lb.

I prefer to get misery-free local chickens whole for $4.50 /lb. Then I can make stock. Yum!

I was talking about fresh.

The prices I mentioned are the typical prices for larger packages, not a special or whatever.

Oregon checking in.

Usually prices are:

(boneless/skinless) breast - $1.99/lb

(boneless/skinless) thighs - $2.29/lb

On sale, they are sub $2 a pound, like $1.69. This is at Fred Meyers, quality chicken - that I can tell you.

Who in the hell would pay ten bucks for a pound of chicken, I'd switch to salmon fulltime at that rate.

Lobster prices are considered high when they wholesale for $10 a pound.

http://www.cnbc.com/2015/07/17/lobster-prices-are-getting-wi...

Santa Barbara - $4.99-11.99/lb for chicken breast. I imagine real estate has a lot to do with pricing.

There is a huge disparity in demand due to the perceived health benefits (which I think are essentially illusory). They used to ship unwanted dark meat to Russia but now they've gotten a taste for white meat as well.

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