Maple Cayenne Glazed Chicken and Sweet Potato Hash

Before school started I ate egg whites, boneless skinless chicken, and low fat mayo… but today a chef came in and talked to us about nutrition. I learned about the French Paradox, which is basically how do the French eat so much more salt, butter, cream, and drink and smoke a hell lot more than Americans but manage to have a MUCH lower amount of cardiovascular disease, breast cancer, and colon cancer. Boy, I thought I knew a lot about nutrition, but I did learn a few things.

• First, I learned that Americans have been brainwashed about good vs. bad fats. I already knew that butter is better for you than margarine. I also learned that chicken skin is considered to be a monosaturated fat (olive oil and avocados are other sources of monostaurated fats)… so chicken skin is good for you? The chef “nutritionist” said that the chicken skin is actually good for us and gave us a homework assignment to buy a rotisserie chicken and just eat the skin (that was just a joke of course). So I have spent years eating bland boneless skinless chicken breasts, well no more.
• I learned about the business of salmon. Wild Atlantic salmon is apparently all gone and if we want wild salmon, we have to resort to Alaskan wild salmon which is outrageously expensive (like $25/pound). But often the only reason I eat salmon is because I’m thinking I need some Omega 3s. But guess freaking what, farm raised salmon almost has NO omega 3s because they are fed corn and soy products instead of other fish and coral like they are supposed to eat. And the pink color from farm raised salmon comes from beets. Are salmon supposed to eat beets?? I don’t think so but at least it’s not artificial color…
• Salmon being fed corn and soy products brings me to another point. We are not what we eat, but we are what we eat eats. That is kind of a depressing thought, because almost everything we eat is fed corn and soy (think cows and chickens), so that’s why our meat is so far inferior compared to other cultures. Apparently, in Japan, the chicken is raised just right and they can eat it raw if they wanted because their chicken has virtually no salmonella! I learned that in America, our chicken is disgusting and full of salmonella. In class, when we prepared chicken that was the only meat we had to all wear gloves (we have cooked steak, venison, rabbit, duck, etc). Chicken is the most common meat produced in the U.S. so it makes sense that our chicken is just awful because people want to go to Wal-mart and buy the cheapest chicken which is probably chock-full of salmonella. Now I will not ever try to complain about paying 5.99 a pound for chicken.

Anyhow, I don’t want to scare you from eating chicken because that is my recipe for today. All in all I learned that I may need to pay more for better quality food (Duh, everyone knows that but now I might actually be willing to after learning all this information) and to finally indulge in chicken skin.

I made cayenne maple chicken : Food Network and Sweet Potato, Bacon and Apple Hash Recipe : Anne Burrell : Food Network. I made the recipes exactly as they are stated and they are both delicious. It took me until after I cooked all this to realize this would be perfect for the fall oops but it was still very good.