chicken

You wouldn't expect uncooked chicken to be a significant source of sodium, would you? But apparently it can be. And, this is before you add any seasoning to it in your own home.

Injecting raw chicken with saltwater solutions during processing is actually a widespread practice in the poultry industry. Manufacturers say it makes for tastier, juicier meat.

Oh, how easy it is to believe everything that we read. I mean, who believed that two guys actually discovered the body of Bigfoot, just because it said so on the Yahoo! homepage? Guilty as charged (of course, it turned out to be nothing more than a hoax and I, consequently, resigned myself to the fact that I'm nothing more than an idiot). Surely I'm not the only person who's taken for a ride once and a while by a misleading headline or, more germane to this website, tricky ad copy on food labels.

Chicken is a great source of lean protein - and is a staple food for many healthy eaters. However labels and marketing slogans for chicken products can be very misleading.

Let's take a look at a few culprits:

From South Korea comes the Col-Pop: a wonderful fast food container that allows both chicken nuggets and soda to peacefully coexist together.

Misinformation, half truths, and misleading data abound both online, off-line, and sadly often from experts' mouths.

I always thought white verses dark or red meat was sort of a strange beast, and one where a few ivory-tower experts were able to confuse a nation.

The primary reason dark meat has been labeled bad - besides a large contingency of political agenda - is saturated fat content. Unfortunately, the general public was considered too dumb to understand the difference between saturated verses other fats. I cannot accept that.

Diet books endorse processed foods. State health authorities endorse fast food. Welcome to the confusing and incoherent world of "healthy food".

McDonald's Australia have "persuaded" the National Heart Foundation to place the healthy tick on 9 of its meals.

Last month McDonald's handed out millions of free samples of its Chicken Selects. Chicken nuggets have earned a bad reputation, so it's obviously time to push something new. The Chicken Selects have been around since 2004 and are described as "premium-quality, 100 percent white chicken breast meat, seasoned and lightly breaded so they are crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside".

That sounds very tasty - a wonderful source of protein right?

In 1991 the famous fast food outlet Kentucky Fried Chicken re-branded - and became just KFC. It seems that the word "fried" was going our of fashion. In an interesting move KFC owner Yum! Brands have come full circle - changing not only the image of Colonel Sanders, but bringing back that word "fried": KFC on Wednesday opened a store in Louisville, Ky., that uses the full Kentucky Fried Chicken name and features the new, updated image of Sanders, who's wearing a red apron over his white suit.

Associated Press: "Fried chicken restaurant chain KFC plans to discontinue commercials touting its fried chicken as part of a healthy diet, a campaign that a consumer group complained was deceptive."