Am I the only person who eats chicken bones straight?

Gentlefolk,

I have asked this question before but never received a reply.

Being a lazy person in some things why make a healthy broth? After the chicken is eaten I chew the bone ends. I have even got to the stage where I quite like them.

Anyone else do this?

Thanks

Alex

Alex: I live in San Francisco and spend a lot of time in Chinatown. Most every restaurant there has a chicken feet with skin on disk and its a great favorite among the Cantonese.

You are not alone.

Gordon

Alex, I did that as a kid, even cracked the bones open and ate the marrow. I guess peer pressure made me stop when I got older, at least when I'm not alone. I really like liver too, usually alone...

Gordon and Mike,

Is it a health benefit ?

Why don't you eat the bones now ?

It's free !

Alex

Alex: It's dim sum dish. In the Chinese restaurants they basically cut off the chicken feet then deep fry and steam them with the skin on then pour some sauce over them serve the whole thing to you. Doesn't appeal to my senses but it certainly is very popular.

They think it's the right form of calcium, gnawing on the bones is good for the teeth and their ancestors have been doing it for centuries so it must be good for you.

They spit out the gristle and the toe nails that haven't been cut off.

Of course you have to drink lots of hot tea to dissolve the fat on the way down and through the system, or so they say.

Gordon

Alex,

It's likely healthy to eat edible parts of the bones and the marrow for the variety. I don't eat the bones anymore because mostly I don't buy whole chickens, I usually just get the breasts and fry them up or grill them. I'm also old and not ravenously hungry all the time like I was in my teens and 20's when it was hard to stop eating just because you ran out of the dark meat...

Mike

Alexe -

Check out the background on the Paleo diet, if you have access to "Why We Get Fat" its an interesting read - but one of the observations from watching an indigenous tribe kill, cook and eat a Wallaby was that the organs and the fat are the delicacies and eaten first, from a health perspective this is because the high fat content is very valuable fuel - but the entire animal is eaten, which is theoretically the best approach for health. So while you may be in the minority this is probably a good thing!