Ask Kuebiko (#1)

Aug. 27, 2014

Ask Kuebiko (#1)

We had a nice introduction the first time, so I don’t feel we need to do a lot of that anymore.  I’m Kuebiko, your friendly neighborhood Kami and the premise of this blog is simple:  you ask, I answer.  As an ancient spirit whose spheres of influence include agriculture and knowledge, this is a logical blog format.

Our first inquiry comes from FextraLife community member AnCapaillMor:

Alright here’s one, i’m from europe and this whole organic food thing has swept over the place the past few years. At the moment corn feed chicken is the “in” thing. does it really make much of a difference? Apart from the chicken looking yellow(or is that colouring), does it supposedly taste better or is healthier or is it a gimmick? it’s certainly pricier. To be honest i really didn’t taste a difference, then again it’s normally covered in butter and garlic or gravy.Secondary question if i put said corn feed chicken on at a very high heat is there a chance it will pop like a popcorn kernel?

The best answer to your first part is that it could make a difference.  Usually the biggest difference between organic and not so organic chicken that you may be concerned with is the use of antibiotics and pesticides.  Organic chicken should be avoiding those. As some people have kinda nasty reactions to the antibiotic/pesticide raised chicken there’s some clear superiority in that event.

What often gets billed is the better nutritional value.  To some extent this should be true as better fed chickens should be able to produce muscle mass more easily as well as avoid excess fat.  Better building blocks can certainly result in better final product.  However, unless a farmer is using some seriously messed up pesticides and antibiotics in their chicken feed (think mutation), a chicken will develop chicken meat and chicken fat since there’s no difference in the species.  In other words, there may be some increase in quality from a better fed chicken but it’s still one protein regardless.  Excess fat can be trimmed or drained from a fattier chicken if need be.

In short, yes there can be a quality and possible nutrition difference but the price increase being “worth it” is something you need to decide for yourself. I will add that there should be standards (legal, professional, etc.) in order to use the word “organic” on the packaging.  Take a look at what these mean in your area and see if the way the chicken was raised matters to you.  Also don’t forget that just because a farm hasn’t gone so far as to go organic enough to get the label,doesn’t mean they’re inherently feeding their chickens plague infested demon babies and whipping their poultry with barbed wire each night.  They can still be quality oriented and humane. See what’s available in your area, compare the choices and see which chicken is right for you.

For the second part of your question, yes and no. As the base material is quite different, even should it pop it wouldn’t pop in the same manner.  I’d also like to add that popcorn kernels have a moisture proof shell which allows pressure to build internally while heating.  Chicken doesn’t have that, so in order to make it “pop” you’d need some seriously rapid heating. I shudder to think what an oven capable of this would do to your kitchen…

FextraLife community member Serious_Much dropped a whole slew of questions my way:

1. What is game night?2. How come there is a farming deity?3. How come souls became such a phenomenon?4. Why does alcohol hurt so good?5. Why do I love fex’ whip so much?6. How can you skin a cat 100 ways?

Rapid fire it is then!

1. Typically this refers to an organized gathering for the purpose of playing games.  Usually at night.  In some regions it’s actually clever code for “let’s meet up and get drunk.”

2. Agriculture and “feeding people” could easily be argued to be the most important task for mankind.  Let’s combine that assertion with the notion that humans almost always fear situations in which they don’t have complete control.  Farming has a lot of external factors (weather primarily) that are completely uncontrollable yet can result in drastic problems.  Deities have historically arisen so that people can attempt to garner the favor of an entity that they feel CAN influence these external factors. In short, it’s a way to feel like you’re in control still.

3. A cup of pride and a sprinkle arrogance blended with a unique experience. The game primarily spread via word of it’s difficulty which led most players to scoff and say “we’ll see about that.”  Once introduced, it was a matter of love at first death.  There’s also the matter of perceived worth.  With the amount of shattered controllers this series brought about, the perceived worth is high as one shattered handle doubles the amount most players paid for the game.

4. Because people love alcohol and as John Mellencamp could tell you, love hurts so good.  Without the love it just hurts.

5. See #5.  Sounds like it hurts in all the right ways.

6. The easiest solution is math based.  When skinning the cat, make sure each pass of the knife takes only a small amount of skin and each pass goes in a different direction.  That way, you’ve skinned in the most ways possible, and if you’ve done it right hit the 100 mark.  This applies to skinning any animal.  Please don’t test this.

Our final question is another one from AnCapaillMor. This one dates back pretty far and I admit that, while I’ve been asked this many times (mostly as a joke) I never tire of answering it:

which came first the chicken or the egg?

This answer is actually far more concrete and verifiable than almost anyone realizes.

That’s a result of poor wording.  The question is unspecific regarding “the egg.”  Therefore, it’s quite obvious that numerous species that reproduced via eggs predated the chicken by a wide margin.

Now, we can answer the intended question similarly.  I have yet to see a grown multicellular organism spontaneously come into being.  As a result, there is no evidence to suggest that a chicken just decided to exist one day to spite the usual order of things. While I admit I had my back turned to look at some interesting new flower species while the drama in question unfolded, I’m confident that an animal extremely closely related to the chicken began laying eggs with a minor genetic deviation from itself.  This minor genetic deviation then became known as “chickens.”

See you next time, where things may be less chicken-centric..

Don’t forget to send Kuebiko your own questions, and maybe you’ll see them answered next time. Feel free to forward questions to:

Do not send questions:

Kuebiko

Spirit by trade, Kuebiko periodically travels down from the mountain to inhabit and animate one lucky scarecrow. Standing around and observing the world has led to a broad depth of information and FextraLife is proud to have Kuebiko as a consultant for all mortal matters.

I’d like to see this make a comback. Its hard to get people to ask stuff on a regular basis but even if it is once in a while it would be a fun read

Hart, I saw you ask about Kuebiko in the other thread and post this question so I’ll answer both here.

Kuebiko isn’t much of a gamer and that’s why he’s been absent since that’s pretty much the community here. I asked him to do the blog thinking it’d be a neat weekly piece but the questions pretty much dried up completely and it fizzled. The idea was more of a “Dear Abby” with an immortal skarekrow deity in lieu of a kind lady giving advice and answering questions. So while the ag stuff is mostly within his realm (he’s not omniscient it’s just that learning is easy when standing around in fields is most of your eternal life) but he came on board for more general info and Q&A with a skarekrow POV.

I can probably talk him into a return but without a decent supply of questions across a variety of topics it’s not likely to have much different results in the long run. In the meantime, it sounds like you have some plants that could use some attention and some gardening specific sites might be able to help you out faster.

HAH I found the thread.

“My Lord Kuebiko, I bring thee offerings of poultry and grain and beseech thee gift me with thine divine wisdom!”

I have a tomato plant that has come come up with 3 cotyledons, and three true leaves per set rather than the standard 2 of all other seeds from the same batch.

1. Is this a good indication of triploidism?2) What are the chances I will see better growth/harvests from this plant down the way?3) Assuming I do, if I wanted to perpetuate this will I be safe making the effort to use it to produce seeds, or to make sure the attribute is preserved would I need to take cuttings and grow from clone?4) What are the chances it will spontaneously grow out of this as it gets older? To my knowledge plants can develop polyploidism independently on different parts of the plant, so does it stand to reason that while it currently has three leaves per set at some point a new bud could open and have only two?

Glad you enjoyed them!

Sorry for the late reply. My corn field has been a little hectic lately. I don’t know if there’ll be another this week but hopefully soon

I enjoyed these. The chicken and egg thing was rather good.

Ethics can be a big part. There’s been places that treat their animals about as poorly as my exaggeration in the article.

I wouldn’t mind but i sat down that night and saw a documentary on the antibiotics and crap basically pumped into battery chickens. Yep i’ll pay the extra few bucks now.