49. Unnatural Turkeys

Our appetite for breast meat renders our holiday birds unable to reproduce.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Stephen J. Dubner?

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• 0:43Stephen J. Dubner?

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• 1:28Stephen J. Dubner?

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• 2:16Speaker 01

  From APM, American Public Media and WNYC, this is Freakonomics Radio on Marketplace. Here's the host of Marketplace, Kai Rizdal.

• 2:31Speaker 02

  Time now for a little bit of Freakonomics Radio, that moment in the broadcast every couple of weeks where we talk to Stephen Dubner, the co-author of the books and the blog of the same name. It is The Hidden Side of Everything. Dubner, welcome back.

• 2:43Stephen J. Dubner?

  Hey, Kai, thanks. I've got a little Thanksgiving quiz for you. You up for that?

• 2:47Speaker 02

  No, I don't do quizzes. It's my show. All right, what?

• 2:50Stephen J. Dubner?

  I don't know. I'm going to force you today. All right, here we go. Americans will probably eat about 40 million turkeys this month. Now, I hope this doesn't kill your appetite, but what percentage of those 40 million birds do you think were the product of artificial insemination?

• 3:05Speaker 02

  Really? That's the question.

• 3:07Stephen J. Dubner?

  That's the question. It's really the question.

• 3:09Speaker 02

  Wow, OK. 82.6. I don't know.

• 3:12Stephen J. Dubner?

  It's a great guess. Great guess. The truth is, it's actually pretty close to 100%.

• 3:19Speaker 02

  Really? So there's no, like, turkey sex going on?

• 3:22Stephen J. Dubner?

  Well, let's unravel this. Let me ask you this, Kai. When you roast your family turkey, what ends up being the most popular meat that everybody wants?

• 3:31Speaker 02

  Always the white meat. It's the breast meat.

• 3:33Stephen J. Dubner?

  Always the white meat. My family, the same. Now, some people would say that's just because you want to increase the surface area for gravy. But whatever the case, Americans love their white meat. And this goes back to the 1950s, when traditional turkeys got pushed out by a breed called the broad-breasted white, which grows bigger and faster than the traditional bird. And that broad-breasted white has been selectively bred to have the largest breasts possible. There's just one problem with this, and I'm going to let Julie Long from the USDA explain it to you.

• 4:03Speaker 03

  The modern turkey has a quite large turkey breast, and it actually... Physically gets in the way when the male and the female try to create offspring.

• 4:14Speaker 02

  Create offspring. Come on, really? Did she just say that?

• 4:16Stephen J. Dubner?

  She just said that.

• 4:17Speaker 02

  So it gets in the way, basically.

• 4:18Stephen J. Dubner?

  On your air.

• 4:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, I know, right? They can't, and my mother's listening to you. They, so they can't, you know, do it.

• 4:25Stephen J. Dubner?

  That's exactly, it's tragic, isn't it?

• 4:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:26Stephen J. Dubner?

  If you think about it. And as a result, the turkey industry is built around artificial insemination, which is a very labor-intensive and hands-on process. Here's the way it works. A team of workers has to pick up each male breeder, the tom, which might weigh as much as 70 pounds.

• 4:41Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 4:42Stephen J. Dubner?

  Secure his contribution, as they call it in the trade, and then bring that to the hen house to inseminate each hen. And then, keep in mind, with such intense consumer demand for turkey, this is not a once-a-year event. Here's Julie Long again from the USDA.

• 4:57Speaker 03

  So that means, once a week, for five to six months, you have to go

• 5:00Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 5:01Speaker 03

  work with the males and then go work with the females in order to produce the meat that goes out for the consumer.

• 5:09Speaker 02

  Okay, so a couple of things. I love this in its entirety. One, who knew that girl turkeys were called hens?

• 5:15Stephen J. Dubner?

  Yeah, true.

• 5:16Speaker 02

  Two, I love the way she said "work with." You have to work with them. But, three, this is also conceivably, just to get back to the business thing here, it's a jobs program. You need people to go work with these turkeys.

• 5:28Stephen J. Dubner?

  That is a bright side, absolutely a silver lining. Now, keep in mind, if you don't like this idea, and you want to serve your family a turkey this Thanksgiving that's the product of, you know, natural, old-fashioned turkey reproduction, then you might turn to what's called a heritage turkey. Here's Cindy Muller, who raises heritage birds in Illinois. But keep in mind, as she makes clear, Kai, it'll cost you.

• 5:51Speaker 03

  I know in some parts of the countries, the price of a heritage bird for your Thanksgiving table can be over $150, $200 for a bird.

• 6:02Speaker 02

  No way.

• 6:03Stephen J. Dubner?

  Way.

• 6:04Speaker 02

  Really? That's a lot of money.

• 6:06Stephen J. Dubner?

  It's a lot, well over triple, let's say, what you'd pay for a big bird.

• 6:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, just to let a turkey have a little fun in life, right?

• 6:12Stephen J. Dubner?

  That's exactly right. I mean, look, the holidays are supposed to be a feel-good time. So you may decide that instead of making yourself feel good by dropping, let's say, 100 bucks in the Salvation Army bucket, you might want to spend that 100 bucks subsidizing the right of some male turkey to, well, you know.

• 6:30Speaker 02

  And females, it should be said.

• 6:32Stephen J. Dubner?

  There you go.

• 6:32Speaker 02

  And females. Freakonomics.com is the website. That's where you send all the hate mail this week. Stephen Dubner will see you in a couple of weeks.

• 6:39Stephen J. Dubner?

  Thanks, Guy. Happy eating.

• 6:40Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, I don't know about that.

• 6:54Stephen J. Dubner?

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• 7:27Stephen J. Dubner?

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• 7:57Stephen J. Dubner?

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• 8:28Speaker 04

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