Warning: Extreme discretion is suggested in reading the following. It may contain disturbing information unsuitable for carnivores and may result in unbridled vegetarianism.

I was cruisin’ Amazon Prime. Looking for that one murder mystery I might have missed. Maybe even one that didn’t require subtitles. And I saw those words “super size”. Been there, done that, I thought. A favorite foodie flick. 

But wait, this wasn’t the documentary that almost won an Oscar. This was “Super Size Me 2”. Morgan Spurrrrrllllock (can’t help but drawl that surname) had made a sequel to his almost Oscar-winning exposé of McDonald’s and their less-than-healthy burgers. 

There was another title at the top of the screen. “Holy Chicken!” Spurlock was obviously now raking muck about the fast food poultry biz.

I have a hunger for food docs. It borders on my hunger for…well…almost anything edible. I asked Don Day’s Wife if she wanted to join me or watch another episode of The Morning Show. Surprise, surprise, she chose to super size.

I knew the poultry biz was a little nasty and a lot secretive. Personally, I’ve been trying to get my foot in the barn of Rancho Viejo, our local “organic” chicken farm here in San Miguel de Allende, for over a decade. With zero success. “Holy Chicken” confirmed a lot of those presumptions.

Producer, director and star Spurlock groups Big Chicken with Big Oil and Big Tobacco. There may be thousands of chicken farmers across the United States but the industry is tightly controlled by just five corporations: Tyson Foods, Pilgrim’s Pride, Sanderson Farms, Koch Foods and Perdue Farms. They’re the same names you’ll see on labels (in very small print) on the chicken we buy in Mexico.

In “Holy Chicken”, Morgan Spurlock takes a very different and very creative approach to exposing the ills of the industry. He investigates Big Chicken under the premise that he’s opening his own fast food chicken outlet, a theme that he takes all the way to the grand opening to entice possible franchisees. His style is fast-paced. He never preaches just presents the facts. He doesn’t just inform, he entertains.

If you’re not already familiar with them, a lot of those cold, hard facts will shock you. That the life span of a chicken is six weeks, down from sixteen weeks not too many years ago. That free-range chicken has little to do with the birds enjoying the great outdoors. That, if a similar breed and feed science had been employed on humans, a two month old baby might weigh 660 pounds.

A surprise to me was that the U.S. now consumes more chicken than beef. That the fast food industry now sells an estimated billion chicken sandwiches a year. No surprise was how the chains use terms like local, no hormones added, natural, antibiotic-free, humane, farm-raised and cage-free to present the illusion that these birds live a life of leisure. No surprise either was that the f word, the word fried, is considered a curse word and must be replaced by crispy and crunchy in all marketing communications.

I’ve known for a long time that chicken was more about manufacturing than farming. That making what went inside the bun wasn’t that much different from making the bun itself. I’ve accepted it. You may choose not to. 

I ordered Mr. Crunchy Chicken a couple of hours after I watched “Super Size Me 2. Holy Chicken!”. Again, you may choose not to.

In Mexico, you’ll find “Super Size Me 2” on Amazon Prime. In San Miguel de Allende, you’ll find Mr. Crunchy Chicken on Uber Eats.