Every time I eat chicken, I get triggered by the thought of what I call the “meat to bone ratio.” It seems like you can never find the perfect amount of meat to complement the amount of bone.
Google tells me that, on average, a whole chicken is about 65-70% edible meat. For the purposes of this article, we’re going to talk about the breast, wing (specifically the wingette because no one even knows there’s a mini drumstick associated with the wing).
The Breast
The breast has way too much meat. This part is about 75% edible meat. If you go to Church’s Chicken (free advertising, you’re welcome) or an inferior fried chicken restaurant of your choice and you get some breasts, you better make sure you have a lot of sauce to keep that palate moist. Sometimes eating the breast can feel like a chore. After you eat the skin and maybe the top couple layers of white meat, you get down to the dry meat that just ruins the whole experience. By the time you’re done eating the breast, your friends have already eaten the rest of the chicken. Writing about this makes me want to buy a Dr. Pepper (which you can apparently buy on Amazon, what timeline is this?).
The Wings
The wing consists of the drumette, the wingette, and the wingtip. When people think of wings, they’re usually thinking of the wingette. When was the last time you went to Buffalo Wild Wings and actually got any other part of the wing? Anyway, the meat to bone ratio on this is absurd. Google and AI tells me that there’s only about 55% edible meat on this part. Like the breast, eating this feels like a chore; you can’t just take one giant bite out of it because it has the awkward bone structure you have to work around. There is a trick where you pull one of the bones off prior to eating and you can enjoy the wing essentially like a drumstick, but you’re counting on the fact that that bone would come off cleanly. Too much work; this piece sucks.
The Drumstick
If Goldilocks broke into someone’s house and tried the breast, wing, and the drumstick, this piece would be the one she considers “just right.” This piece has 70% edible meat. The meat to bone ratio is as close as it gets to perfect. You’ve got enough meat to really feel like you’re digging into something and it’s close enough to the surface that it’s nice and juicy. You don’t have to dig around the bones to get all the meat so it doesn’t feel like a chore working through this piece.
That’s not to say that this piece is perfect. The worst feeling in the world, and I mean this ruins the meal, is getting a drumstick, taking a bite and finding that the bone is broken in half. Each bite has that weird bone marrow-ey taste to it now and you’re now stuck with two pieces – one with too high of a meat to bone ratio and one that is too low.
This is the end of my fried chicken rant. Speaking of chicken, remember when you could get like ten wings, half Mango Habanero and half Asian Zing at Buffalo Wild Wings for $10? In 2025, it now costs at least $20 for ten wings. Just buy the sauces on Amazon and make the wings at home for half the price.
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