Vikings eat 180 pounds of chicken wings every Thursday, which is a lot
I don’t get to write as often as I’d like, as a self-proclaimed foodie (whatever that awful word means) about the crossover of food and football.
So when we saw a tweet from from the food service director for the Minnesota Vikings — and personal chef to Adrian Peterson — we flew straight to our keyboards to write about it.
That sounds like a lot. And, as it turns out, it is.
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I quickly whipped out my calculator to do the math, and this is what I came up with. There are 53 Vikings on the roster, plus 10 practice-squadders. Throw in the 22 coaches the Vikings list as being on staff, plus — we’re guessing — another 10 or so trainers and support staff who might dine with the team during their weekly Wing-a-palooza.
That’s 95 men, and accounting for any potential vegetarians — 3.2 percent of Americans consider themselves non-meat eaters, and 41 percent of those are men — we’re talking 94 potential chicken eaters each week at the Winter Park facility. So how much actual chicken meat is that per guy, assuming everyone eats wings every week?
We reached out to some friends in the food industry who informed us that the Tyson Chicken nutrition group in Arkansas has measured the average wing containing 68.7 percent meat and 31.3 percent non-edible (bone and cartilage, etc.) parts.
More math: 94 dudes splitting up 123.66 pounds (180 times .687) of chicken meat, that comes out to … 1.32 pounds of chicken per man, or just over 21 ounces. Is it a stunning amount? No, perhaps not. But if we factor in studies (there were many) that said roughly 75 percent of Americans like chicken, the number goes up to roughly 28 ounces of pure chicken per Viking.
Reminder: This is in one sitting.
Now we’re talking a pretty good amount. You might be able to sit down and eat a 28-ounce steak on your birthday, or some special occasion, but certainly not every night, right? Here’s another way to look at it: a full boneless chicken breast (i.e. two halves) is about 10-11 ounces. So we’re talking five or six half chicken breasts’ worth of meat per man.
That’s a lot of math. But also a lot of chicken. So, these are hungry people, as football people tend to be.
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Eric Edholm is a writer for Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @Eric_Edholm
