Birding: The real reason people eat turkeys

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Most of a bird’s power production for flight occurs in the breast muscles. This mass of meat — pectoralis muscle for the powerful downstroke on top of the supracoracoideus muscle for the upstroke — is the subject of much attention at Thanksgiving.

Domestic turkeys have been bred to have disproportionately large breast muscles — so large, sadly, that their legs are not equipped to support them and they spend much time lying down. Male domestic turkeys are so lopsided that many commercial breeds can’t mount females for normal breeding, and artificial insemination is required.

But all birds, not just those selectively bred for our table, have outsized breast muscles. These flight muscles may comprise as much as 25% of their weight, whereas in hu