Nowadays, before you put something in your mouth, you'd better know what it has been putting in its mouth. By taking a wholesome, back-to-nature approach, Professor Athanasios Yannakopoulos of Thessaloniki University has developed a new, natural diet for poultry, which is producing chickens that are not only safer but also tastier and more nutritious.

With public health scares, like dioxin-laced chickens and mad cow disease, making people ever warier about what they eat, Professor Yannakopoulos' and his team's efforts to produce healthier chickens is just what the doctor ordered. These 'ecological chickens' are particularly high in vitamins A and E, as well as in omega 3 fatty acids, which in recent years have been shown to have myriad health benefits, including the prevention of heart disease. To achieve such beneficial results, chickens are raised on a special diet consisting of corn, linseed and a mixture of thyme and other herbs. Actually, the precise composition is a well-kept secret, which the University of Thessaloniki is seeking to patent.

Yannakopoulos conceived of the project in 1985, when he read a study showing that Greeks were slowly abandoning the traditional Mediterranean diet to consume more and more meat and poultry. He also noticed that people preferred to buy imported chickens, which were similar in flavour but cheaper in price, resulting in a significant drop in national poultry production. Hoping to help reverse this trend, Yannakopoulos and his team began their experiments. The result is chickens that eat better and taste better. In taste tests conducted on 94 area residents, consumers found the new chickens distinctly tastier than other chickens currently on the market.