For starters, approximately 30 percent of chicken is tainted with Salmonella and 62 percent with its equally virulent cousin, Campylobacter. Time magazine calls raw chicken "one of the most dangerous items in the American home," and each year in the US alone, contaminated chicken kills at least 1,000 people while sickening as many as 80 million others.
It's no surprise really that chicken is decidedly foul. Desperately crowded factory farms--where more than 90 percent of US chickens and eggs are raised--are fertile breeding grounds for disease. Additionally, slaughterhouses do an excellent job of spreading pathogens from one bird to the next.
Even if chicken was pathogen-free (clearly an unsafe assumption for any shopper to make), it would hardly qualify as wholesome. Not only is chicken nearly devoid of health-promoting compounds found only in plant foods--things like complex carbohydrates, antioxidants, phytochemicals and fiber--it also contains other suspect ingredients rarely recommended as part of a healthy diet.
Cholesterol. You'll find just as much artery-filling cholesterol in chicken as in beef and pork. Cholesterol is found exclusively in muscle tissue and can't be trimmed away.
Protein. People can meet or exceed their protein requirements simply by choosing a varied plant-centered diet and eating ample calories, says the American Dietetic Association. No animal foods are necessary. Many North Americans already eat twice the protein they need, and excessive protein has been linked to osteoporosis, kidney disease and other medical problems.
Antibiotic Residues. Roughly half of all antibiotics used in the US are fed to farm animals. If meat contains drug residues, it's highly unlikely to be detected, as these tests are rarely conducted.
Mystery Feed. Each year billions of pounds of slaughterhouse leftovers are made into animal feed, much of it for chickens. Chickens are also sometimes fed manure, which may contain pesticides, drug residues, pathogens, heavy metals, hormones and microbial toxins.
If you took a raw chicken and dropped it in a cow pile or in a pile of chicken manure, would you pick it up, wash it off and cook it for dinner? That's just about what's happening at these plants.---Pat Godfrey, inspector Tyson's chicken processing plant, Springdale, Arkansas
Despite millions of people falling ill each year, the US Department of Agriculture (the government agency responsible for meat safety) continues to stamp every thigh, breast and wing with its seal of approval, promoting many to ask, "Who's minding the henhouse?" Sadly, USDA has historically placed the interests of the influential poultry industry ahead of those of the poultry-consuming public. A new, more-scientific government meat inspection system has been agreed upon in principle, but tangible improvements remain years away.
A poultry plant is not a good place to work. When you miss a day they punish you. If you're sick they punish you. The supervisors holler at you, but you can't say anything. They treat you like a child.---Wonder Sims, 23, poultry worker
The horrors found routinely inside chicken slaughterhouses are not limited to grisly scenes of disassembled chickens. They also include treacherous working conditions and dismally low wages. In 1994, a Wall Street Journal writer described the work he experienced first-hand in several slaughterhouses as, "faster than ever before, subject to Orwellian control and electronic surveillance, and reduced to limited tasks that are numbingly repetitive, potentially crippling and stripped of any meaningful skills or chance to develop them...The work often was so fast-paced that it took on a zany chaos, with arms and boxes and poultry flying in every direction."
Chicken production also exacts a steep environmental toll. It takes up to 700 gallons of water, six pounds of grain and the equivalent of about one-fifth a gallon of gasoline to produce one pound of chicken. In addition, manure from the chicken industry is directly responsible for widespread pollution of waterways and groundwater.
Unless we dramically curb our appetite for chicken, the future seems grim. We can expect more people hospitalized and killed by contaminated chicken, and more families mourning the loss of loved ones. We can look forward to more rivers and drinking water fouled with manure, more workers facing perilous tasks and lousy pay, and much more animal suffering.
Despite the present horrors and bleak forecast, however, consumers continue to sleepwalk through the checkout line with shopping carts full of foul. One can only wonder, when will we awaken from this nightmare?
The average North American eats more than 50 pounds of chicken per year, roughly double the amount consumed just 20 years ago. At least 1,000 US citizens are killed each year by contaminated chicken. As many as 80 million others are sickened. Inspectors have about two seconds to visually examine the inside and outside of each chicken. At this rate, inspectors may examine 12,000 or more chickens in one day. There are presently 1,370 unfilled federal meat inspector positions. In 1994 and 1995, more than 1.9 million inspection tasks went unperformed because of these vacancies. A 3-ounce serving of chicken breast contains 75 mgs of cholesterol. A 3-ounce serving of ground beef contains 72 mgs. No plant foods contain cholesterol. The owner of the nation's largest chicken producer Don Tyson earns about $5 million in salary, dividends and bonuses each year. Pay for workers on the poultry line are less than for any other manufacturing industry except apparel. More than 90 percent of US chickens and eggs are produced on factory farms. Roughly 7.5 billion chickens were slaughtered in the US in 1995. In a single year, US poultry operations use enough water to meet all the domestic needs of nearly 4.5 million North Americans. Producing one egg takes about 63 gallons of water.
