Chicken’s Health vs. Human Health: Does It Matter?
Introduction:
In the early Fall of 2010, a new type of genetically modified salmon came under scrutiny from the FDA as well as local food and environmental groups. Protests were staged, pamphlets were handed out and labels of “Frakenfish” and accusations of “human test subjects” were thrown around. In the end, the FDA decided more research and study were needed before they made a decision on whether genetically modified salmon was safe for human consumption.
In contrast, poultry production in the United States has been undergoing modifications somewhat unnoticed for the past fifty years. Most Americans believe they are making a “healthy” choice when they choose chicken over another meat. But, is the chicken sold in today’s markets really healthy for human consumption? Or is it just another type of “genetically modified” animal on the market?
Having recently read a great deal about the poultry industry left me questioning the belief that chicken is really as “healthy” as it has been touted to be by the American media. Animal treatment concerns (and there are many) aside, can the way poultry is being raised and slaughtered actually be nutritious -or even safe- for the American public or have we unwittingly become test subjects of chicken-like food?
History:
To understand where chicken is today, we need to understand where chicken came from in its domestication. Once upon a time, chicken frolicked free plucking snacks from the earth and fending for themselves in the wild. By 8000 B.C.E., humans had learned how to domesticate chickens and contain them to work as part of a larger farming system. However, it wasn’t until the 1920s that chicken production took a dramatic turn. In 1928, Herbert Hoover promised “a chicken in every pot” and didn’t realize just how accurate that statement would become. In fact, since then chicken consumption has increased by 150 times what it was at Hoover’s time (Foer, 105). Part of this increase was due to the innovations in industrial agriculture acquired during World War II: cheap feed for chickens in the form of newly hybrid corn, debeaking of chickens to allow them to be confined in close quarters, and fans and lights that allowed larger numbers of chickens to be housed indoors (Foer, 106). In 1945, A&P Stores’ poultry research director, 10 poultry organizations, the USDA and 2 poultry magazines got together to create a “National Chicken-of-Tomorrow” contest with the goal of creating a cheaper, more “efficient” (i.e., more meat) and easier to produce chicken. The cross-breeds that reached the finals became the precursors of the “new breed of chicken”-a chicken with bigger breasts, thicker drumsticks and full of “growth” vitamins thanks to the newly developed synthesis of vitamin B12 as well as other growth stimulants and hormones (Levenstein, 109).
The increasing demand for chickens necessitated that chickens could no longer wander farms to mature at their leisure. Instead barn raising (and near constant confinement) became the norm. However, chickens full of growth hormones kept in close quarters often became ill quickly because of weakened immune systems. So, beginning in the 1950s, antibiotics administration became common and lifted housing numbers from 3,000 in one “barn” to between 20, 000-40,000 birds in the same area (about the size of a football field). In fact, the Delmarva Peninsula- the “Poultry Capita of the World” at this time- produced about 250 million broilers a year (Foer, 105). Although this provided plenty of economy in the area, it also led to pollution, contaminating nearly 1/3 of all groundwater with nitrate run-off from the poultry farms.
The 1950s also witnessed the advent of chicken “specialization” with birds being split off into the “broiler” or “layer” categories. Layer hens are typically squeezed into cages and subjected to heat/light and food deprivation strategies to get them to lay as many eggs as possible. They are also “debeaked” because chickens in tight confinement tend to revolt and attack one another. They are also often drugged until barely conscious because if they can’t hurt other hens, they try to maim themselves on the side of cages (Pollan, 317-8). Laying hens (all artificially inseminated) lay approximately 300 eggs a year, two-three times the norm in nature. They are then killed because laying declines in the 2nd year and space is at a premium (Foer, 60).
Broiler chickens are raised to produce chicken meat. And by the late 1970s, the anti-saturated fat, anti-cholesterol movement was gaining ground and encouraging people to consume more chicken then red meat (Levenstein, 211). In fact, although in 1980 most people were still purchasing whole chickens, by 2000 90% of chickens were purchased as “parts” (Schlosser, 140). Demand for chicken’s parts by companies like McDonald’s inspired companies like Tyson’s to create broilers with unusually large breasts (Schlosser, 140). Production demands also began to concentrate poultry production in the hands of just a few large companies. These companies worked to create the broiler chicken of today which grows twice as large in 1/2 the time and has increased its daily growth rate since 1950 by over 400%. Whereas chickens used to live 15-20 years before slaughter, they now live about 6 weeks (yes, weeks) (Foer, 60).
To understand just how much chicken production has increased, consider this: Between the years of 1950-2000, a new house increased 1500% in cost and a new car 1400% in cost, but the cost of eggs and chicken have not even DOUBLED (50%) in cost. The low cost of factory production of broilers and layers- now basically viewed as a machine would be in a factory- has allowed numbers to skyrocket. Chicken is cheap.
Conditions/Slaughter:
The “factory bird” developed so quickly, swept up in the “convenience” food movement that blossomed during the same time period, that health considerations were often overlooked or sidelined. The late 1950s brought some heightened fear of the possible cancer --causing effects of hormones given to poultry, but this concern faded fairly quickly. By the early 1970s, large food companies were under more scientific attacks over the concentrations of pesticides and hormones in their food, but rather then reducing use, most companies instead came up with increasingly more sophisticated defenses (Levenstein, 174).
So, what goes on in the poultry farm of today? Well, it’s hard to say exactly. If you wonder why you don’t see much about poultry farms in the news, it’s because they’re very carefully guarded. Media is almost entirely banned from entering. That in itself, might speak volumes.
But, let’s look at what we do know. 99.9% of all poultry is produced on factory farms (Foer, 86). To give “birth” to a new chicken, a mother must be artificially inseminated. (Because of the way we have “bred” chickens, 99.9% are no longer genetically viable, ie, they can’t reproduce naturally. This includes organic and free range chicken.) With the exception of “organic” chickens (designated according to the USDA description) but INCLUDING “free range” or “natural” chickens, hormones are administered at birth that will lead to the chick developing muscle and fat tissues at such a rapid rate that their bones develop deformities from trying to support the weight. Because this leads to immune deficiencies (and because of crowded conditions that spread disease), antibiotics are administered preventatively (again, excluding “organic” chickens). Of these chickens, 1-4% will die from something labeled “sudden death syndrome” (a term created for this situation that did not exist before factory farms), 75% will have some sort of deformity and 25% will be virtually immobile. (Foer, 130).
At this point, chicks are debeaked and subjected to lighting and temperature controls to alter egg production (laying hens) or growth rates (broiler chickens). They live in an area approximately the size of your computer screen (or an open hard-backed book). Chickens are slaughtered between day 36-42 of life, basically so they don’t die from disease, filthy conditions, in-bird fighting or (in the case of non-organic chickens) before massive amounts of drugs and hormones kill them. (Foer, 131) Organic chickens live in the same size space, and must also be killed by day 36-42 due to genetic unviability. Although the “free-range” designation sounds great, the description only requires that a door somewhere in the barn be “open” to a small patch of dirt outside. In reality, most birds hardly ever leave their indoor areas (Pollan, 172). Most of the chickens can’t walk because their breasts are so “efficiently” grown that they will topple over if they try to walk or stand (Pollan 171).
20,000-40,000 chickens in a space the size of the football field creates a lot of feces, dirt and bacteria. It is estimated that over 95% of factory chickens become infected with E.Coli (despite antibiotic administration) from fecal contamination. 70-90% become infected with campylobacter bacteria and 8% become infected with salmonella (this might surprise you since salmonella is most commonly associated with chicken...but due to more widely and specifically administered antibiotics rates have declined since 2004 when almost 50% of broilers were contaminated). It is these rates that lead to the food poisoning epidemics one hears about on the news (like the egg recall in Iowa) and the ones that strike even more commonly that are under- or un-reported (Foer, 131). (Estimates are somewhere around 3.3 million illnesses and 650 deaths for salmonella and campylobacter bacteria in 2004. Howard.)
The slaughter of chickens (and the workers that perform it) are subjected to a great deal of gruesomeness that I will not go into here. Suffice it to say that contamination runs rampant. Workers in slaughterhouses are often illegal and paid minimum wages, working long hours at dangerous work (turnover rates are estimated near 100-150%) (Foer, 133). Because they are forced to work quickly, chicken carcasses are often ripped open in a way that allows fecal matter from intestines and other organs to contaminate the plant with feces. Although USDA inspectors are at slaughter plants for inspections, they have about 2 seconds (literally) per chicken to inspect and see almost 25,000 birds day. In addition, most U.S. poultry producers use a water immersion type of cooler in the last stages of slaughter that is often filled not just with cooling water and chicken carcasses, but also feces, bacteria and filth (up to 11% of which can legally be “absorbed” by the chicken before sale) (Foer, 133). (Again, organic chickens are, for the most part, slaughtered in the same facilities as non-organic chickens since slaughterhouses in America are increasingly dwindling.)
Where does this leave Americans health-wise? Unfortunately, not a lot of studies have been done about how the treatment and raising of poultry can effect human health long-term. As of July 2010, there was still no scientific study that unequivocally linked antibiotic use in animals to antibiotic resistance in people (USA TODAY). However, that is not to say that the hormone injections, antibiotics, and housing conditions have no effect on human beings. As Jonathan Safran Foer points out in his book “Eating Animals”, we frequently subject athletes to intense testing and scrutiny for using growth hormones. Yet, we have no problem injecting chickens with these hormones to the *point where they CANNOT even stand on their own two feet.* Are we really eating “chicken” when we are eating something that could not SURVIVE for longer than 6 weeks without receiving assistance from human beings? 99.9% (that’s pretty much ALL) of the chickens in America could not survive on a working farm...let alone in the wild.
Although chicken is often presented as the “healthy” alternative to meat (which, by the way has 78% of its stock produced on factory farms), can a drugged, hormone-riddled,genetically unviable, fecal and bacteria-tinged “chicken machine” really be good for us? The jury may still be out on scientific evidence, but common sense will undoubtedly tell consumers to proceed with caution.
Bibliography
Dooley, Erin. “Scratching Out Data on Animal Antibiotic Effects.” Environmental Health
Perspectives: 112. Sept. 2004.
Web. 25 Nov. 2010.
Foer, Jonathan Safran. Eating Animals. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2009.
Print.
Howard, Brian. “Poisoned Poultry.” E: The Environment Magazine: 14:2. Mar/April 2003.
Levenstein, Harvey. Paradox of Plenty: A Social History of Eating in Modern America.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003. Print.
Pollan, Michael. The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. New
York: Penguin Books, 2006. Print.
Schlosser, Eric. Fast Food Nation. New York: Harper Perennial, 2001. Print.
