These lucky ladies actually have sunlight! And "freedom" to move if their overly heavy breast meat does not weigh them down too much.
I hope you’re not reading this column while munching on a chicken sandwich. Today I learned that there has been a pair of new scientific studies
recently published which suggest that poultry on factory farms are routinely fed caffeine,
active ingredients of Tylenol and Benadryl, banned antibiotics and even
arsenic.
Thank heavens my eggs come from a small free range place where the birds run about and eat actual bugs and dirt, a diet only substantiated with commercial feed.
Soooo..... Let me see. They give them caffeine and uptakes to keep them awake to eat more and fatten up faster, then they give them prozac to lower their stress levels. Makes absolute sense to me. Not.
By Madison Ruppert
Editor
of End the Lie
April 9, ;2012
Many
people are well aware of the fact that chickens are regularly given roxarsone,
what amounts to arsenic, in an attempt to both fight parasites and increase the
growth rate of chickens while making the flesh of the chicken that certain “appetizing” shade of pink.
Arsenic poisoning on the hands of a chicken farmer.
However,
the worrisome substances in present in the chickens we eat do not end there.
This is just one of the many fronts in the war on our health and the freedom to
choose foods free from extraneous chemicals. For more on this subject, listen
to our interview with Heather Callaghan of Activist Post on End the Lie radio below:
Two
new studies, co-authored by Keeve Nachman, a scientist at the Johns Hopkins
University Center for a Livable Future, have found a disturbing amount of
chemicals being fed to chickens on factory farms on a routine basis.
“We
were kind of floored,” Nachman said. “It’s unbelievable what we found.”
One
of the studies was published in the peer-reviewed
scientific journal Environmental Science & Technology while the
other peer-reviewed study was published in Science of the Total
Environment.
Some
claim that there is no proof that the arsenic is harmful to either the chicken
or the person who eventually consumes the chicken, but the sheer amount of it
that is in our food supply is nothing short of disturbing.
Indeed,
a 2004 Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy study showed that
over half of the chicken bought in stores or in fast food restaurants contained
abnormally high levels of arsenic.
It
gets even more troubling when one realizes that a shocking 2.2. million pounds
of the substance are used on a yearly basis in the production of 43 billion
pounds of poultry.
If
the claims that there is absolutely no danger posed by the use of arsenic in
feed are completely true, one must wonder why the Maryland state Senate passed a bill banning
chicken feed containing arsenic with a 32-14 vote.
“This
bill in my mind is a no-brainer. The scientific questions have been answered.
We’re talking about a heavy metal, a known carcinogen that we’re spreading on
the land,” Drew Koslow, the Choptank Riverkeeper for the Midshore Riverkeeper
Conservancy said.
“We
have allowed the industry to add tons of deadly arsenic to Maryland’s food and
environment each year for decades,” said Tom Hucker, a Democratic Delegate, in
a statement.
All
that remains is for the House to accept the Senate’s amendments and then
Maryland will become the first state in America to ban roxarsone, hopefully setting
a precedent which will help similar legislation be passed across the nation.
Aside
from arsenic, new research has discovered that chickens have been fed a massive
drug cocktail including fluoroquinolones, a banned antibiotic which is illegal
because it has been linked to the creation of so-called “superbugs.”
Furthermore,
they found caffeine and even the Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor (SSRI)
Prozac, which is prescribed for depression, in chicken imported from China,
along with antihistamines, and acetaminophen.
Apparently,
Prozac was placed in chicken feed because chickens who are stressed out tend to
produce tougher meat and given the atrocious conditions chickens are subjected
to in factory farming operations, chickens are often understandably stressed.
The
caffeine reportedly comes from coffee pulp and green tea powder also placed in
their feed in order to force them to stay awake longer and eat more food, thus
bulking up faster for sale.
All
of this was discovered through tests conducted on the chickens’ feathers, which
are similar to the fingernails and hair of humans in their ability to
accumulate chemicals.
Potentially
the most disturbing part of this entire thing is that many farmers are
reportedly not even aware that they are feeding their chickens this drug
cocktail.
This
is because farmers are often forced to use a certain food mix by the food
companies that purchase their poultry, meaning they don’t really have a choice
in the matter and often are completely clueless about the questionable
ingredients.
Even
more worrisome, some organic chicken meat has been shown to have traces of
arsenic in tests, although organic chicken feed supposedly does not have
roxarsone as an additive.
Since
this is the case, Sara Novak concludes, “the
next most rational step is to give up the bird completely.”
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