poultry
cmonforton | February 24, 2016This week’s announcement by Allen Harim Foods offers another upsetting example of a poultry company that cares more about its chickens than its employees. The Delaware-based company broadcasted that it
“…is one of the first companies in the nation that has moved to a 100 percent vegetarian feed for its chickens.”
The firm says the move responds to
“…what our customers are telling us” about wanting to buy healthy chicken products.
I can’t help but wonder how their customers would respond if Allen Harim posed this question to consumers:
“Should the employees who skin, debone and package our…
cmonforton | November 25, 2013The poultry industry must have its head stuck in the chicken coop. With Thanksgiving nearly upon us, the industry is trying to convince the public that poultry-processing plants are great places to earn a living. In just about a week, they’ve issued two written statements insisting they have stellar records on workplace safety. Tom Super, VP of communications for the National Chicken Council, wrote on Nov. 22 at the MeatingPlace blog about recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) on workplace injury rates. He noted that the case rate for all reportable injuries in illnesses in…
cmonforton | October 15, 2013"Es ridículo,” was the reaction of a poultry plant worker when he heard of the USDA's proposal to "modernize" poultry slaughter. The agency's January 2012 proposal (77 Fed Reg 4408) would allow companies to increase assembly line speeds from about 90 to 175 birds per minute, and remove most USDA inspectors from the poultry processing line.
The Obama Administration should have heard the loud and clear opposition from civil rights, food safety, public health and the workers’ safety communities to the USDA’s proposal. When the public comment period closed in May 2012, the Southern Poverty Law…
sastyk | April 12, 2012
In the NYTimes today, Nicholas Kristoff asks just the wrong question "Is an egg for breakfast worth this?" Of course, it isn't, but that's not the right way to frame this. Nothing about an egg for breakfast could be worth this in terms of animal cruelty, human health or any number of other considerations:
"It's physically hard to breathe because of the ammonia" rising from manure pits below older barns, said the investigator, who would not allow his name to be used because that would prevent him from taking another undercover job in agriculture. He said that when workers needed to enter…
tsmith | April 5, 2012The ecology of antibiotic resistance on farms is complicated. Animals receive antibiotic doses in their food and water, for reasons of growth promotion, disease prophylaxis, and treatment. Other chemicals in the environment, such as cleaning products or antimicrobial metals in the feed, may also act as drivers of antibiotic resistance. Antibiotic-resistant organisms may also be present in the environment already, from the air, soil, or manure pits within or near the barns. Ecologically, it's a mess and makes it more difficult to attribute the evolution and spread of resistance to one…
lborkowski | October 5, 2011The Center for Public Integrity's iWatch News has put together an excellent - and alarming - story on salmonella in chicken. Jeffrey Benzing, Esther French and Judah Ari Gross outline the problem this way:
Salmonella is found in a range of food products, including meat, produce and eggs. Chicken is the single biggest source of infection among cases where a food has been identified, causing about 220,000 illnesses, 4,000 hospital stays and at least 80 deaths annually in the U.S., according to an analysis of CDC data by the Emerging Pathogens Institute at the University of Florida.
But gaps in…
sastyk | January 11, 2011"It is soooo hard to wait, Mom!"
Isaiah is seven years old and when you are seven, uncertainty is torture. He asks me when the mail will get here 20 times a day, and can he go out and wait for the mail truck? I point out that it is 4 degrees F out there, and the mail won't be here for three hours, but he and his youngest brother still go out until the cold drives them back.
What's he waiting for? Not birthday presents or toys, he's waiting for the Murray McMurray hatchery catalog to come in the mail. Isaiah, you see, is a poultry addict, and his addiction is all my fault.
Last year we…
sastyk | April 29, 2010
If you are anywhere near the Massachusetts North Shore, you could come on up on Saturday between 10 and 2 to Beverly. Say howdy, hang out, talk poultry, see the fanciest and newly expanded chicken coop in town and enjoy what is supposed to be a stunningly beautiful spring day near the seashore. My Moms are holding their second annual "Chicken Open House" to encourage new poultry keepers, and we'll be visiting. Last year they expected 20 people and more than a hundred showed up - it was a blast.
The address is 10 Harrison Ave, Beverly, MA 01915.
Here's more info! Hope to see some of you…
edyong | October 26, 2009The prospect of infections spreading from animals to humans has become all too real with the onset of the current swine flu pandemic, and the threat of a bird flu still looming. But infections can jump the other way too. Decades before the world's media were gripped with panic over bird flu, humans transferred a disease to chickens and it has since caused a poultry pandemic right under our noses.
The infection in question is a familiar one - Staphylococcus aureus, a common human bacterium that's behind everything from mild skin infections to life-threatening MRSA. It causes chicken…