14 novembre, 2006 16:41

Following mad cow disease, now your chicken meat contains arsenic, too

The news about the meat industry gets stranger at every turn. First there's mad cow disease and the revelations of the meat packing industry which engages is frightening aseembly line practices that allow spinal material to be sold as "beef." Now, in the story below, you'll read about the poultry industry and the rather bizarre fact that chicken ranchers feed arsenic to their chickens to help prevent intestinal parasites.

In my view, it isn't just the cows that have gone mad: it's the ranchers and meat packers who have lost their minds and, apparently, any sense of decency when it comes to producing a food product that doesn't harm consumers. Didn't it occur to these people that maybe arsenic shouldn't be fed to chickens that are going to be eaten by humans?

You know, the bottom line is that too many corporate meat ranchers, in both the chicken and cattle industries, will do practically anything to their "product" if it helps reduce costs and boost their financial return. The health of the consumer is apparently the very last thing on their minds. They'll add antibiotics, hormones, and poisons... they'll feed chicken litter to the cows, and dead cow parts back to the chickens. And they'll proudly label their product, "100% American beef!"

No thanks, I'll take some tofu instead, thank you. Or, perhaps, some organically produced meat grown by responsible ranchers and farmers who don't shoot up their cows and chickens with chemicals and drugs. Because if it's true that we are what we eat, then most Americans who are eating beef are, technically, walking chemical timebombs. Maybe this is part of the reason we're seeing such skyrocketing cancer rates, do ya think?