***All animal husbandry practices referred to in this blog are from personal experience. This is how I do things on my farm. Obviously not all farms will adhere to as high of an animal welfare standard as we do (although most do & I will explain why in a minute). Also I have never seen Food Inc. although I probably will watch it when I get a chance. I'm sure I will have a lot to say about that as well. I'll make another blog after I see it.***
Here we go:
You can find the blog I'm talking about here if you're interested.
There is so much BS at the very beginning of this blog but most of it is that persons personal opinion so, whatever; she is welcome to that no matter how unfounded I suppose.
"The chickens, pigs and cows are raised in small, cramped areas; many unable to move. They are fed corn as their main diet which causes quick weight gained pumped with steroids and anti-biotics to hopefully offset being infected with disease or the e coli strain, and produce quick results so they can be slaughtered more quickly. Many of the producers of these animals refused to allow cameramen the ability to film the conditions in which these animals were raised, for fear of being dropped by one of the meat companies."
I raise turkeys. All of my animals are able to move around as much as they want. They have way more than enough space; especially when we first get them. In fact they have so much space that we have to put up cardboard rings around the heaters to confine them in so that they don't wander too far away & get cold. When they are older they are allowed more & more space until they are free to roam the entire pen. Never at any point do the turkeys not have enough room to move.
[Before I move on to the next part I just want to tell everyone a little secret about the poultry industry. Any idea what our industries biggest motivator is? Want to know the answer? MONEY! Whoa! Crazy, right? Just like every other business out there. And I'm sure some of you are thinking "OMG this is horrible! How can you say that!? Don't you even care about the animals!?" Of course I do. Not everybody out there does but that doesn't make a difference. The fact that money is our industries biggest motivator is also what keeps the animals safe from the people who don't really give a crap about their welfare. How can that be? Let me explain. Growers (people who raise animals) want to make money. They want to make as much money as possible. How do growers make money? By selling the animals that they grow. How are they paid? By livability (% of animals still living) and body weight. So what does that mean? It means growers want to sell as many animals as they can with the highest body weights they can achieve. How do they get this? By raising happy*, healthy animals! Because unhappy, sick animals die! And even if they don't die they definitely will not weigh as much as the healthy ones. Animals are more active when they feel good. Just like you & me. When you're sick you don't want to do anything but lay down & take a nap right? Same with the birds. When they're sick they just lay around not eating or drinking which means that they also aren't gaining any weight. Follow me? Okay, good. Back to the other blog.]
"They are fed corn as their main diet..."
Poultry is fed corn IN their diet. But that is not the only thing in there by a long shot. There is also soy, sometimes wheat or other grains, vitamins & minerals, fats, etc. Their diet doesn't cause quick weight gain, their genetics do. We have bred them to gain weight quickly.
And now my FAVORITE (read: sarcasm) misconception that they are "pumped with steroids." OH. MY. GOD! Nothing makes me want to slam my head against a concrete wall MORE than hearing someone say this. If you get nothing else from this blog please take away this one thing: WE. DO. NOT. FEED. STEROIDS!!! And yes it was necessary for me to bold, italicize and underline that. Want to know why we don't feed steroids? Go re-read that paragraph in the brackets. M-O-N-E-Y!!! Steroids are crazy expensive! Also you can't just grind some 'roids & throw it in the feed for them to eat & turn into a Schwarze-turkey. Steroids just don't work that way in poultry. If we wanted to see muscle gains from steroids in birds we would have to inject it intravenously, daily. That would take a lot of time & labor. And as we all know, time = MONEY. So that is NOT happening. The costs would greatly outweigh the benefits even if you didn't have to inject it intravenously.
Next subject: antibiotics. Yes we feed our birds antibiotics. Because turkeys get sick. A lot. Much more so than broilers (chickens). I'm not sure why that is but it's true. We never start our turkeys on antibiotics. We don't do this for a couple of reasons, #1 MONEY (you're going to see this one a lot, might as well get used to it), #2 it will kill the gut flora (beneficial bacteria that aid in digestion) & we do not want that. We don't want to kill the gut flora because then the birds have a harder time digesting their food which means they aren't getting the nutrients that they need & that means that they aren't going to grow as big or they are going to die. Also when you give too many antibiotics or if they're on them too long it can cause crop mycosis which is the poultry equivalent of a yeast infection. Not fun. They don't like it & neither do the growers because the birds stop eating. Next thing. People worry about these "super bugs" coming out because we feed our poultry antibiotics & that the bacteria is becoming resistant to them. Well that could happen but it most likely won't affect you. It affects the birds who get sick from those bacteria. There are only a handful of zoonoses (diseases where animals & humans are both affected & can infect each other) that pertain to poultry. The ones we hear about the most often are e. coli, salmonella & avian influenza. Animals are also not allowed to have been on antibiotics a week before processing. Which means by the time the animals gets to the processing plant there shouldn't be any more antibiotics in their systems.
"Despite the debate about the contribution of antibiotic use in veterinary medicine to the overall resistance development in human pathogens, the data suggest that clinical resistance to fluoroquinolones in Escherichia coli and nontyphoidal Salmonella is generally uncommon, except for a few countries." - Journal of Applied Microbiology; Feb2012, Vol. 112 Issue 2, p239-245, 7p, 8 Charts, 2 Graphs
And obviously we don't treat AI with antibiotics. When there's an AI outbreak all the animals are destroyed. So you don't have to worry about antimicrobial resistance there. I know AI is a virus by the way & that viruses can't be treated with antibiotics but they are sometimes fed during virus infections to ward off secondary bacterial infections.
"One woman, who became sickened with her part in this animal cruelty and altering allowed cameras in to film her chickens. She explained that because they grew so quickly, the bones and joints couldn't keep up with the weight gain and therefore, many of the chickens were unable to walk more than a couple feet and some were not able to move at all. Daily, she removed dead birds from the barn which housed 1000's of chickens at one time. Because of the ability to "grow" animals more quickly, time frames are cut in half and producers can begin a new batch of animals much sooner than they would if the animals were raised under "old fashioned" standards."
Yes that can happen if you don't feed your animals correctly. The same thing can happen to humans & all creatures with bone growth. That's a problem with what she's feeding. Not with the animals. I bet if someone tested that feed there would be some kind of calcium/phosphorus ratio imbalance. Here's a site where you can check into that. (I didn't use a journal article since this is a less controversial topic.)
"The film showed how meat was cut up, pulled apart and washed in ammonia to kill potential viruses and diseases. It is then added to the meat that hasn't been treated in an effort to lower the risk of contamination. The fact that the animals are not washed or cleaned during slaughter, and they are caked with their own feces; made me vomit a bit in my mouth;knowing that the meat I was eating contained feces that wasn't visible."
I hate to be nit-picky but also you can't "kill" a virus since it's not alive, but okay. I don't know about the ammonia wash part, usually meat is washed with chlorine water. Although other products are sometimes used. But there is no meat that isn't treated. It's all washed. From the time the birds go through the picker, where they are de-feathered, to the time they are packaged they are constantly being washed. They also spend a long time in a chiller, where there is even more disinfectant. I guess my point is that you are never going to be eating feces.
"Look for 100% grass fed animals and wild fish rather than farmed fish to avoid GM meat. Eggs that are non-GM are harder to find. Many of the chickens are raised with corn feed and drugs. Some non-GM brands are Eggland's Organic, Egg Innovations Organic, Land O'Lakes Organic, Wilcox Farms Organic and Organic Valley. Foods that you buy at Whole Foods; or have labels from Amy's Kitchen, Wildwood, White Wave, Sunshine Burger and Vitasoy will be GM free."
Okay that first part doesn't have anything to do with poultry but, encouraging people to avoid farm raised fish just pisses me off because we're already over-fishing; but I digress. Referring to eggs as GM is hilarious because there is absolutely nothing genetically modified about them at any level. All poultry is raised on "corn feed," I covered that part earlier. One of the companies that sells an organic brand he listed came to talk with us at The University of Georgia. Basically you are just paying twice as much for the same damn eggs. The quality of the egg is no better than the non-organic egg; sometimes it's worse. What you're paying for is the amount of birds (& therefore money) it takes to get those eggs. To be labeled "certified organic" you're not allowed to feed antibiotics so if your flock gets sick in the year or so that you have them then that's just too bad. You just have to hope they get better or if the situation gets really dire you can give them antibiotics but then you're no longer allowed to sell them as "antibiotic free," even if they are only on antibiotics for a week. Ever notice how organic eggs are so much smaller than the non-organic kind? That's probably because they mostly come from young hens who haven't had a chance to get sick yet. Younger hens produce smaller eggs than older hens. I don't want to eat eggs from sick birds. Do you? I think I'll stick with the antibiotic fed, healthy flock. You wouldn't let your dog or cat stay sick just so you can avoid giving them antibiotics would you? Well I feel the same way about letting my birds stay sick. Whatever though, those companies selling organic eggs are laughing all the way to the bank. If you don't take the time to make informed decisions when you go to the grocery store then it's your own damn fault if you get swindled & I don't feel sorry for you.
Here is a link that tells you what the different labels mean.
This is the USDA's regulations for products that are labeled "organic."
I think next time I'll talk more about organic & free range stuff. What do y'all think? Any questions or suggestions for the next blog?
*I try not to anthropomorphise as a rule of thumb because you can't really quantitate "happiness" in animals but I'm not trying to get published in a journal here so I'm going to use the word!