Sho' Nuff Love That Fried Chicken

AND THE COW GOES MOO AND THE PIG GOES OINK AND THE CHICKEN...

Oh hi boys and girls and welcome to the family farm. Actually, the farms you see in picture books aren't much like real farms anymore. There are still some chickens that are raised on family farms, but the number that make it into mainstream markets is insignificant. Mainstream markets mean chicken you buy at the megamarket or fried in healthy fat / batter at the fast food joint. In fact, the odds that the chicken sandwich you eat at McDonalds and KFC ever saw the light of day is virtually zero. Modern chickens are raised by the tens of thousands in factory farms under conditions that will literally make you sick. They are so crowded that they tend to fight each other, which is why the people who run factory farms cut their beaks off. But sometimes they kill each other and cannibalize the flesh anyway. But so what? It's not like they're human, or even dogs or cats. That's one of the fundamental problems with chickens - they aren't cute by our standards. Does it matter that we treat our food animals as industrial products? Yes, quite a bit. Even if the psychopathic cruelty doesn't trouble you, factory farms are dangerous sources of pollution and health problems. Read more in the third column.

Here is the happy farm children see in school books. On no, maybe this farm isn't so happy. Why is it so dark? Where are the windows? And...why has this chicken eaten the other chicken in the cage? (What happens is this: When the forced molt method us used, cannibalism is often the result. I hope the one on the left doesn't end up in your Nugget!)

Mommy, I don't like this farm very much!

And pig farms are even scarier

HEALTH Riddle me this, Chicken Man - how did chicken come to be regarded by the masses as a healthy alternative to red meat?

The US supply of chicken is dominated by five companies, which raise the animals in unsanitary and extremely crowded conditions. The animals are injectected with growth hormones and antibiotics to keep them alive just long enough for slaughter. Because of hormone and vaccine injections to speed growth, muscle growth outstrips bone development and the chickens typically have leg and skeletal disorders that significantly affect their ability to walk.

But even if you don't care about whether the chicken is happy or not, you should care about the affect that constant fear and agitation have on the meat.

And you should care about the layer of yellow fat that grows just beneath the skin. You won't see that fat in a free range chicken. Do you think that fat is nutritious and heart healthy?

Virtually all of the feed corn and soybeans are genetically modified Monsanto crops. We have yet to understand what that means to human health.

POLLUTION

Polluted runoff, also known as non-point source pollution, is the biggest remaining water pollution problem in the U.S. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, hog, chicken and cattle waste has polluted 35,000 miles of rivers in 22 states and contaminated groundwater in 17 states. More here

Many locales are beginning to report highly elevated cancer rates attributed to arsenic in chicken litter spread as fertilizer.

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More fun with dead zones.