Poultry and Eggs
The old saying “you are what you eat,” also applies to the animals we consume. That’s not great news for conventional chickens or the people who eat them. Your average chicken feed contains some not-so-appetizing ingredients such as arsenic, rendered animal byproducts, dioxins and PCBs. One thing you don’t have to worry about is added hormones since it’s against USDA regulations to feed them to any bird.
Many of the packaged birds we see in grocery stores were raised indoors on factory farms where thousands of chickens are crowded into small cages filled with the horrible stench of piled up feces, rarely cleaned from the floors. Disease can spread easily under such confined conditions, so to prevent illness conventional chickens are routinely fed low dosages of antibiotics and arsenic, which also helps to fatten them up as quickly and cheaply as possible.
Raising poultry and eggs can be tough on the environment, the animals, and the people who work on factory farms. Chicken waste becomes pollution; manure contaminates rivers and groundwater and ammonia emissions from it can pollute the air. A lot of grain, water and fossil fuels are used when raising chicken and eggs, although if they are raised locally at least they don’t have to be shipped across the country. Animals are typically raised inhumanely and workers aren’t always treated well.
DECODING THE LABELS
USDA Certified Organic: Chickens are fed 100% organic vegetarian feed and eggs come from hens that eat organic. There are no animal by-products, antibiotics, or arsenic in feed and irradiation and genetic modification of animals is against regulations. Farms must maintain safe composting standards for animal waste. Chickens need to have access to the outdoors and farms are inspected to make sure these rules are followed. Certified Humane Raised and Handled: Animals were raised humanely and not routinely fed antibiotics, although they can be used to treat sick animals. Humane Farm Animal Care’s standards must be met
www.certifiedhumane.org.
Raised without Antibiotics or No Antibiotics Administered: Does not apply to eggs. There is no third party verification to assure that poultry hasn’t received any antibiotics.
Free Range or Free Roaming: These claims on eggs are not regulated. For poultry, the government requires daily access to the outdoors for an “undetermined period of each day,” which can be as little as 5 minutes a day. Hardly the open air existence the name conjures.
Natural: Minimally processed, no artificial flavoring, coloring, chemical preservatives or artificial or synthetic ingredients. This label is misleading: these are the minimum standards for all industrially produced chickens, and there is no third party verification controlling this label.
Green
- Remove skin from poultry to avoid any fat-soluble toxins such as dioxins or PCBs.
- Buy poultry from companies that say they have stopped using arsenic or that had low levels in the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy’s report, www.iatp.org.
- Wash hands, countertops and cutting boards in hot soapy water after handling raw poultry. Thoroughly cook eggs and poultry and throw out cracked or dirty eggs. See the USDA’s Safe Food Handling Fact Sheet for more suggestions, www.fsis.usda.gov/Fact_Sheets/Basics_for_Handling_Food_Safely/index.asp
Greener
- Buy organic whenever possible. Look for poultry with the Certified Humane Raised and Handled label or birds raised without antibiotics when organic is not an option. You can also look for local sources of chicken and eggs, which will likely taste better if they’ve been raised well, but there are no guarantees without the USDA organic seal of approval.
- Ask your local supermarket and butcher to carry more organic poultry and eggs if they don’t already have a selection.
Greenest
- Cut down on or eliminate poultry and egg consumption. According to the USDA guidelines, most of us eat too much meat. If we ate less chicken, we’d have less exposure to persistent pollutants.