Meat chickens are usually given less than 1/2 a square foot in which to move. Their beaks are cut off to reduce injuries caused by cramped quarters. Disease spreads quickly. Chicken live and breathe in excrement, which not only makes them sick, but affects the meat that we eat. They are breathing ammonia-filled air and are walking in feces and dead birds, and while the toxins fill their lungs as they breathe, their meat becomes tainted and unsafe.
Slaughterhouses
Many people would never again touch a bite of meat if they were to witness the activities and filth in a slaughterhouse. Chicken slaughterhouses are notorious for their filth, hazardous practices, unsanitary conditions and the dirty meat they produce. Birds are processed at such fast speeds that quality is all but ignored.
Worker conditions inside slaughterhouses are degrading. More than 80% of slaughterhouse jobs are held by minorities and women 18-25 years of age, making between $5 and $6 an hour. Their tasks are numbingly repetitive and crippling, and workers gain no skills for their future. ÒThe work often was so fast-paced that it took on a zany chaos, with arms and boxes and poultry flying in every direction. At break times I would find fat globules and blood speckling my glasses, bits of chicken caught in my collar, water and slime soaking my feet and ankles, and nicks covering my wrists,Ó Wall Street Journal writer Tony Horwitz wrote in his 1994 undercover investigation of slaughterhouses. Maggots and larvae breed in storage and transport tubs and boxes, on the floor, in equipment and packaging, and on the conveyer belt. Material can almost always be found on coolers, walls, floors and equipment, including excrement, blood, chicken parts, oil, grease, rust, paint, insecticides and rodent droppings, to name but a few.
The chickens that are processed in the slaughterhouses are far from appetizing. Up to 25% of slaughtered chickens on inspection lines are covered with feces, bile and feed. Dead or diseased animals are slaughtered and put into the food chain. Shipments, when inspected, are found to be contaminated with everything from black grease and metal shards to dead insects and feces. In one shipment alone, inspectors retained 14,000 pounds of chicken speckled with metal flakes, 5000 pounds of rancid necks and 721 pounds of green chicken that made employees gag because of the smell.
Environmental Concerns
Slaughterhouses
Many people would never again touch a bite of meat if they were to witness the activities and filth in a slaughterhouse. Chicken slaughterhouses are notorious for their filth, hazardous practices, unsanitary conditions and the dirty meat they produce. Birds are processed at such fast speeds that quality is all but ignored.
Worker conditions inside slaughterhouses are degrading. More than 80% of slaughterhouse jobs are held by minorities and women 18-25 years of age, making between $5 and $6 an hour. Their tasks are numbingly repetitive and crippling, and workers gain no skills for their future. ÒThe work often was so fast-paced that it took on a zany chaos, with arms and boxes and poultry flying in every direction. At break times I would find fat globules and blood speckling my glasses, bits of chicken caught in my collar, water and slime soaking my feet and ankles, and nicks covering my wrists,Ó Wall Street Journal writer Tony Horwitz wrote in his 1994 undercover investigation of slaughterhouses. Maggots and larvae breed in storage and transport tubs and boxes, on the floor, in equipment and packaging, and on the conveyer belt. Material can almost always be found on coolers, walls, floors and equipment, including excrement, blood, chicken parts, oil, grease, rust, paint, insecticides and rodent droppings, to name but a few.
The chickens that are processed in the slaughterhouses are far from appetizing. Up to 25% of slaughtered chickens on inspection lines are covered with feces, bile and feed. Dead or diseased animals are slaughtered and put into the food chain. Shipments, when inspected, are found to be contaminated with everything from black grease and metal shards to dead insects and feces. In one shipment alone, inspectors retained 14,000 pounds of chicken speckled with metal flakes, 5000 pounds of rancid necks and 721 pounds of green chicken that made employees gag because of the smell.
Environmental Concerns
Comments
Kyle
(Guest)
(Guest)
09/08/2008
There is bacteria in every single thing we eat. You just have to cook it right
Comment 1 (of 1)
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