Factory farming is nasty business, I tell you. A sudden rash of reports is beginning to reveal the horrible reality of industrial chicken farming.
A piece in The New York Times by +Nicholas Kristof points out that "poultry on factory farms are routinely fed caffeine, active ingredients of Tylenol and Benadryl, banned antibiotics and even arsenic." Scientists at Johns Hopkins University who studied the industry says "It’s unbelievable what we found."
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/05/opinion/kristof-arsenic-in-our-chicken.html
Why caffeine? It turns out that chickens are fed coffee pulp to keep them awake all night so they keep eating and become fatter.
A previous study found that 90% of chickens raised for meat were fed arsenic.
Most chicken farmers don't even know what they're feeding the chickens, as the pre-packaged feed ingredients are a trade secret.
Obama's USDA, meanwhile, is springing into action. The department wants to stop inspecting poultry plants and allow employees of the plant do the inspections. That would enable factory food assembly lines to process 200 chickens per minute, rather than the 140 per minute currently possible.
A pilot program for the plant employee inspections found that they "were missing defective poultry at high rates."
From another Times article: "The inspectors, whose names were redacted, said they had observed numerous instances of poultry plant employees allowing birds contaminated with fecal matter or other substances to pass. And even when the employees try to remove diseased birds, they face reprimands, the inspectors said."
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/05/us/usda-poultry-inspection-plan-sets-off-dispute.html
