Have you seen the delicious commercials about McDonalds Chicken Nuggets for only $5.99 for fifty pieces? They’re probably so cheap because they really only contain about 50% of meat or less. The other 50% of ingredients in chicken nuggets isn't just found in nuggets it is also found in many types of chicken that you would normally buy at your local supermarket. According to Natural Health & Scientific Discoveries, food industries lie about what's really in the chicken that is being consumed by the people. Conventional chicken meat usually contains byproducts of other animals and also has many hormones and antibiotics in it. Are you still hungry?
In little over 50 years the chicken industry has evolved from simple locally owned businesses into an incredible successful industry. The chicken industry otherwise known as the broiler industry is now an industry that supplies high quality poultry worldwide.
In the early stages of production you couldn’t go to the supermarket and buy chicken like nowadays, if you wanted chicken 150 years ago you would of have to raise them in your backyard. This is how the broiler industry got its roots from people having chickens in their backyards, until two entrepreneurs decided to start selling chicken for its meat as a side line activity to help the farm. During those years the production was really limited since they hadn’t discovered vitamin D and the effects of the sunlight cycle in the production wasn’t understood. During the 1920s and 1930s the chicken industry began to change. Chicken was being raised for especially for its meat instead of the egg production.
By the 1940s the broiler industry stated to grew and get more organize and started working together between hatcheries, farms and processors and this was the beginning stages of the integrated industry. Typically chickens used to be sold “new York dressed” with only the feathers and blood removed, but in 1942 an Illinois broiler plant was the first one to won the approval of the government to perform evisceration which means that they removed the organs. Ready to cooked chickens where sold in wooden crated filled with ice this would later become the norm. And by 1949 the USDA launched a voluntary program to grade the chicken, making sure it was high quality meat. In 1952 chickens that where bread specifically for meat became the number one source of chicken meat over the farms because a lot of the farmers where losing their farms because the risks of financing chicks and the feed to raise them. This lead to a new system called vertical integration that meant that the broilers became involved into every stage of production, meaning that they raised the chickens all the way to sending them package to the stores. This was really productive for the broilers since this allowed them have access to new biological and pharmaceutical technologies and by 1959 the inspections of broilers became mandatory instead of being voluntary.
In the 70s the broiler industry was now into its modern stage. With this came the incorporation of the nutritional discoveries, decease eradication programs and genetic improvements, and in 1992 chicken surpassed both beef and pork meat in consumption.
In 1998 the USDA required the hazard analysis and critical control point processing control in all the big boiler industries to insure the safety of chemicals, physical and microbiological hazards in an effort to control or eliminate all of the risks possible.
All the technological advancements from science and the broiler industry are now made to be more affordable and more wholesome than it has ever been. The broiler industry is always trying to improve it methods to make sure the consumer is receiving the best quality and nutritious chicken meat available.
Scientific studies have proven that hormones and antibiotics in your chicken/meats can harm your health negatively. There are two types of hormones that are injected into live chickens, natural hormones and synthetic hormones. A few different types of natural hormones that can be found are Estrogen (A hormone primarily for female reproductive growth, bone strength, and menstrual cycle regulation), Progesterone (A hormone primarily in female for menstrual cycle regulation and maintaining pregnancy), Testosterone (A hormone primarily for male reproductive growth, as well as bone and muscle strength). An article by Abby Campbell on hubpages.com states that, “The FDA claims that hormones are necessary for normal development, growth, and reproduction. Because they are naturally produced in the human body, they declare that hormone induced meats are not harmful for human consumption.” In the 1950s the adding of hormones to chickens became illegal while in the cattle beef industry the injecting of hormones in the cows is still an acceptable procedure. Since the branches between beef and chicken are different the result in different regulations. People usually have the misconception that chickens are injected with hormones but there are no hormones in the feed that have been proven to work on poultry meat. The only possible way to add hormones to chicken would be injecting the chicken various times a day and that would almost be impossible since broilers have flocks of over 20,000 birds and catching and injecting each bird various times during the day would not prove productive for the broiler industry.
While the poultry industry does not contain any hormones it does contain other chemicals like antibiotic and arsenic. Since 1940 it was found that antibiotics had a large quantity of vitamin b12 and after the antibiotics where stopped discover that the growth was mostly because of the vitamin b12 and since has been used in big quantities on poultry. Not only where antibiotics used for their b12 vitamin and its growth promoter but where used mostly for their ability to treat and prevent diseases. Another thing includes in the chicken feed are some antimicrobial chemicals like roxarsone or nitarsone that also promote growth. While these drugs promote growth they have a chemical known as arsenic that is particularly toxic to humans. Even though that antibiotics and antimicrobial drugs are known for the growth of the chickens it’s known the reason for the rapid growth of chickens is mostly for the accomplishment of breeders that have passed on the best genetics from the chickens for decades. Another research shows that scientific advancement have helped understand the nutritional needs of the chickens. Providing the chickens with all right nutrition and all the vitamins needed to enhance the growth of the chickens. The last thing that helped the chickens was the right environment proving the right lighting, temperature and air quality helped advance the rate in which the chickens grew. All of the discoveries found and the selection of the best genes made a huge leap that helped the chickens achive the rate in which they grow today and without the need hormones.
While hormones aren’t used in the poultry industry since the 50s in the United States some studies show that meat that’s been injected can have a negative effect in the human body. There are a lot of concerns in the scientific field concerning the risk of eating meat that was injected with hormones and it is known that synthetic hormones increase the risk of cancer. While in other studies it shoes that the hormone level that is contained in meat products is lower than some of the other foods that are constantly in our tables. Studies show that the dairy products where had a much higher level of hormones found since the milk is derived from pregnant cows that have a higher level of estrogen and progesterone. These studies show that while hormones increase the risk of cancer meat product should not be a concerned compared to other foods in our fridge and since the injection of hormones in poultry and pig is illegal we don’t have to hurry and buy the chicken products that say that their chickens are hormone free because their just telling you the law.
Although hormones are a concerned that’s not the only pharmaceutical chemicals that should worry us. The use of antibiotics in poultry might also be a concern that the bacteria would gain resistance and then might be more difficult to control or eradicate. This is a problem to the human body they might be passed on to the human body with a stronger resistance than our human antibiotics. To prevent this from happening it is require that the chickens are withdrawn from the use of antibiotics to before they are killed so help any residues left in the chicken meat from entering the human system. There is another chemical that might be the most dangerous to the human system that is found poultry feed. Arsenic is a chemical that is remarkably toxic to the humans and is found in antimicrobial drugs that promote growth and are added to the feed. In a study it revealed that the chemicals wasn’t found in our systems but could be transmitted over the run offs from the chicken yards. However the FDA declare that the amounts of arsenic in the poultry was in a level lower than the amount allowed in a food product. The concerned for chemicals in our poultry meat is a concern the risk of getting sick by eating chickens that have E. coli and other serious decreases is far greater than by eating meat added with chemicals . In a consume report more than 1.1 million Americans got sick from eating undercooked chicken and the safest way to eliminated the risk of contracting any sort of bacteria is by cooking the chicken thoroughly. Over the year there has been a number of new diseases that have been discovered over the year like salmonella and then avian influenza but is safe to say that the role that chemicals in the meat we’re eating is not the biggest concerned when it comes to the poultry industry.