Is Factory Farmed Chicken a Healthy Food?

There is a demand for low cost food, but what does that food do to the animals, our health and the environment?

Today, nearly 65 billion animals worldwide, including cows, chickens and pigs, are crammed into confined animal feeding operations known as CAFOs. The conditions can be overcrowded, unhealthy, unsanitary and cruel.

The price of chicken has dropped dramatically over the past few decades, becoming the cheapest meat available in the US. As a result, consumption has doubled since 1970. Chicken is supposed to be a healthy source of high-quality nutrition, the fact that it has become so affordable might seem to be a great benefit. But there’s a major flaw in this equation. As it turns out, it’s virtually impossible to mass-produce clean, safe, optimally nutritious foods at rock bottom prices.

A typical poultry CAFO measuring 490 feet by 45 feet can hold at least 30,000 chickens or more. Animal Welfare Guidelines permit a stocking density that gives each full-grown chicken an amount of space equivalent to an 8.5-inch by 11-inch piece of paper. Sickness is the norm for animals raised in these CAFOs. The large-scale factory farms on which 99% of American chickens come from. These animals are also typically fed genetically engineered (GE) corn and soybeans, which is a far cry from their natural diet of seeds, green plants, insects, and worms. Chickens may never see the light of day.
The chickens can be fed antibiotics, but hormones are not permitted in American-raised chickens. If the package says “Hormone Free”, that doesn’t tell you anything.

Those antibiotics pose a direct threat to human health and contaminate the environment when they run off into lakes, rivers, aquifers, and drinking water. According to a landmark “Antibiotic Resistance Threat Report” published by the CDC, two million Americans become infected with antibiotic-resistant bacteria each year, and at least 23,000 of them die as a direct result of those infections. Research suggests you have a 50/50 chance of buying meat tainted with drug-resistant bacteria when you buy it from your local grocery store.

Organic, Pastured Chicken Is Your Best and Safest Alternative:

True free-range chickens and eggs come from hens that roam freely outdoors on a pasture, where they can forage for their natural diet, which includes seeds, green plants, insects, and worms. Organic also means that the chickens have had no GMO feed.

For More Information:

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/07/23/cheap-factory-farmed-chicken.aspx?x_cid=20140723_lead_facebookdoc%3Fx_cid%3D20140723_lead_facebookdoc