Beef cattle seem to get all the flack for damage to the environment typically associated with Confined Animal Feeding Operations or CAFOs. Just this past weekend, the USDA announced the recall of 143 million pounds of raw and frozen beef, the largest U.S. beef recall ever.
The U.S. poultry industry, however, took a serious hit of its own last week when The Charlotte Observer broke a major investigation with its six-part series, “The Cruelest Cuts,” detailing the “human cost of bringing poultry to your table.”
Workers in Carolina plants, according to the series, have suffered anonymously and in some cases fatally as cogs in a poultry processing industry that delivers unto Americans those perfectly skinless, boneless ubiquitous fat breasts.
On one side of the factory, employees grab live birds before hanging them upside down on moving hooks that whisk them off for slaughter. On the other side — after the birds are scalded, plucked and chilled — they’re hurried along production lines where workers stand shoulder-to-shoulder wielding blades for hours with few breaks.
Temperatures hover near freezing to prevent the spread of bacteria. Water drips off machinery, falling onto floors slick with chicken fat. The din of clanking conveyor belts makes conversation nearly impossible. The conditions are ripe for musculoskeletal disorders, which afflict the muscles and nerves in wrists, arms, necks and backs. MSDs also include repetitive motion injuries, such as carpal tunnel syndrome and tendonitis.
If going “green” for you involves attention to social justice and workers-rights issues, thinking about how the poultry you buy is produced is certainly something to consider seriously.
If you want to go local for your chicken, check out the farm store at the Skagit River Ranch, open every Saturday, year-round, offering grass-fed beef and pastured chicken and pork by the cut as well as eggs and honey.
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