Responding to an outpouring of consumer demand, one of the largest
chicken producers in the country has announced that most of its flocks
are now antibiotic-free, and that no longer will its chickens be
needlessly fed antibiotics for growing purposes unless they're actually
sick -- and even in these cases, antibiotic use will be minimal.
Maryland-based
Perdue Farms says that only about five percent of its flocks receive
these drugs at any given time, which means the other 95 percent will
never see an antibiotic before making their way onto consumers' dinner
plates. This means that the only production areas that Perdue will now
need address is the company's use of genetically-modified organisms
(GMOs) in its chicken feed, and the use of inhumane hen houses in which
many chickens never even see the light of day.
According to NPR,
Perdue has been a consistent leader in forging the way towards a safer
and more humane production process for commercial chicken. In 2007, long
before many other companies were even thinking about the issue, Perdue
had begun removing antibiotics from its feed. By 2014, Perdue had
completely eliminated the drugs from all of its hatcheries.
Last
year, Perdue announced that more than half of its chickens were
receiving no antibiotics at all, and just in the past few weeks, the
company was proud to announce that 95 percent of its flocks are now officially antibiotic-free.
It's a win-win situation for both the company, which can now accurately
label most of its chicken products as having "no antibiotics ever," and
consumers, who will no longer have to worry about this food system
scourge.
"Our consumers have already told us they want chicken
raised without antibiotics," Jim Perdue, chairman of Perdue Farms, said
in a recent statement.
Mississippi-based Sanderson Farms
throws hissy fit over Perdue announcement; says antibiotic-laden chicken
is no different from natural chicken
Following in Perdue's lead,
other major chicken producers like Tyson Foods and Foster Farms have
promised to eliminate or reduce antibiotics from their flocks as well,
not only as a way to meet consumer demand but also to help stem the tide
of antibiotic-resistance, a constant and growing threat to public
health.
The use of antibiotics as a way to make poultry and
cattle fatter, and to get them to market more quickly, is a product of
corporate greed that's done a real number on the safety of the food
supply. There's no benefit to consumers from using antibiotics for this
purpose, and it's now widely' target='_blank'>http://science.naturalnews.com/pubmed/264696... confirmed in the scientific literature that antibiotics for medicinal purposes are losing their efficacy as a consequence.
Nevertheless,
not every chicken producer is happy with the growing no-antibiotics
trend. Mississippi-based Sanderson Farms, for instance, is actually
spending thousands of dollars on advertisements ridiculing the likes of http://www.naturalnews.com/Perdue.html>Perdu... Farms for supposedly misleading the public as to the advantages of consuming antibiotic-free chicken.
A publicist representing the company wrote in an email to NPR
that Sanderson Farms "can no longer sit idle" while its competitors
"dupe consumers into believing one product is healthier than another or
bait them into paying more money for the same product through the use of
misleading labels and questionable marketing practices."
This Sanderson Farms publicist and the company she represents apparently missed the memo that http://www.naturalnews.com/antibiotic.html>a...
overuse in livestock and poultry is a detriment to public health. It's
the leading cause of antibiotic resistance and the emergence of deadly
"superbugs" like methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), and
emerging research suggests that it may also be responsible for the
epidemic of gut disorders that now afflicts tens of millions of people
worldwide.
Sources:
http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/10/... target="_blank">NPR.org
TheFern.org
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/show... target="_blank">PBS.org
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-antibiotic... target="_blank">Reuters.com
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