The Meat You Eat. A book review

Talk about an eye opening book! I recently read "The Meat You Eat" by Ken Midkiff, which details how corporate farming has endangered America's food supply. Whew! Once a person reads this book, I find it dificult to believe that they can look at their food the same again.

The book covers all the big inustrial farming groups in this country; Big Pig, Big Chicken and Big Egg, Big milk, Big Beef, and Big Fish. Mr. Midkiff finishes up this book by ecouraging us to stay small and stay alive.

I had a small idea of how corporate farms raise their animals, but had no clue to the travesties at the packing houses. The book is rather graphic at times, but rightfully so. It fully describes how the meat you buy from the grocery store is raised, handled, butchered, and packaged. I took a special interest in the chapter on big chicken, as we raise broilers and layers. Mr. Midkiff points out that the USDA does very little to prevent disease. The birds aren't always dead when they butcher! This causes them to excrete all over themselves during the process and, consequently, contaminate the meat. So they, then, recieve a "bath", which has a layer of excrement on the bottom-some call this the "fecal bath". After that, the birds recieve a number of additional baths in water with a chlorine solution in it. Doesn't that sound appetising?

The crates of birds, now having sat on a truck for hours, are unloaded and each bird is stunned or paralized. (Usually with an electric device.) Then the throats are cut to let the birds bleed out as it is hung upside down on hooks. After the death, the birds are scalded and defeathered. Unwanted parts, (beaks, and wingtips etc..) are sent to a protien plant to make pet foods. (This is what your cat food lable means when it say "made with real chicken".)

They process 300,000 chickens per day and use 800,000 gallons of water per day. Even with all that water, some of the chickens are still contaminated. Contaminants from the picker andfeathers and intestinal residue are still present after cooling and packaging. Random testsing has indicated that supermarket broilers and packaged portions contain high levels of Salmonella. Again, these production lines move so fast that, enevitably, some chickens are not dead during the defeathering process, causing them to excrete all over themselves.

I won't mention the egg industry or any of the others here. It gets me upset to think about it. Am I saying to stop eating meat of any kind, or eggs? No. Your body needs it. However, you can make a conscious effort to chose meat raised in it's natural environment, with proper nutrition, slaughtered in a sanitary way. I have only scratched the surface in this post. I encourage all who read this post to seek out this book and read for yourselves. Corporate agribusiness is all about business, not the "culture" found in agri"culture". Because of this, we strive to further our exploration into the world of meat chickens. To help supply our local community with GOOD food, and a healthier existance for our family.

The title of the book, once again, is "The Meat You Eat" by Ken Midkiff. You owe it to yourself to read this book.