As shocking as it is, the Guardian investigation into the British poultry industry is the thin end of the wedge when it comes to animal welfare and the human health implications of consuming poultry meat.
Research has shown that as much as 92% of all chicken on sale is contaminated with faecal matter. This goes some way to explaining why food poisoning from poultry continues to make almost a quarter of a million Britons ill every year. The most common cause in the UK is campylobacter, found on raw or undercooked meat. Earlier this year, the NHS issued advice not to wash uncooked chicken because of the risk of spreading bacteria to work surfaces, clothes and utensils. Chicken liver has also been identified as a high-risk food product by the Food Standards Agency, environmental health and health protection organisations in England. While the industry makes plenty of noise about improving biosecurity to tackle food poisoning, its pledges are at odds with the rush to kill ever more birds and make ever greater profits.
This month David Cameron warned that overuse of antibiotics threatened to take us back to the “dark ages of medicine”. Yet he neglected to mention that nearly 50% of all antibiotic usage in Britain is in farming, the majority of which is in intensive livestock production, dominated by the factory farming of chickens for meat – a sector that continues to grow year on year. Just a few months ago, fears were raised that government cuts could mean antibiotic resistance in farmed animals could now go undetected. Factory farms can also be great polluters and there have been cases of waterways being contaminated in recent years.
Many people consume chicken thinking it is a healthy option. What most may not realise is that a medium-sized chicken now contains a pint of fat. Professor Michael Crawford and Yiqun Wang of London Metropolitan University found that chicken contains as much fat, gram for gram, as a Big Mac. He analysed chicken thigh meat from several supermarkets – even organic suppliers – and found it contains more than twice as much fat as it did in 1940, a third more calories and a third less protein.
While overall meat consumption continues its long-term decline, a swing to white meat means that greater numbers of chickens are being farmed and slaughtered in Britain each year. The figures are sobering. Of all land animals killed for meat, chicken dominates with an astounding 945 million slaughtered last year (around 94% of all farmed animals killed in this country). Britain’s desire for cheap white meat is satiated by factory farms, where birds spend their short six- to seven-week lives crammed into sheds of 30,000 or more living on top of their own excreta.
When profit is the driving force, welfare is a distant consideration – and it is difficult to think of an industry where the pursuit of profit is more of a priority. The stories from chicken catchers of birds popping under the wheels of forklift trucks and being decapitated by sliding cages are shocking, but the animal welfare concerns go much wider. The pre-slaughter mortality rate from disease or other factors is around 5%: this conceivably means about 47 million chickens die in British factory farms before they even reach slaughter.
We also have the ever looming threat of emerging diseases hanging over us. This year there have already been outbreaks of high-pathogenic avian influenza in Libya and India. Bird flu and swine flu may have not led to the deaths of millions yet, but it is widely accepted that the next great pandemic is likely to originate within the walls of an intensive farm.
It is clear that Britain’s increasing taste for white meat is a disaster for animals and a disaster for us.
