Which makes my reading of Jonathon Safran Foer's book Eating Animals terrible, terrible timing.
Foer explains about factory farming and, essentially, how the "chickens of tomorrow" came to be. In 1923, a woman named Celia Steele may not have intentionally started factory farming, but her realizations and experiments helped to prepare the concept into reality. After mistakenly receiving 500 chicks instead of her order of only 50, Steele decided to experiment with keeping the chicks alive during the winter. Newly discovered farming equipment was also becoming available at this time, and allowed Steele to grow her flock of chicks to nearly 250,000 by 1935. Suffering over-crowding and lack of sunlight, Steele's chickens wouldn't have survived if it weren't for modern technology of incubators and the realization that adding vitamins A and D to the chick's feed would keep them alive. Debeaking became a regular process as chickens began to go mad within their close proximity to others and began pecking at each other violently. In this process, the chicks' beaks are seared off with a hot blade.
Chickens then began to be bred for their egg-laying (layers) or flesh (broilers). According to Foer, "The very genetics of chickens, along with their feed and environment, were now intensively manipulated to produce either excessive amounts of eggs or flesh, especially breasts." To put this growth into human perspective, imagine a human child at ten years old growing to be 300 lbs by eating nothing but granola bars and Flintstone vitamins. Chickens are now so dependent upon these growth hormones that many cannot survive without them. But it is this very unnatural growth that often disables the birds from natural movement, as their legs collapse under the massive weight of their grossly enlarged bodies.
The term "factory farming" isn't a new one. It's likely that most people have heard of this term - perhaps even contemplated what it meant, at least once in their lifetime. As my husband so eloquently put it yesterday, "...I had heard of 'factory farms' before, but I always assumed that only the really cheap meat was produced there. I always thought that there was no way Tyson or Perdue got their Grade A choice USDA meat from factory farms."
Oh, if that were the case. As it stands, nearly 99% of our meat is produced inside these factory farms. 99% - that includes all the meat found in our grocery stores, sold at carnivals or street fairs, and served to us on leaded plates at expensive and exclusive restaurants. What really struck me is when I began watching the Food Network after reading this. I've seen episodes of The Next Iron Chef multiple times, but I can't help but see it differently. These world famous chefs are manically running around their kitchens trying to prepare the best meals in their culinary arsenal for a panel of judges that are experts at critiquing skillfully-prepared food. And as they present their dishes of cranberry and pesto crusted chicken breast to the judges, all I can think about is how full of hormones, artificial preservatives and feces have coated this chicken breast from the inside out. And how no matter how many sauces or crusts or spices these chefs can throw at it, nothing will mask the fact that this chicken was probably starved, abused, genetically modified, artificially preserved, brutally processed and received a quick chlorine bath to remove some of its own excrement from its dead carcass before being shrink wrapped and shipped off for as little cost to the farmer as possible.
So what do you do? Buy chicken that only comes labeled as "organic," "free-range" or "cage-free?" Save your money- it's still the same bird.
These terms were meant more to confuse the consumer than accurately portray how the chickens were actually raised. According to Foer,
"..the free-range label is bullshit. It should provide no more peace of mind than 'all-natural,' 'fresh,' or 'magical.'"
In order to be considered "free-range," the animals need to have access to the "outdoors," which, in most cases, can be nothing more than a small door (opened only occasionally) that leads to a five-by-five patch of dirt. "Cage-free" means just that- the birds were not literally caged. But it is safe to assume that both free-range and cage-free birds are debeaked, drugged and brutally slaughtered. Foer continues, " I could keep a flock of hens under my sink and call them free-range."
As you can imagine, if 99% of chickens are raised this way, it must be difficult to locate the 1% that still raises poultry that boasts the same genetic makeup as birds 100 years ago. One farmer, featured in Foer's book, does just this. Frank Reese owns and operates his own turkey farm in Tampa, Kansas. Reese writes,
"All my turkeys have their toenails; they all have their wings and beaks- nothings been cut off; nothings been destroyed. We don't vaccinate, don't feed antibiotics. No need to. Our birds exercise all day. And because their genes haven't been messed with, they have naturally strong immune systems."
Which is all well and good. But not every farmer has the same silver spoon in his mouth that Reese does. Not every farm can sustain the same quality care and even hope to survive in the market we as a society has created for agriculture. Which I suppose is what makes Reese such an oddity.
Reese continues, "The animals have paid the price for our desire to have everything available at all times for very little money."
When it comes to dealing with the unpleasantness of our current corrupted agricultural practices, it's easy to point our righteous fingers at the farmer. But in reality, farmers are only responding to the demands that our society have placed on them. We like to eat meat. We want to be able to afford to eat meat at least twice a day, every day. Which means we want cheap meat. And if you demand cheap meat, that's what you're getting.
Reese continues,
"Most of the folks who buy my turkeys are not rich by any means; they're struggling on fixed incomes. But they're willing to pay more for the sake of what they believe in. They're willing to pay the real price. And to those who say it's just too much to pay for a turkey, I always say to them , 'Don't eat turkey.' It's possible you can't afford to care, but it's certain you can't afford not to care.'"
Frank Reese's farm, Good Shepherd Poultry: http://www.goodshepherdpoultryranch.com/
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