We have another video to help demystify modern food, this one is about chicken.
Do you eat chicken that isn’t certified organic?
If you do, or if you think the inspection system ensures that what you eat is safe, then please take 2 minutes to watch:
Then visit Food & Water Watch for details and how you can make a difference.
Seriously "Sensitive" to Pollution 
I don’t have enough download allowance on my internet plan to allow me to watch videos. In a nutshell what does the video say please?
From the Food and Water Watch link:
(after the factory farming issues)
“Once the chickens go to the meat processing plant, most are dipped in a chemical cocktail to keep bacteria and other pathogens under control. And, since labeling isn’t required, consumers are left in the dark about what chemicals their food may have been treated with. Chlorine, tri-sodium phosphate (normally used to clean cement) and hypobromous acid (used to clean swimming pools) are used to try to control salmonella and sterilize feces that might still be on carcasses because the production line speeds are too fast.
Is chicken safe to eat?
Each year foodborne illnesses, like salmonella, make 48 million people sick, resulting in 128,000 hospitalizations and 3,000 deaths in the United States. Big Chicken is currently pressuring the USDA to approve a plan that would not only increase line speeds in chicken plants (from 145 to 175 birds per minute) but also have company workers, instead of USDA inspectors, inspect the products. These faster lines will lead to more injuries for workers, and more filthy chicken. It’s the first step in deregulating meat inspections — this could set a terrible precedent for government inspection of other meat, like beef.”
Thanks for that. Does this also apply to how Chicken is processed in Australia?
Is it only factory farmed chicken? Would it also apply to free range chicken?
I’m sorry I have no idea about Australia.
I found this article about what the different chicken labels mean, but it doesn’t discuss organic processing. I’ll see if I can find another link about that
http://www.salon.com/2011/01/20/what_chicken_labels_really_mean/
The long and technical stuff for USDA organic certification is here (sorry I don’t have the brain to process it all):
“The National List of Allowed and Prohibited Substances identifies substances that may and may not be used in organic crop and livestock production. It also lists the substances that may be used in or on processed organic products. In general, synthetic substances are prohibited unless specifically allowed and non-synthetic substances are allowed unless specifically prohibited.”…
http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/NOPPetitionedSubstancesDatabase
The National List of Allowed and Prohibited Substances
http://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?c=ecfr&SID=9874504b6f1025eb0e6b67cadf9d3b40&rgn=div6&view=text&node=7:3.1.1.9.32.7&idno=7
Go vegan! You owe it to yourself to watch the documentary “Forks Over Knives” and learn that eating animals and their secretions is making you SICK, can kill you and our planet. We only have one planet and must harmoniously share it. Being a speciesist (like racist only labelling other living sentient being as commodities: “pet”, “companion”, “food”, “circus/aquarium entertainer” is wrong — think Holocaust) is wrong. Just because the “human” species can imprison, mutilate, rape, rob, torture and muder other living sentient beings does not make it right. African American were property “slaves” before someone made it illegal. Women were/are property in some countries and were not allowed to vote. This also s NOT right. Eating animals just because we can is NOT right! This is the 21st century where we are supposed to be evolved enlightened beings. Eating animals is a violation of this. Factory farming is THE #1 cause of global warming on the planet (more than all the cars, trans, planes, ships, etc). As an ethical Earthling concerned for the future sustainability of our planet Earth I will state that “eating animals” has no place in today’s society. If you would not eat your pets because you think they are too cute then why would you eat other living beings who do not want to die just because you think they are not worthy of being pets or companions? This is “speciesism”! Protect your health and the future of this planet by adopting a compassionate vegan lifestyle. You will get healthy, lose weight without trying, help save the planet and help minimize pain, suffering, and destruction of this planet for all living beings.
http://www.forksoverknives.com/
It’s a slow process for people to learn that animals, birds, and even fish have feelings just like we do, that they have intelligence, they experience love and fear, and want to be happy, so are not really that different from us, except for appearance and capacity (although I have met animals who are more intelligent and kind than some of the humans I have met).
First, it is really important to understand how inhumane and cruel the industrial system is. The birds and animals many of us eat are raised in atrocious conditions. If we look at how our own health declines in atrocious conditions, how can we think that it would be healthy for anyone else to eat us? There would be nothing nourishing there! Cardboard and condiments might even provide something healthier than tortured beings fed all kinds of GMOs, garbage and drugs and then dunked in chemical baths to remove some of the pathogens!
Isn’t the point of eating to nourish ourselves? We are what we eat, they say…
So, when we learn these things, and can open our minds and hearts to truth and suffering, there is often a transition to organic, pasture raised, and otherwise kinder, gentler ways of raising the animals and birds who get turned into human dinners.
It’s so important to stop the cruelty and chemical mismanagement as soon as we possibly can! This is a necessary step. As much as I’d like to see us all become vegetarian or vegan, I don’t see it happening overnight, or without steps.
The next step after going cruelty free is to seriously reduce consumption, and learn new ways of eating, how to substitute other foods… There are so many amazing meals we can make that don’t require any ingredients from other species! But as long as the industrial food system controls advertising and what is grown and sold, a lot of people don’t have access to healthy alternatives!
So we have to change the system too, before all people can change…
I’ve been vegetarian on and off my whole adult life. For a few years, the last time I was back to eating “meat”, it was just once a week, because I had a room-mate who really needed that for health purposes and I was the one making the meals, and I actually did better eating some too at the time (the Dalai Lama has also said that sometimes it IS necessary for health reasons, but otherwise is not necessary at all to eat “meat” from other living beings).
After living at the summer cabin for a year, where my “safe” visitors all had their own naturally occurring fur or feather coats, and watching them interact amongst each other, as well as watching bear den cams and videos once I had internet again, I started seeing my rare “meat” dinner with different eyes again, but in a much deeper way.
Then I found this website, which has a lot of buddhist teachings on vegetarianism, and I very much enjoy and learn from buddhist teachings http://www.shabkar.org/vegetarianism/index.htm
Some people say “but Buddhists eat meat”… yes, so do Christians, Jews and Muslims… These are habits developed centuries ago, before people learned as much as we know about plant life, and also before people had access to all the plant life we have now!
As climate change, droughts, flooding, temperature changes, etc affect our food supplies, we will see more changes… but now we also know how destructive industrial animal (and other) agricultural methods are, and how much they contribute to extreme weather, so perhaps there will be more motivation to enact policies that preserve life instead of shorten it, for us all.
I just ran across this article which kind of expands on some of the points in my last comment:
Low-income Australians cannot afford healthy foods
http://www.foodnavigator-asia.com/Markets/Low-income-Australians-cannot-afford-healthy-foods
There’s also the big problem of huge subsidies going to the wrong kinds of food production.
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