>Jes' the facts, ma'am...thought the following "boutique chicken"
>news story, cut from the food safety network fsnet-l, would be of
>interest, regarding the assumption
>that free-range or "organic" chickens are less likely to be contaminated
>with harmful bacteria.
<snip>
> Linda Greene, program leader in
>Consumer Reports' food department, was quoted as saying that "Paying more
>for chicken doesn't guarantee you'll get a cleaner chicken." (same with
>any organic -- dp) So why did the boutique birds have higher
>contamination rates? Richard Lobb, spokesman for the National Broiler
>Council was cited as saying that while "free-range" birds have access to
>the outdoors it may increase their chances of picking up bacteria such as
>salmonella from rats, mice, insects or birds, adding, "Big companies
>devoutly believe in bio-security."
LOL!!! right. Chickens just LOVE to play around with rats, mice and
birds. GMAB! Now I will admit that given the chance, chickens DO eat al
the insects they can get their little beaks on.
In either case, any bacteria picked up while they are alive and wandering
around, either on wire or in a pasture, is NOT going to be of concern when
they are killed and processed. Antoerh GMAB!
> George Oppenheimer,
>general manager of Wellington Farms Free Range, based in Mechanicsburg,
>Pa., was cited as candidly agreeing with both hypotheses. (Wellington
>Farms was the only free-range bird tested; the other three are
>premium-priced.) Oppenheimer was quoted as saying, "Frank Perdue was
>right. Birds are better off inside. It's more of a controlled environment.
>You don't know what they'll eat outside." Oppenheimer added that
>"free-range" was "more of a buzzword" than an animal husbandry concept,
>since even if given the chance, chickens don't like to roam around
>outside. And that's because birds, by their nature, flock together. They
>want to be near their food and water, which are usually inside. "They
>don't do any traveling . . . they don't do push-ups or jog."
This guy must be a typical "Genral Manager" of a large busienss and never
gets out of his Ivory Tower Office. He certainly showed his total ignorance
of how chickens act in a free range setting. Having raised a chicken or two
at various locations over the past 50 plus years, I don't recognize teh
birds he is talking about as normal chickens. Mine always loved getting out
and running around the yard, garden, and/or pasture, scratching and pecking
for whatever food they could find. And it always included every insect they
could catch along with a lot of other things. When we had chickens we
planned on lettingout, we made sure our vegetable gardens were well fenced
to keep them out. At least until all the plants were pretty large.
chickens will tear up newly planted areas and will eat sprouting plants.
I do agree that the news media is making too big an isue of salmonella.
--Dan in Sunny Puerto Rico--
--dan.worley@icepr.com--
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