The Dark Side Of The Chicken Industry
US - Steve Striffler says he "used to eat chicken without much thought about where it came from, or how and by whom it was raised and processed.’’Working in a poultry-processing plant that dirtied his hands and seared unsanitary thoughts into his mind made him a changed man.
Educated meat consumers, Striffler included, long ago acknowledged they’d rather not think about how the beef, pork and chicken they consumed daily was processed. The animals tend to be raised inhumanely, slaughtered messily by poorly paid workers prone to injury, marketed by soulless corporate behemoths and sometimes contaminated with deadly germs.
In 2001, the best-selling book ‘‘Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal’’ by Eric Schlosser drove home those depressing points, concentrating on beef.
Now comes Striffler on chicken. Striffler is a gutsy academic willing to dirty his hands, an academic who even writes well.
‘‘Chicken’’ probably will not sell as many copies as "Fast Food Nation.’’ After all, Yale University Press lacks the marketing muscle of commercial publisher Houghton Mifflin. Readers may also be suffering from meat-expose fatigue. It’s much more pleasant to eat a meal without obsessing about the negative consequences of the food on the plate.
Source: DesMoinesRegister
28 October 2005
1 minute read
