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GLENN'S STRATEGIES FOR WELL-BEING: Got Chicken?
*Nothing like a good piece of fried chicken. Right?
But are you aware of what you’re really eating? Do you know how that chicken you’re eating is raised?
Check this out…
Chicken is a staple of the American diet. Between 1970 and 2000, per capita consumption nearly doubled -- from an average of 40 pounds per year to about 78 pounds a year, reports the National Chicken Council, a trade association of the nation's chicken producers. Total chicken consumption has almost tripled since 1960, with year-end estimates showing each American eating at least 82 pounds of chicken in 2004.
Chicken, like other animal products, contains hefty doses of cholesterol, fat, and animal protein. It leaves your body wanting for fiber, vitamin C, and complex carbohydrates. When heated, chicken produces dangerous heterocyclic amines (HCAs). HCAs, the same carcinogens found in tobacco smoke, are 15 times more concentrated in grilled chicken than beef. HCAs may be one of the reasons that meat-eaters have much higher colon cancer rates; about three hundred percent higher compared to vegetarians.
The fat, animal protein and carcinogens in cooked chicken creates risks for colon cancer. What's more, poultry, like all meat, lacks any fiber to help cleanse the digestive tract of excess hormones and cholesterol.
Moreover, you wouldn't dream of taking veterinary medicines, but in choosing chicken you're doing just that. Problems arise when animals treated with antibiotics become breeding grounds for bacteria that are resistant to those medicines. When humans or other animals get infected with these super bugs, the drugs or dosages that once fought infections may no longer work. Antibiotic overuse poses huge risks to our ability to combat disease in human and animal populations. Yet profit pressures continue to motivate beef and dairy farmers to cling to the old ways. Some farmers use antibiotics to fatten animals in the belief that it makes animals grow faster. Still others try to use antibiotics to protect cows and chickens against persistent diseases.
Antimicrobial agents have been used in agriculture, including livestock and poultry, since the early 1950s to treat infections and improve growth and feed efficiency. The actual amount of antimicrobial agents used in agriculture is unknown; however, a substantial portion given to food animals is for subtherapeutic use (in other words., use in the absence of disease) for to promote growth, a practice that is becoming increasingly controversial.
Factory farms simply cannot raise billions of animals per year without using drugs that allow the animals to survive cramped and unhealthy conditions that would otherwise kill them. Millions of pounds of antibiotics are fed to chickens, which metabolize only about 20 percent of the drugs fed to them: The remaining 80 percent ends up in their feces. The 3 trillion pounds of waste produced by factory-farmed animals every year is usually used to fertilize crops and subsequently ends up leaching into waterways—along with the drugs and bacteria that it contains.
An honest look at the nutritional value of chicken reveals that chicken meat is not low in fat, and "not even close." A 3.5-ounce piece of broiled lean steak is fifty-six percent fat as a percentage of calories, and chicken contains nearly the same at fifty-one percent. Compare that with the fat in a baked potato (one percent), steamed cauliflower (six percent) and baked beans (four percent) and any ideas that chicken is a health food go out the window. Fancy packages can't disguise the fact that chicken and all meats are muscles, and muscles are made of protein and fat. Also, the combination of fat, protein and carcinogens found in cooked chicken creates troubling risks for colon cancer. Today, virtually all of the 8 billion chickens slaughtered each year are exposed to antibiotics at some point in their lives. The major purpose of giving antibiotics to cows, sheep, and other livestock is to promote growth. Animals receiving antibiotics in their feed gain 4% to 5% more body weight than animals that do not receive antibiotics. The antibiotic-resistant bacteria that develop can easily be transmitted to humans through meat or through human contact with living animals
But despite the overall decrease in antibiotic use, there is no way for the consumer to know whether one of these companies' chickens has been treated with antibiotics.
The vast majority of the 7 billion or so chickens produced annually in the United States spend their entire lives indoors in climate-controlled poultry barns with concrete floors, artificial lights and forced-air ventilation. Those mass-produced birds -- the kind sold at most supermarkets -- are routinely fed sub-clinical doses of antibiotics to speed weight gain and increase feed efficiency.
“I’ll take a 3-piece, extra crispy, with a biscuit and mashed potatoes.”
Remember, I’m not a doctor. I just sound like one.
Take good care of your self and live the best like possible!
Glenn Ellis is a health columnist and talk-radio personality who lectures around the country on health issues particularly relevant to the African-American community.
For more good health information, visit: www.glennellis.com
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