A bit of my view...

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Tastes (smells?) Like Chicken

You know how some songs or stories can inspire such detailed memories that you can actually remember how it smelled or tasted? I recently ran across an environmental story that triggered such a memory, but I would not call it pleasant. Scientists recently found in a toxin study that when riding behind a flatbed chicken truck (which I cannot find any pictures of), you are exposed to high levels of harmful bacteria, including some that are resistant to antibiotics. I wish I could find a picture of one, but try to imagine a large, full-sized, flatbed trailer full of cages that are stacked about 15-20 high, and inside of each cage is a full sized (and still alive) broiler hen with little room for movement.

First of all, if you've ever been to Delmarva, you already know how the chicken farms smell, and you know that the trucks smell just as bad. I always hated looking into their stupid eyes as you passed the truck on the way to the slaughter house, but oh God, the smell. Now I know we were being pelted with E. coli, Salmonella and who knows what else. So if traveling behind one of these trucks exposes you to such harmful toxins, my question is, what about if you swam in a pool and played in a yard right next to the chicken houses? What kind of pool water did we swallow on auntie's farm? Yuck!

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