YOUR HEALTH
Is eating a chicken a healthful option to red meat?
Although the industry has run a rigorous and successful marketing campaign to lead people to believe that eating chickens is a good dietary choice, this is false.
HEART DISEASE - DIABETES -OBESITY
There is overwhelming evidence that consuming chickens leads to and worsens conditions like heart disease and diabetes. Even skinless chicken adds excessive fat to your diet, causing weight gain. Consuming chicken also adds an excessive amount of protein to your diet which is harmful to your bones and kidneys. Chicken is NOT healthier than beef and this claim has never been supported by good scientific studies.
Health impact of eating chickens
ANTIBIOTICS
On factory farms, animals are confined in such small spaces that it is not possible to keep the areas clean. Animals stand or lie down in their own feces. Unsanitary conditions weaken their immune systems, which is why producers administer antibiotics. This causes antibiotic resistance in the farmed animals AND the people who eat them. Antibiotic resistance is currently viewed as one of the greatest threats to human health.
THE ENVIRONMENT
Factory farming of chickens where large numbers of chickens are concentrated in small areas gives rise to a high production of feces, sick and dead animals, pathogens and feed additives, all of which negatively impact the environment.
THE ECOSYSTEM
Fecal waste, feathers and dead chickens, are difficult to manage in landfills or as compost. Chicken manure runs off into rivers, lakes and ponds. The phosphorus and nitrogen it contains causes algae blooms in fresh water, reducing sunlight penetration and the oxygen supply to underwater plants which leads to fish kills. Heavy metals and pathogenic microbes in chicken waste also harm and cause disease in land wildlife.
OUR DRINKING WATER
Runoff from areas with chicken waste contaminate surface water and groundwater, ultimately causing sickness in animals and humans. The nitrogen in chicken manure is easily converted to nitrate in sources for drinking water. The Environmental Protection Agency warns that high nitrate levels causes "blue baby syndrome" (methemoglobinemia) and can be fatal.
OUR AIR
Chicken farming generates untrapped emissions of ammonia, hydrogen sulfide and poultry dust, containing bacteria, bacterial toxins and chicken skin debris, resulting in eye and lung irritations.
OUR SOIL
Chicken manure is a source of salts, heavy metals, trace antibiotics, hormones. and sometimes even cecal worm larvae that cause disease.