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Arsenic and Other Chemicals Found in Chicken | Green - Yahoo! Shine
Is pink slime just the tip of the corrupted food iceberg? In an April 4, 2012 article in the New York Times, journalist Nicholas Kristof spotlights two recent studies that have found many unappetizing (to say the least) chemicals lurking in poultry.
Related: Some processors label beef containing pink slime
"We were kind of floored," Keeve E. Nachman, a co-author of both studies and a scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Center for a Livable Future told the Times. "It's unbelievable what we found."
Nachman's team examined ground chicken feathers from six states and China (feathers, like human hair and nails, contain traces of the chemicals an animal has been exposed to). One of the most troubling substances they identified was a broad-spectrum class of antibiotics called fluoroquinolones that the FDA banned for poultry production in 2005. Antibiotics are given to industrially raised meat and poultry to make them grow more quickly. This particular class of drugs breeds so-called "superbugs" which cause antibiotic resistant infections in humans.
Arsenic, a known carcinogen, was found in every feather sample. "It has no place in the human food system," Sonya Lunder, Senior Research Analyst at the Environmental Working Group, told Yahoo! Shine. Arsenic is fed to chickens and hogs to improve the color of their flesh.
The majority of samples also contained acetaminophin, the active ingredient in Tylenol, and one-third of the samples contained the antihistamine used in Benadryl. The samples from China also showed traces of Prozac. Kristoff explains that all these substances are administered to chickens to reduce stress because that can slow their growth. The feathers also contained caffeine, presumably to counteract the effects of the other substances.
Is pink slime just the tip of the corrupted food iceberg? In an April 4, 2012 article in the New York Times, journalist Nicholas Kristof spotlights two recent studies that have found many unappetizing (to say the least) chemicals lurking in poultry.
Related: Some processors label beef containing pink slime
"We were kind of floored," Keeve E. Nachman, a co-author of both studies and a scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Center for a Livable Future told the Times. "It's unbelievable what we found."
Nachman's team examined ground chicken feathers from six states and China (feathers, like human hair and nails, contain traces of the chemicals an animal has been exposed to). One of the most troubling substances they identified was a broad-spectrum class of antibiotics called fluoroquinolones that the FDA banned for poultry production in 2005. Antibiotics are given to industrially raised meat and poultry to make them grow more quickly. This particular class of drugs breeds so-called "superbugs" which cause antibiotic resistant infections in humans.
Arsenic, a known carcinogen, was found in every feather sample. "It has no place in the human food system," Sonya Lunder, Senior Research Analyst at the Environmental Working Group, told Yahoo! Shine. Arsenic is fed to chickens and hogs to improve the color of their flesh.
The majority of samples also contained acetaminophin, the active ingredient in Tylenol, and one-third of the samples contained the antihistamine used in Benadryl. The samples from China also showed traces of Prozac. Kristoff explains that all these substances are administered to chickens to reduce stress because that can slow their growth. The feathers also contained caffeine, presumably to counteract the effects of the other substances.