Dear Editor,
As you probably heard, the Foster Farms chicken slaughterhouse in California was recently shut down due to a cockroach infestation. If that’s not enough to put you off chicken, consider this: Chicken flesh is commonly contaminated with salmonella—the same bacteria that cockroaches can carry—as well as listeria, campylobacter, and E. coli.
According to Michael Greger, M.D., the author of Bird Flu: A Virus of Our Own Hatching, chicken “juice” is essentially raw fecal soup. Chicken carcasses are so contaminated that University of Arizona researchers found more fecal bacteria in the kitchen than they found when swabbing a toilet. Greger even thinks it might be “safer” to lick the rim of the toilet seat than the kitchen countertop in a meat-eater’s house, because people don’t prepare chickens in their toilets.
Chicken flesh just isn’t healthy. It contains the same amount of cholesterol as beef and it’s high in sodium, which contributes to high blood pressure, heart disease, and other heart problems. Researchers have also found that people who frequently eat grilled skinless chicken have a 52 percent higher chance of developing bladder cancer than people who don’t.
But don’t despair if you like the taste of chicken – you can get great-tasting faux chicken from Beyond Meat, Gardein, Boca, and other vegan-friendly companies. For more information, see www.PETA.org.
Sincerely,
Heather Moore
The PETA Foundation
501 Front St.
Norfolk, VA 23510
757-622-7382, ext. 8106
