Word: chickening
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Over the past few decades, the nation's poultry producers have capitalized on an epic change in America's eating habits. As cholesterol fears have mounted, the demand for chicken instead of beef has zoomed. Since 1940, the number of chickens slaughtered annually in the U.S. has grown from 143 million to more than 7 billion. By the mid 1970s, this trend posed a crisis for the poultry industry. Unless the industry was allowed unrestricted automation, supply could never meet demand. Under the regulations at that time, chickens moved slowly through the slaughtering process, and those birds noticeably contaminated with...
Everything changed in 1978. Based on a single study now considered flawed by independent experts, the Carter Administration's USDA allowed the poultry industry to wash rather than trim chickens and also to speed up the production lines. "It was the worst decision I ever made," says Carol Tucker Foreman, then the official in charge of food safety at the USDA. "They had that study, and I was convinced the consumer would benefit from lower-cost chicken." Many studies since then have shown that washing is ineffective, even after 40 rinses. (Trimming is still required for beef, "because the meat...
...industry has a good reason for resisting changes in this cold bath, known to critics as "fecal soup": the process allows chickens to become waterlogged. Regulations allow as much as 8% of a chicken's weight to be water, which consumers pay for as if it were meat. "When it comes to chicken," says Jack Leighty, a retired director of the USDA's pathology division, "water is big business." So big, in fact, that Tyson alone would lose about $40 million in annual gross profits if the 8% rule were repealed. One study has shown that cross-contamination...
Poor working conditions, too, have an impact on food quality. Antoinette Poole, 40, quit last month after working at a Tyson plant in Dardanelle, Arkansas, for five years. Her job: scooping up chicken breasts that fell off the processing line and onto the factory floor -- and rinsing them off with cold water. Poole claims she was so overworked that chicken parts sometimes sat on the floor for as long as half an hour. "Sometimes it stinks to high heaven, but who cares? Once it's frozen it ain't gonna smell bad. But I wouldn't want my family...
Across the factory floor from where Poole used to work is Mearl Pipes, a 49- year-old sanitation employee who has toiled in the Tyson plant for nine years. This summer, at a meeting between employees and managers, says Pipes, "we asked why we're required to package chicken that smells bad, and they said the chicken can smell bad due to bacteria but it can still be of good quality. That's bull as far as I'm concerned." Tyson denies the charges of the workers, one of whom is a union organizer, but says an investigation will...