If you’re purchasing your chicken or turkey from one of the large poultry processors, your family may be eating sick or diseased animals.
As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, state and federal regulators have eased restrictions on meat processors. While overall, this is a good thing, it does come with consequences.
Under previous guidelines, when a processor came across a sick or diseased bird, they had to discard the entire animal or mark it for non-human consumption. Under the new guidelines, the processor is able to remove the diseased portion of the animal and continue processing the remainder of the carcass. This means that if a chicken had the equivalent of cancer, the processor would simply cut out the tumor and package the remainder of the bird. Yum!
For more info, check out this MSN article.
How do you make sure that your family isn’t eating sick or diseased animals? Simple, purchase your meat from a producer that doesn’t have sick and diseased animals. The large-scale agriculture industry is great for feeding a large amount of people. It’s not so great at ensuring that animals remain happy and healthy. As a result of the number of animals that are kept in such tight quarters, the animals often require antibiotics, sterilization techniques, and a wide variety of countermeasures to ensure that they live long enough to be of size for harvest.
By dealing with a local farmer who specializes in small-scale agriculture, you can ensure that you’re getting the highest quality meat for your family. Animals that are pasture-raised on chemical-free grass in small groups are far less likely to get diseases or become ill. When the farmer is also the one processing the animals, he knows what to look for, and what doesn’t look right…
At Our Way Farms, we only raise the highest quality animals available. If I wouldn’t feed it to my family, I wouldn’t feed it to your family.