Eat My Florida

You may want to set that drumstick down before reading this, because the plump bird that gave its all for your dinner didn’t lead the happiest of lives. Surprised? Didn’t think so. But it’s very important to understand where your food comes from, whether it’s a tomato from Ruskin or a piece of fish farmed in China.

I present this information to you not as a PETA proponent, nor one of those macho carnivores who assumes that animal cruelty is an oxymoron. It’s just information; use it how you will.

From egg to grill, for better or worse, here’s the lifecycle of the average American chicken:

Newborn chicks are immediately transported to growth centers — usually the day they are born — where they’re placed in warehouse-sized “coops” filled with around 200,000 chickens, with just enough room to shuffle around a bit. Sometimes, their beaks and toes are trimmed so that they cannot hurt each other, although that practice has become less common.

These are purely modern birds, bred to grow at astounding and unnatural rates. Within 5-7 weeks, the chickens will reach an optimum weight around 5 pounds, a lot of that in the breast. We love our white meat.

Legs are not as popular, so they don’t receive the same genetic treatment, resulting in tiny limbs that struggle to deal with the crushing weight of a ballooning chest. The USDA estimates that as many as 30 percent of chickens suffer from leg disorders that make movement difficult, painful or impossible. They don’t have to suffer long.

At six to seven weeks, the chickens are packed into cages for transport — usually on vehicles that are open to the weather no matter the season. At the slaughterhouse, chickens are suspended upside down by their feet and, at most places, their heads are dragged through an electrified pool to stun them. They are then decapitated by a spinning blade and plunged into boiling water to make it easier to remove the feathers.

At this point, the slaughterhouse workers have to remove all the nasty organs and intestines without contaminating the bird, which is usually done at an astounding rate. Butcher the bird, slap it in the cooler and you’re done.

Throughout the process, mistakes are made — understandable when the average slaughterhouse worker handles around 80,000 birds a shift. Time is money and workers are not encouraged to sacrifice speed for gentle treatment or even accuracy. Chickens are mishandled and limbs are regularly snapped; the stunning bath malfunctions or operates at too low a voltage to be effective; the spinning blade misses its mark. For a little perspective, if that poultry guillotine misses even 1 percent of the time, that means 100-million chickens boiled to death every year. The poultry industry estimates that it’s closer to 2 percent.

No judgments implied, but you’re an idiot if you think that process isn’t cruel, from start to finish. You have to decide for yourself if a steady supply of cheap and ready poultry protein is worth that extra cost. Don’t feel smug, upscale organic shopper: free-range and organic birds have it a little easier, but not enough to matter.

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