Taking A Break From Chicken

Many of us consume too many processed foods and red meat, but eating healthy foods carries its own risks.

Fruits and vegetables: Every year, nearly 48 million people fall ill from food contamination, including sickness caused by fruits and vegetables....to avoid this, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recommends washing produce thoroughly.

Brown rice: a single serving of some rices could give an average adult almost one and a half times the inorganic arsenic he or she would get from a whole day’s consumption of water, about 1 liter.

Fish: 84 percent of fish have unsafe levels of mercury....Eating fish is the principal way people get mercury poisoning. Tuna and swordfish contain the most mercury, which can permanently damage the brain and kidneys. Because mercury pollution is global, no country alone can rid its food supply of contamination.

Chicken: the [Foster Farms] plant in Livingston, CA, poses a public health threat because it was infested with live cockroaches...Roaches were seen near the processing line at the plant while “exposed product” was on the slaughterhouse floor...the live insects were also observed on other occasions during production.

Chicken is our favorite source of lean protein, and Foster Farms is the brand of choice because of low price and attractive packaging. We always cook it thoroughly because of the risk of salmonella contamination, but this latest incident with the roaches will cause us to take a break from chicken.

Eating anything carries risks. Maybe we should concede the obvious and just eat less. Time to dust off the book from last year...

© 2014 Stephen Yuen