I am always suspicious when I hear the results of health studies that condemn red meat. I can assure you that virtually all of these studies were done in the last 4-5 decades with feedlot-raised cattle, and not cattle brought in from grassy pastures. I know so many people that won’t touch a steak or a roast, because they are convinced by all the media chatter that red meat is intrinsically toxic, and the only meat they will eat is chicken and fish.

I like chicken, especially the Colonel’s original recipe, and my wife’s Chicken Marengo is to die for. But is it any better for us as we buy it in the supermarket than anything else in the offering at the meat department? The latest blurb from Doctor Mercola comments on the likelihood that your so-called healthy chicken may have significant amounts of Arsenic in it.

“Roxarsone is the most common arsenic-based additive used in chicken feed, used to promote growth, kill parasites and improve the color of chicken meat. It is normally benign, but under certain conditions that can occur within live chickens or on farm land, the compound converts into more toxic forms of inorganic arsenic. Arsenic has been linked to bladder, lung, skin, kidney and colon cancers, and low-level exposure can lead to partial paralysis and diabetes. A number of food suppliers have stopped using roxarsone, including Tyson Foods, which is the largest poultry producer in the United States. But even so, 70 percent of the 9 billion broiler chickens produced annually in the United States are fed roxarsone.”

Chemical & Engineering News article, (A free full-text Article).

Quote from Science Daily April 10, 2007

The National Chicken Council, one trade association that represents the U.S. chicken industry, states that there is “no reason to believe there are any human health hazards” associated with the use of roxarsone. Well, surely we can trust them, right?

Our goal is aging gracefully, with lifetime fitness, and the food we eat is the primary driver of lifetime health and fitness. We should insist on knowing what happens to our food on the way to our tables. We should buy the best and healthiest food we can afford – more important than movies or ballgames or hot cars or a zillion things we are willing to blow money on for kicks. We should be completely aware of the impact of our food choices on our health and that of our children. Maybe it’s time to stop buying conventionally raised meats of any kind, and find local sources of meats raised the old fashioned way, without hormones, pesticides and antibiotics. The USDA and FDA horror stories just keep coming; our watchdogs are proving to be like the coyote watching the hen house.

Good Living – Frank