We like Chipotle Mexican Grill and their food, but noticed that our local location has had a “We are not serving Natural Chicken” sign on the counter for a number of months. They advertise that they attempt to use meats without hormones or antibiotics. We decided to investigate and found some interesting details. Chipotle endeavors to use as much natural chicken as possible, but does not guarantee this. We have seen figures showing that 66% of the chicken meets the standard. This is sort of false advertising, when pure, natural ingredients are promised, but rarely used. What are the issues behind this, supply, profits?

One interesting issue is the fact that they only use chicken dark meat and not chicken white meat. Local vendors have trouble just supplying dark meat, as demand for natural chicken has waned with the economy. Granted, Chipolte serves up a lots of chicken, given its numerous locations and high demand, but needs to upholds its principles. How about switching to white meat or better yet, a blend of white and dark meat, which is how chickens come!

Food Inc. was a sobering but enlightening movie.  It covers the commercialization of the food industry. There are many costs when putting value and convenience over nutrition and environmental impact.

Shown were slaughterhouses and factory farms where chickens grow too fast to walk properly. Cows eat feed pumped with toxic chemicals.  After watching this you want to become a vegetarian or at least stick to local, organic, and sustainable food.

The film shows Barbara Kowalcyk, who had lost her son to eating a hamburger with E. coli, and she’s now dedicated her life to trying to make the food system safer. But when they asked her what she eats, she told them she couldn’t tell them because she would be sued if she answered.  Scary.

We learned about Roundup pesticide resistant soybean seed and their legal tactics.  There are already weeds resistant to this pesticide. No surprise!

Chicken is in the news again. Tyson settles consumer class-action suit over Chicken Labeling. The case started in January 2008 when competitors Perdue Farms and Sanderson Farms sued them alleging that Tyson’s “raised-without-antibiotics” labeling constituted false advertising. Tyson used a chicken feed additive called ionophore that the USDA considers an antibiotic, but had not been proven harmful.

6 months later, Tyson withdrew the antibiotic wording from its chicken. The USDA approved the longer, qualified phrase for use in marketing materials at the end of 2007, so Tyson’s competitors sued one month later.

Competition helps keep industries honest and in this case helped expose more food – antibiotic connections that are hidden behind marketing.

Be sure to check out our Chicken Safety post.

We all want to eat healthy food, but we recently read about several issues with chicken. When is 100% Natural not 100% Natural? More and more of the time unfortunately.

US Department of agriculture (USDA) defines the term “natural” as a product that contains no artificial ingredients or added color and is only minimally processed.  The definition applies to beef and chicken.

“Natural” Packaged chicken can be injected with up to 15% salt water and seaweed extract (carrageenan) per the US Department of Agriculture. The tiny fine print on some chicken packages reads “With up to 15% natural* chicken broth”

Allegedly, Wal-Mart in 2003 told US chicken processors to standardize packaged weight of fresh chicken, so this scheme was employed.

So not only are we paying extra for salt water, we are getting saltier chicken.

This article offers some helpful suggestions on what to look for when buying chicken. 100% Organic, Pasture raised is the best.

Chemicals in chicken

Chemicals given to chickens have also have problems. In July 2011, Pfizer stopped selling 3-Nitro that was used in some chicken feed. FDA found a very low level of inorganic carcinogenic arsenic in the livers of chickens treated with the drug.