Interesting article regarding commercially raised meat chickens in US

[Buster52]

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I don't pretend to understand chemistry, and you certainly seem to know what you are talking about. Help me out here... are you saying the chlorine in the bath in which factory farmed chickens are repeatedly soaked is more like table salt than it is like the chlorine in the pool product?

 

[Brunty_Farms]

Yes....

The chlorine itself breaks down into simple water and salt... The issue is the by-products that chlorine tags along with it, but these are mainly seen in paper mills. They bleach the the paper white... such as your coffee filters, papers, toilet paper, paper towels... ect. These toxins are called dioxins. However they are even seen in our drinking water (or the water the birds are soaked in) Chlorine reacts with organic substances (bacteria) causing formation of these so called dioxins or another one that you may be familiar with is chloroform.

Chlorine is a man made product... and it has several forms. When dealing with chemistry it only takes an electron to change an element or a compound... so it's very easy to have multiple compounds containing chlorine. Chlorine is used in it's pure form to clean the water... when added to pools there is other elements with it (more chemicals). Another is example is Hydrogen Chloride... which when it's mixed with water creates hydrochloric acid which will burn your skin.

It's too complicated for me to understand and I took a couple chem classes. I have a couple of folders full of notes and that I kept.... never thought I would use them on BYC! SO my info may not be up to day or a bit twisted but I think you catch my gist...


They say chlorine is safe... but the government also says a lot of things are safe which I think is bogus. It's just one of those things that you get when you mechanically process an animal.... but the thing is they don't have to use Chlorine, they can use a handful of other things that will do the same thing... but it just cost more. God forbid if we have to pay an extra 10 cents a pound for clean chicken.

 

[CARS]

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So it is safe to say that in their eyes, chlorine is the lesser of two evils? Cheap and effective.

I wonder what my local processor rinses them in? After watching my birds go through the process, they end up in a few different tanks. Hmmm....

 

[Brunty_Farms]

Yes unfortunately it is. You either rinse them in the chlorinated water or risk that millions will get sick and die from various bacterial diseases.

It sucks but it's reality. Also too, most city water is done this way... chlorinated to stay clean until it gets to your house. Doesn't make much sense to me, you think more research would go into finding a better solution.

 

[Buster52]

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I assume you are talking about factory farmed and processed poultry. I doubt you use "20-50 ppm of free available chlorine" in your chill tanks for your free range, home processed birds. I assume you believe your product to be safe.

Which is the real problem with this kind of use of chlorine, I suppose. It is necessary because the system is sick.

There is a better way.

 

[CARS]

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I assume you are talking about factory farmed and processed poultry. I doubt you use "20-50 ppm of free available chlorine" in your chill tanks for your free range, home processed birds. I assume you believe your product to be safe.

In the past, I have taken my birds to the local locker for processing and they rinse and hold the birds in a few different tanks along the line. Makes ya wonder about my free-ranged birds.

Which is the real problem with this kind of use of chlorine, I suppose. It is necessary because the system is sick.

There is a better way.

Care to share the "better way"???​

 

[Bossroo]

Would salt, ammonia or irradiation be a better option ?

 

[ducks4you]

I was going to post this, but 2 days ago the forum traffic shut me out!

I personally believe that this is a political move from Russia to discredit American exports. Anybody agree?

 

[CARS]

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Why would any of the country's that buy from us do that??? Because we force them to believe our way is better???

Clearly the US government has to be right, right????

 

[Andi]

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No. Chickens aren't that expensive to raise. It probably costs them more to import than it would to raise their own. It would give them more jobs for their own people on top of that. The fact that they are weening us off is only polite, IMO. The way we process is just a justifiable reason. I have nothing to base it on other than it makes sense. Because its Russia I think its easy to fall into thinking there's more to it.