Chickens and Eggs, Pasture to Plate

I had an interesting day out last weekend on the Horowhenua Taste Trail, where a handful of Horowhenua food producers--Horowhenua is a region in New Zealand--opened their doors and offered factory tours, tastings, and such to the public. At some venues, various restaurants and chefs had set up to offer “tasting plates” made with the products. The idea of this annual event is to share with ordinary people the “paddock to plate” process.

I drove up to the town of Foxton for my first venue, and started there with a visit to Turk’s chicken. Now I don’t think a chicken factory is a happy place, but I do think knowing where food comes from is important knowledge. Still, this is truly red pill, blue pill territory, or to quote the government propaganda in George Orwell’s novel 1984, “Ignorance is Bliss”.  Not everybody wants to know, or cares to see.

Turks produces corn-fed (not GMO corn) free-range “premium” chicken and chicken products that are sold primarily around the North Island of New Zealand. They are a local company employing over 200 workers and contractors in the operation, so they are a major employer in this small, rural town. They process around 125,000 chickens a week.

38 day old Turk's chickens

We didn’t get an opportunity to see the free-range chickens in the barns and paddocks run by Turks’ contractors, but at the entrance as we went in, they showed us a few chickens: first a bunch of fluffy yellow 2-day-old chicks you could pick up, and then some larger birds in a larger pen that were 38 days old: grossly overweight, and somewhat featherless, two days short of slaughter. Given the chickens are kept in barns until they are 3 weeks old, and they are killed just shy of 6 weeks’ old, their “free-range life” outdoors is pretty short. You can see more about the barns and outdoor spaces, and learn about the company, in this clip from the tv show “Rural Delivery”.

In the Turks factory, sample chicken (not a working day)

On tour inside the factory (they don’t operate on weekends), we viewed a huge and efficient, spotlessly clean stainless steel processing plant, and in each room workers explained what they do and what the various machines do. This is a big factory, highly automated, and Turks workers are clearly proud of the efficiencies they have in butchering, marinating, processing, bagging, packaging, and boxing their premium products, in whatever cuts and sizes their customers request. Once the breast meat has been removed and the legs and thighs and wings (nibbles) cut off, a machine extracts all the “meat” from stripped carcasses for human consumption, and that will be formed into various chicken products like nuggets and patties and sausages; the residual bone material is ground and extracted for use in pet food. Nothing goes to waste. In the small goods room they have smokers for smoking chicken and chicken sausages. In another room, they mix marinades, bag, and box. It’s all very clinical and efficient, designed to produce a variety of safe chicken products for the commercial market.

Outside the factory, the barbeques were going full-bore with generous samples of barbequed chicken breast pieces prepared with various marinades, sizzling hot off the grill, available on platters, free for sampling. I must confess that my appetite for chicken, low to begin with as I’m mostly vegetarian, had pretty much disappeared by this point (though it was lunch time), but in the spirit of the event, I tried a couple of pieces.

From the Foxton Turks factory I drove south to the town of Levin, and set off to explore more about chickens at the Ultimate Egg Company. This free-range egg “factory” gets an SPCA blue tick, and an SPCA lady was there talking to visitors about chicken welfare, and showing examples of the cramped single and colony cages used on some farms (not this one). All of The Ultimate Egg Company’s chickens are free to move about the barns and have access to the outdoors. None are caged.

Ultimate Egg free range hens in the front paddock

What I noticed first off is that the paddock out the front, visible from the front driveway, is quite appealing with lots of grass, big trees, little shade houses for the birds, and what appear to be lots of big, brown, happy-looking chickens poking about, exploring the paddock, and behaving like chickens (though I note their beaks had been clipped). As you walk down the row of barns--there were five or six long shed/barns--the paddocks outside the barns appeared less inviting with less grass and few trees, and fewer chickens were seen out frolicking. Outside the farthest barn, half a dozen chickens pecked aimlessly at the dirt outside the doorways in a mostly bare paddock, while all the rest stayed crowded in the barn, hen-pecking and hen-pecked. They could go out—the doors were open--but chose not to. I was surprised that this was the barn they allowed us to look inside.

Ultimate Egg free range hens in the barn

I was most heart-wrenched by a hen just on the other side of the fence in that farthest paddock (one of the few outside) whose tail feathers had all been plucked out leaving a bare-skin behind, and whose comb appeared to have been virtually pecked off as well. She had made it outside, but to what? Dirt and stones, a bit of grass farther away, and of course she would have to go back inside the barn for food and water and to lay her requisite egg. It was the saddest sight I saw all day. I just wanted to pick her up, give her a cuddle, and bring her home.

Ultimate Eggs stacked on pallets

The Ultimate Egg Company is a smaller operation than Turks, but much is still automated: hundreds of eggs roll down conveyor belts from the barns and are mechanically sorted and deposited on trays. An inspector looks for cracks and breaks, then stacks the trays onto pallets which are lifted into trucks with a fork-lift. The Ultimate Egg Company was in operation the day we were there (obviously chickens don’t take a day off), and I don’t remember the stats we were told about how many employees they have, or how many chickens, or how many eggs are produced, and their website does not supply that information. I seem to remember someone saying the chickens are kept for about two years before they too end up as meat birds.

After these two chicken stops, I meandered on to several other food producers (Woodhaven Gardens, Genoese Pesto, and Thoroughbread Foods who make bread) before calling it a day. In short, I can say those were more pleasant stops, but not the topic of this post.

I think it is brave of producers like Turks and the Ultimate Egg Company to open their doors like this to the public. I don’t think it is likely to generate new or more enthusiastic customers.  It’s easy to be beguiled in the supermarket by those “free range” labels where chickens and eggs are sold, and to assume that those chickens have led reasonably pleasant lives before their deaths. Mostly, I think they do not. I did not find either of these visits made me want to go out and buy either chicken or eggs, or to eat them and support these industries. What I missed most was some recognition that these chickens are sentient animals with personalities and lives that matter, not just “products”. The egg production process seemed as mechanical and product-oriented as the meat factory. None of these chickens—and their numbers are vast—is allowed to have a name, a personality, or the recognition of a being that matters as anything other than as a mechanical (though breathing) egg producer, or carcass for processing. 

And so… While this appears to be a post about chickens and eggs, I think it’s really more a post about who we are as human beings. Sobering. Many things in this world make me sad.

Eating Meat

I want to start this post by saying that I am not a vegetarian. I grew up eating meat, all of my family eat meat, and most of my friends eat meat. A decade or two ago, I rarely thought about the meat I was eating. As a child I was uncomfortable with, even repelled by, the sight of deer carcasses hanging from the tree in the yard, but I always enjoyed the roast venison and succulent stews. My father killed them, my mother cooked them, and we had food on the table, for which we were grateful. I did not hunt myself.

Later, living on a lifestyle block in New Zealand, I hated the autumn kill day when our 6-month-old lambs began their inevitable transition from paddock to freezer, but I was happy enough to eat the barbequed lamb chops and those glorious, melt-in-your-mouth glutinous lamb shanks, slow-roasted in a rich tomato and onion gravy, served with a heap of buttery mashed potatoes and a side of peas. Ah! See how easy it is to transform oneself from animal carer to foodie in less than a sentence? (And we will choose to forget the cries of the ewe mums standing at the fence in the paddock adjacent to the killing pen, mourning the loss of their babies. It is what it is.)

But as I grow older (certainly), and wiser (perhaps), I find myself increasingly uncomfortable with the dilemma of caring for and about animals, and seeing them as intelligent and sentient beings with as much right to live—and potentially as much meaning in their lives—as I do/have, and then eating them. Meanwhile, the historically-touted health benefits of meat consumption have dwindled down in modern times to nearly—if not totally—negligible. Meat consumption is linked to heart disease, diabetes, and several cancers, especially bowel cancer, and concerns grow regarding industrial farming methods and the use of GMO feeds and livestock feed additives, antibiotic use, animal welfare issues, water contamination, and animal waste.

“Does a cow value its life more than I enjoy a barbeque?” asks conservationist Damien Mander in this TED talk, and I think this is a question worth pondering. Because that’s what it comes down to.

More simply, a small child stages an act of defiance, crying “I won’t eat animals” and offering the persuasive argument "they don't really like being cooked" in this popular you-tube clip. (It's cute. Watch.)

Me? I don’t eat much meat anymore. I don’t even like it much anymore. I can no longer totally divorce in my head the meat on my plate from the animal that was killed to become this food ingredient I don’t need for my own health or survival or well-being. Still, when eating with friends, perhaps at someone’s house or at a restaurant without appealing vegetarian options on the menu, or when travelling, I will—mindfully—enjoy that roast lamb or Thai beef salad or cassoulet with chorizo. I am a bit of a “foodie” after all. And I’m not giving up my occasional (once a month or so) fish’n’chips anytime soon, though I include fish in my head as “animals”. But my own meat consumption is definitely down to “occasionally” and “mindfully”. It’s a compromise position.

Just my thoughts. Each of us will make our own choices, after all. 

Gut Bacteria Influences Health and Well-Being

Gut bacteria photo from the article on the link between
anxiety and gut bacteria (linked left)

There were several posts that came up on my Facebook feed this morning about gut health and various illnesses. One linked bipolar “disease” to an unusual and deficient gut biome while another one explored the link between the gut biome and Alzheimer’s. Neither of these diseases were common 100 years ago. And here's a slightly older story on the link between gut bacteria and anxiety.

So what is happening in our digestive tract now that wasn’t happening in the past?  It’s fairly obvious that we have a lot of processed foods in our diets that our grandparents and great grandparents never ate. Food additives—artificial colours, artificial flavours, flavour enhancers, preservatives, mouth-feel/texture ingredients—are often identified by numbers on food packets, or disguised as something else. “Flavour” sounds less alarming than “artificial flavour,” “brown rice syrup” sounds healthier than “sugar”, and hydrolyzed vegetable protein sounds fairly benign but it contains MSG (monosodium glutamate), a “nasty”.  Those are fairly obvious things.

Then we have packaging. Everything these days seems to come in plastic bags or wraps: snacks, breakfast cereals, pet foods, fresh meat, fresh vegetables. We have plastic-lined cans, plastic lined boxes, plastic milk containers and plastic juice containers. Buying a cooked chicken at the supermarket deli? Bet it comes wrapped in hot plastic. Yes, we even cook in plastic, from microwaving in plastic containers to frying meat in Teflon pans and baking muffins in pink silicone “tins”. Besides being a disaster for our landfills and rubbish dumps, there is growing concern about the impact of the leaching of harmful molecules from plastic food wraps, containers and cookware into our food and bodies. The jury is still out, but long-term accumulation of toxins from plastic in the body seems likely.

Meanwhile our commercial food crops are grown with a bevy of toxic chemicals: weed-killers and pest-killers are scattered and sprayed over crops, sometimes shortly before harvest. For example, some farmers actively spray their wheat and potato crops with glyphosate (RoundUp) before harvest to make harvesting easier and more profitable. They call it “desiccation;” which sounds less ominous than poisoning--the power of vocabulary. The plants take up these poisons systemically and retain it, and it doesn’t wash off. Even the chemical fertilizers used to encourage growth in tired soils are toxic.

Think meat and dairy products are better options? That all depends upon what the animals have been eating. GMO corn and soy are common ingredients in animal feed (probably including what you’re feeding your dog or cat), and even “grass fed” beef and sheep are sometimes grazed on sprayed pastures. Food animals are also treated with antibiotics, chemical wormers and drenches, and some may be given growth hormones.

Our water, too, is contaminated with chemicals. Chlorine (which kills bacteria, including the bacteria in your gut) and fluoride are the two most talked about chemical additives in our tap water. Chlorine kills not only the bad bacteria, like e coli, that may be lurking in our water, but also the good bacteria in our digestive tracts.

And the pills we take to fix our various ailments also alter our gut bacteria. Antibiotics are notorious, of course (killing bacteria is their job), but most drugs alter the gut biome.

Our whole economic system is geared around making a profit, not around enhancing human health, and the chemical companies reign. While most foods and products we buy are not toxic in a single-serving sense, years of accumulated toxic load on our systems may affect all of our organs, and even single servings may have temporary or longer-term effects on gut flora and fauna. And we need all those eager little gut bacteria to stay healthy and digest our food. 

There are, of course, a few things you can do right now to make a difference. Buy organic food products as much as you can or grown your own food. Avoid “junk” food and highly processed foods. Do your own cooking. Don’t cook in plastic, and limit the amount of plastic used in contact with foodstuffs. Use filtered water if you can. Don't take drugs you don’t really need. Avoid, or at least limit, your own chemical contamination.

Ultimately, though, the system needs to change if we want to live in a world where making healthy, natural choices isn’t dependent upon personal awareness, education, and financial situation. Awareness is growing. And that’s a good start.

The Dirty Face of Dairy

The dairy industry has been in the spotlight in New Zealand over the past few days following the broadcast on TV One’s Sunday program that showed shocking footage of calf abuse at the hands of farmers, truckers, and abattoir workers. Obtained under cover by animal rights group SAFE, the footage shows newly born calves being separated from their mothers; held in roadside holding pens for hours without shelter, food, or water; being manhandled (thrown in many cases) onto trucks; and then thrown, beaten, and bashed in abattoir stock pens. (WARNING: these clips are disturbing.)

Photo from SAFE website

The revelations have understandably caused a public outcry, and outcry from many farmers too, who claim to run caring and humane dairy farms. While New Zealand’s biggest dairy company Fonterra insists animal welfare is a priority for them, and the Minister for Primary Industries Nathan Guy says they have commenced an investigation (albeit, two months after they were given the footage and not, apparently, before it became public), the issue brings some home truths to the New Zealand public.

While this kind of animal abuse is profoundly disturbing and probably not the norm on dairy farms in general (although it may be at many abattoirs), there are numerous issues raised by the dairy industry that are less obvious. The basic truth is:  to create the milk in our fridges, our ice cream, yogurt, and toasted cheese sandwiches, cows must be impregnated yearly and their calves must be removed from them (almost always within the first 24 hours) so that we can harvest the milk that nature intended for the calves. Many of those calves are superfluous to requirements, being either male or of a breed not suitable for meat production such as Jersey, and thus they are killed when just a few days old. We call them bobby calves (regardless of sex). Most go into the pet food industry.

Dairying is hard on cows too. Heifers (female cows that haven’t yet had a calf) can be bred 9-12 months after they are born. Dairy cows will have several annual calves, and when their milk production drops after a few years because they are worn out, they are sold off to the meat works. Milking normally occurs once or twice a day, not more often as it would be with a calf at heel. Mastitis is common. Modern pasturage rarely allows cows to pick and choose what plants they want to eat. And as for the issue of calf removal, it is well known that cows and calves both find this process stressful even if done “kindly”, and some cows mourn the loss of their baby for days after the separation—a cow’s maternal instinct is huge. (And they’re smarter than we often give them credit for—see this story of a protective motherly cow who hid her calf--spoiler: happy ending.)

Most of the public is so far removed from the farm gate that, other than knowing that milk comes from cows, little thought or awareness is given to the actual process. I have a cousin in the US who told me once that she’d never eat lamb or veal because she doesn’t want to eat baby animals. She has no hesitation, however, in dowsing her strawberries with cream or pouring milk over her corn flakes, oblivious to the distress caused to both cow and calf by the dairy industry. Another example: a friend, upon hearing about the current NZ dairy exposé, said that she considers herself an intelligent, well-educated woman living in a dairy-exporting country and yet she’d never really realized that cows have to get pregnant and have a calf every year to provide our milk.

Dairying in New Zealand picks up a pretty bad environmental rap too. Run-off from dairy contaminates land and waterways, and there are no easy answers to this issue unless cow numbers are reduced, and that’s not good for profits—money remains the trump driver here, as it does in all industries. This article seems to advocate the popular American concept of housed cows rather than pasture-feeding as a possible solution for New Zealand. Ultimately dairy, along with other livestock production, is environmentally unsustainable as a growth industry in the long term. I really have to do a plug here for the excellent documentary “Cowspiracy” which certainly affected my way of thinking when I watched it a month or two ago.

There is also a growing contingent of health professionals who are questioning the health value of including dairy in our diet. If you do want to continue consuming dairy products, organic seems to be the way to go—not necessarily less cruel, but almost certainly healthier.

Lastly, if a growing awareness of the cruelty and/or environmental issues generated by the dairy industry bothers you, or you are concerned that you’re consuming more dairy products than are good for you, there are alternatives. While I’m not ready to go totally dairy free myself, I’ve found it easy to cut back on dairy consumption. Milk is easy to replace, as is ice cream. Cheese is a little harder, as is yogurt, and margarine is no way a healthy substitute for butter (but try coconut oil or olive oil for cooking). If going cold turkey on dairy won’t work for you, try cutting down. Try rice milk or almond milk or coconut milk on your cereal and in your smoothee.

Dairying is an industry. The cow has become a production unit. Her calf is a by-product. We as consumers don’t have to support this framework and ideology. Just because we’ve [seemingly] always done it this way doesn’t mean we need to continue to do so. Think, before you drink, and let your choices be conscious ones.