Page 61 - Winter2017

cooking habits. Refrigerators, packaged baking truth. Most store-bought chicken is bulked up The average
mixes and all sorts of processed foods flooded even further through “brining”—injecting the
the market. Chicken was not only the first meat meat with a salt-water mixture. Studies have mass-produced
to benefit from advances in nutrition and the found that this cheap mixture represents almost chicken in the
application of antibiotics to animal production one-fifth of store-bought chicken by weight. U.S. is a
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(along with an immense infusion of government Processed chicken products (tenders, nuggets
resources and research), it also was the first meat and the like) are even worse, containing fillers, pathogenic
to become the mainstay of the processed food additives and extenders that sometimes com- bacterial bomb
products heavily marketed to the American prise up to half the finished product's weight. waiting to
people. Slick marketing convinced people to Chicken’s low cost at the store hides a high
adopt these new items en masse, including an price tag in terms of health. The mass produc- happen.
array of processed chicken products. It made tion of chicken (as well as pork and, to a lesser
only too much sense at the time—an animal extent, beef), has unleashed a microbiological
living in an artificial environment and being fed war. Although antibiotics quickly became an
artificial foods and nutrients would become the industry crutch in both “growth promotion”
processed, artificial meat food for the masses. and “mortality reduction,” as early as the
1950s—and following close behind “the chicken
THE MOST DANGEROUS MEAT of tomorrow”—the problem of antibiotic resis-
Chicken’s ascent to the top of the Ameri- tance began to emerge. The meat industry has
can diet did not come cheaply. Government largely ignored the overwhelming evidence
involvement in the industrial production of that the blanket use of antibiotics has led to
chicken continued long after the “Chicken widespread antibiotic-resistant pathogens in
of Tomorrow” contest ended. The main feed our food and environment. Until recently, the
stuffs for chicken—corn and soy—still enjoy industry stubbornly resisted any limitations
multibillion dollar per year government subsi- or changes to a system that costs additional
dies. The USDA recently announced that 2016 hundreds of millions if not billions per year
payments under the Price Loss Coverage (PLC) and kills tens of thousands of consumers. As of
and Agricultural Risk Coverage (ARC) program 2014, over fifty thousand deaths per year were
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totaled eight billion dollars. This is just one caused by antibiotic-resistant infections in the
of many subsidies and support programs that U.S. and Europe. 9
industrial food and meat producers enjoy at the In fact, Consumer Reports has found that
taxpayer’s expense. Total subsidies, direct and the average mass-produced chicken in the U.S. is
indirect, may well run into the tens of billions a pathogenic bacterial bomb waiting to happen,
of dollars per year. with only one in three chickens tested by Con-
With all these subsidies, one would think sumer Reports free of pathogenic bacteria. For
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that chicken producers wouldn’t need to cut years, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration
corners. This could not be further from the (FDA) has railed over raw (unpasteurized) milk,

ONGOING PROJECTS SHARING THE BENEFITS OF A WAPF DIET FOR GROWING CHILDREN
Johanna Keefe, PhD (C), MS, RN, GAPS/P is completing a doctoral thesis through the California Institute of Integral
Studies’ Transformative Studies program. Her work reveals, with in-depth interviews, the lived experiences of a small
sample of women who have chosen, as mothers, to follow a nutrient-dense diet based on the research of Dr. Weston A.
Price. While her interviews are now completed and she is in the analysis phase of her writing, Johanna wishes to continue
with post-doctoral work by gathering a larger sample of stories, especially from mothers who have watched their children
grow over time on a traditional diet. In her effort to reach the widest audience and to inform young women of childbear-
ing age, her future vision may include a published collection of stories and possibly a film, to enlighten the hearts of our
future parents and grandparents. To this end, Johanna has conceived of a research blog, Growing Success Stories, to
invite just such parents to connect with her vision by sharing their story. If you are such a mother, please consider visiting
https://growingsuccessstories.org/. Johanna looks forward to hearing from you through email at jmkeefe@endicott.edu,
or by phone at (978) 290-0266. Thank you! Together we will contribute to a return of a flourishing, thriving and resilient
new generation!

WINTER 2017 Wise Traditions 61