Author Topic: Prozac, Arsenic and Beer in Your Turkey?  (Read 5476 times)

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Offline oldcoastie6468

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Prozac, Arsenic and Beer in Your Turkey?
« on: November 26, 2013, 01:06:25 PM »
I'm not trying to spoil anyone's meal, but I think this is an important read.


Quote
Prozac, Arsenic and Beer in Your Turkey? 9 Creepy Things To Know About Your Holiday Meal

The extreme production methods used to deliver plump turkeys in time for Thanksgiving are enough to make you lose your appetite.

November 13, 2013

With Thanksgiving days away, U.S. turkey growers are probably relieved that no arsenic, salmonella or cruelty stories have yet surfaced like they have in other years. But that doesn't mean the turkey on your holiday table is exactly wholesome. In fact, the chemicals, food additives and extreme production methods used to deliver the nation's plump, affordable turkeys just in time for Thanksgiving are enough to make you lose your appetite.

1. Extreme Cruelty To Animals

If you think of Butterball as a trusted name that operates a help line for Thanksgiving Day cooks, then the turkey giant has succeeded at its PR job. Less than a year ago, workers at Butterball turkey operations in North Carolina were videotaped kicking and stomping birds, dragging them by their wings and necks and slamming them into tiny transport crates. It was a year after Butterball workers  were charged with criminal cruelty for the same actions!

Butterball is  "taking steps to help ensure that all new and existing associates have a clear understanding of our animal well-being policies," Butterball CEO Rod Brenneman claimed after the first offenses. Maybe employees don't know they aren't supposed to kick, drag and bash birds. After the second offenses, Butterball launched a audacious radio campaign about its convenient holiday help line with no mention of the criminal abuse. Twenty percent of U.S. turkeys on the Thanksgiving table come from Butterball, but it is hardly the only abuser. Shocking cruelty has also been documented at Aviagen Turkeys in West Virginia and  House of Raeford in North Carolina.

2. Resistant Salmonella and Other Superbugs

Two years ago, huge recalls of salmonella-contaminated ground turkey from Cargill and Jennie-O/Hormel sickened many and one person died. While the food giants say they have cleaned up their acts, that's not what Consumer Reports found in March. Five percent of 257 samples of raw ground turkey that was bought at grocery stores around the country and tested, harbored salmonella, 67 percent of which was resistant to more than one antibiotic. The government admitted that  81 percent of ground turkey it tested is contaminated with antibiotic-resistant bacteria. The superbugs result from the routine use of human antibiotics on commercial U.S. farms so operators can grow the animals faster and with less feed.  Seventy percent of the farm antibiotics are not for sick animals but to maximize profits and prevent infections.

3. Antibiotics

The U.S. turkey industry doesn't try to hide the stew of antibiotics it depends on for cheap turkeys—it brags about them. "The increased costs to raise turkeys without antibiotics is real," said the National Turkey Federation's Michael Rybolt at  Capitol Hill antibiotics hearings in 2008. "Today at retail outlets here in the D.C. market, a conventionally raised turkey costs $1.29 per pound. A similar whole turkey that was produced without antibiotics costs $2.29 per pound. With the average consumer purchasing a 15-pound whole turkey, that would mean there would be $15 tacked onto their grocery bill."

...continued at link...

http://www.alternet.org/prozac-arsenic-and-beer-your-turkey-9-creepy-things-know-about-your-holiday-meal?
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Offline Predator Don

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Re: Prozac, Arsenic and Beer in Your Turkey?
« Reply #1 on: November 26, 2013, 01:57:06 PM »
Don't take this wrong, but it reads like an advertisement for more gov't regulation, plus the cynic in me never appreciates articles such as this appearing right before the holiday it disparages. It's like these things don't happen until the holiday.

Next article will be about how santa whips his reindeer and demands they fly in horrid work conditions. lol
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Offline Libertas

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Re: Prozac, Arsenic and Beer in Your Turkey?
« Reply #2 on: November 27, 2013, 06:43:41 AM »
As long as you avoid halal crap and cook your stuff properly I think y'all be OK.

Prozac & arsenic in turkey?  I'll pass on a libiot Thanksgiving!

Oh, and I don't know where Butterball is in this on-again off-again halal/not halal deal, but once halal is enough to have our clan give those turkeys the bird every year!
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Offline AlanS

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Re: Prozac, Arsenic and Beer in Your Turkey?
« Reply #3 on: November 27, 2013, 07:15:27 AM »

Prozac & arsenic in turkey?  I'll pass on a libiot Thanksgiving!

I've got a couple in-laws I wished had Prozac in their bird.
"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem."

Thomas Jefferson

Offline oldcoastie6468

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Re: Prozac, Arsenic and Beer in Your Turkey?
« Reply #4 on: November 27, 2013, 09:41:43 AM »

Prozac & arsenic in turkey?  I'll pass on a libiot Thanksgiving!

I've got a couple in-laws I wished had Prozac in their bird.

In what part of their bodies is their birds?
U.S. Coast Guard veteran, 1964-1968

Will Rogers never met Barack Obama. He would not like Obama.

I hate liberals. Liberalism is a disease that causes severe brain damage after it tries to suck knowledge and history out of yours.

Offline AlanS

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Re: Prozac, Arsenic and Beer in Your Turkey?
« Reply #5 on: November 27, 2013, 09:59:17 AM »

Prozac & arsenic in turkey?  I'll pass on a libiot Thanksgiving!

I've got a couple in-laws I wished had Prozac in their bird.

In what part of their bodies is their birds?


"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem."

Thomas Jefferson

Offline Libertas

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Re: Prozac, Arsenic and Beer in Your Turkey?
« Reply #6 on: November 27, 2013, 01:15:23 PM »
Them's so wrong...but so funny!   ::hysterical::
We are now where The Founders were when they faced despotism.