All those chickens! Every time we get these massive meat recalls I think of the poor animals that died for no reason.
This month, two of the nation's largest chicken companies, Tyson and Perdue, have together pulled more than 120,000 pounds of nugget products from shelves and freezers.
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Tyson Poultry Pleads Guilty to Clean Water Act Violations, Fish Deaths in Missouri
Tyson Foods, the nation's largest chicken producer, has taken "full responsibility" for accidentally releasing an acidic chemical used in chicken feed into the city of Monett, Missouri's wastewater treatment system that resulted in the deaths of more than 100,000 fish.
The poultry giant unit pleaded guilty on Wednesday in federal court in Springfield, Missouri on two criminal charges of violating the Clean Water Act that stemmed from discharges at its slaughter and processing facility in Monett, Missouri, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) said.
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Spruce
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDY4NjI3OC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyOTM2NzgzOX0.axY0HjeqRctJsR_KmDLctzDpUBLBN-oNIdqaXDb4caQ/img.jpg?width=980" id="774be" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="8379f35b1ca8a86d0e61b7d4bfc8b46e" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="spruce organic cbd oil" data-width="710" data-height="959" /><p>As one of the best brands in the business, Spruce CBD is well-known for its potent CBD oils that feature many additional beneficial phytocannabinoids. This brand works with two family-owned, sustainably focused farms in the USA (one located in Kentucky and one in North Carolina) to create its organic, small product batches. The max potency Spruce CBD oil contains 2400mg of full-spectrum CBD extract, but the brand also offers a lower strength tincture with 750mg of CBD in total.</p>CBDistillery
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDcwMjkzNC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyMTU4OTM4Nn0.ypRdeDSBcE87slYrFfVrRwtJ2qGIK6FD5jBB4pndTMo/img.jpg?width=980" id="b473b" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="9930b53c9d58cb49774640a61c3e3e75" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="cbdistillery cbd oil" data-width="1244" data-height="1244" /><p>All of the products from CBDistillery are <a href="https://ushempauthority.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">U.S. Hemp Authority Certified</a>, and for good reason. The company only uses non-GMO and pesticide-free industrial hemp that's grown organically on Colorado farms. Its hemp oils are some of the most affordable CBD products on the market, yet they still maintain a high standard of quality. CBDistillery has a wide variety of CBD potencies across its product line (ranging from 500mg to 5000mg per bottle) and offers both full-spectrum and broad-spectrum CBD oils to give customers a completely thc-free option.</p>FAB CBD
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDY4NjIyNS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY2NDIwOTEyMn0.MlTjz096FJ0ev_-soK7_Z-FeQeJczWoeh9Qi9SSkHsY/img.jpg?width=980" id="04b26" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="76aa4862f44603242e318982acea6646" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="fab cbd oil" data-width="800" data-height="800" /><p>For an organic CBD oil that has it all, FAB CBD offers plenty of variety for any type of consumer. All of its products are made with zero pesticides and extracted from organically grown Colorado industrial hemp. FAB CBD oil comes in five all-natural flavors (mint, vanilla, berry, citrus, and natural) and is also available in four strengths (300, 600, 1200, and 2400mg per bottle).</p>NuLeaf Naturals
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDY4NjIxOS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1NzExNTgyMX0.D6qMGYllKTsVhEkQ-L_GzpDHVu60a-tJKcio7M1Ssmc/img.jpg?width=980" id="94e4a" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="3609a52479675730893a45a82a03c71d" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="nuleaf naturals organic cbd oil" data-width="600" data-height="600" /><p>As an industry-leading brand, it comes as no surprise that NuLeaf Naturals sources its CBD extract from organic hemp plants grown on licensed farms in Colorado. The comany's CBD oils only contain two ingredients: USDA certified organic hemp seed oil and full spectrum hemp extract.</p><p>NuLeaf Naturals uses one proprietary CBD oil formula for all of its products, so you will get the same CBD potency in each tincture (60mg per mL), but can purchase different bottle sizes depending on how much you intend to use.</p>Charlotte's Web
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDcwMjk3NS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0MzQ0NjM4N30.SaQ85SK10-MWjN3PwHo2RqpiUBdjhD0IRnHKTqKaU7Q/img.jpg?width=980" id="84700" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="a2174067dcc0c4094be25b3472ce08c8" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="charlottes web cbd oil" data-width="1244" data-height="1244" /><p>Perhaps one of the most well-known brands in the CBD landscape, Charlotte's Web has been growing sustainable hemp plants for several years. The company is currently in the process of achieving official USDA Organic Certification, but it already practices organic and sustainable cultivation techniques to enhance the overall health of the soil and the hemp plants themselves, which creates some of the highest quality CBD extracts. Charlotte's Web offers CBD oils in a range of different concentration options, and some even come in a few flavor options such as chocolate mint, orange blossom, and lemon twist.</p>- Best CBD Oils of 2020: Reviews & Buying Guide - EcoWatch ›
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By Kari Hamerschlag
Many health conscious consumers are reducing their consumption of red meat in favor of chicken—especially products labeled and promoted as "100% natural"—believing they are a healthier option produced without routine antibiotics, artificial substances or other drugs.
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Craig Watts raised broiler chickens for Perdue for more than two decades—until he let the animal welfare group Compassion in World Farming (CIWF) film inside one of his barns in 2014. As a result, Americans got an HD look at how their favorite meat is raised.
In the video, which has been viewed nearly 2.4 million times on YouTube, birds are shown unable to stand under their own weight, feathers burned off their stomachs by the noxious waste layered on the ground. The New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote that "as a farmboy who raised small flocks of chickens and geese, I never saw anything like" the stomach sores that appear common in Watts' barn.
Perdue announced on Monday one of the most ambitious animal welfare plans in the industry.Photo credit: Perdue
Nearly two years later—two years that saw Perdue announce a "No Antibiotics Ever" plan for its poultry operations and Watts both leave his contract and file a lawsuit against the company—Perdue announced Monday one of the most ambitious animal welfare plans in the industry.
Based on the Five Freedoms endorsed by many animal welfare groups, Perdue's Commitments to Animal Care: 2016 and Beyond lays out plans to create more space in poultry barns, increase the amount of time and space birds have for exercise and "play" and move away from the kind of rapidly growing modern breeds that result in birds that cannot withstand their own weight. Eventually, all birds will be anesthetized before slaughter.
"There has been definitely criticism of Perdue from various fronts," Julie DeYoung, a spokesperson for Perdue, said in an interview with TakePart.
"So as we studied and tried to learn from those and began talking with our critics a little bit more completely about that, they encouraged us to be more public" about the changes the company is making. For example, while Perdue started to cut back on antibiotics in 2002, it only started talking publicly about the issue in the last couple of years—a far greater interval than it took to engage with consumers over the conditions chickens live in. In addition to raising questions about animal welfare, DeYoung said that undercover videos "reminded us of how important farmers are in our equation."
Compassion in World Farming's Leah Garces is one of the critics Perdue has been engaging with more. Last winter, she was invited to meet with Bruce Stewart-Brown, who oversees food safety and animal welfare issues for the company. On Monday, she called Perdue's new animal welfare standards "a good first step" but said that "time will tell what it means for the birds." Last year, Perdue raised 676 million chickens.
While there are questions over timelines, implementation and auditing—the kind of nitty-gritty concerns about large-scale corporate change that follow a feel-good press announcement—Garces, U.S. director for CIWF, was clear that she sees this as significant for the industry. "You have to recognize that no other company has done a policy like this," she said. Other animal welfare groups, including the Humane Society of the United States and Mercy for Animals, have lauded the announcement.
But where Garces sees progress, the man on the other side of the 2014 undercover video and his legal team are less than pleased.
"I don't want to outright say they're liars," said Amanda Hitt, director of the Food Integrity Campaign at the Government Accountability Project, which is helping Watts with his lawsuit against Perdue. "But I don't believe that they're necessarily telling the truth until we see some action and change. To suggest that they give a s–t about these birds or these farmers just belies what I've learned over the last couple of years representing Craig and other farmers."
Watts didn't respond to a request for an interview made through GAP, but Hitt said he is not happy with the announcement. Part of the reason he wanted the world to see the conditions his birds were living in, Watts said in 2014, is that those were the conditions that Perdue mandated—and that he was unable to implement changes that would have made the chickens' lives better. But at the time the video was released, Perdue said it showed that Watts was not following protocol and was himself responsible for the mistreatment of the chickens.
Perdue's DeYoung said that changing the company's relationship with its contract farmers—who put up their own money to build and maintain chicken houses but do not own the birds or the feed—could be a part of the overall animal welfare improvement process. Contracts are traditionally built around concerns of production and efficiency, DeYoung said, but the company now provides bonuses for farmers who follow Perdue's U.S. Department of Agriculture process–verified poultry care standards. Going forward, the company wants to figure out other ways to "connect animal care with pay and incentives," DeYoung said. In addition to bonuses, "we are talking about ways we can, perhaps contractually, we can change the relationship."
Perdue is looking to Niman Ranch, which it purchased last year, for ways to improve relationships with farmers. (Niman ranchers are contracted to raise animals but are guaranteed a minimum price to protect the farmers' overhead, earn a premium price over the industry standard and receive other financial support from the company). While it's unclear how its poultry farmer contracts will change, Perdue is willing to widely adopt the best practices it learns from smaller companies like Niman that it acquires.
When Perdue bought Coleman Natural Foods, which produces organic and antibiotic-free poultry, in 2011, DeYoung said there was an assumption at Perdue that producing organic chickens "would mean less efficiency or less productivity, but that was not the case." Some of the changes that will be implemented in the animal welfare overhaul are based on Perdue's organic poultry production "that will allow us to produce birds that are still productive and work for us from a business perspective as well."
While some changes have been a function of learning from other companies and some have been precipitated by consumer demand and very public forms of criticism, others are a matter of necessity, according to Garces. Raising birds in cramped, enclosed and dirty environments? "That's fine when we have antibiotics holding the whole thing together," she said. "But the train has left the station for antibiotics." Without routine low doses of antibiotics, birds raised in such conditions are getting sick and passing disease to one another. Mortality rates are climbing up across the board after a decade of decline.
"What we've found … is that we needed to look closer at the animal husbandry practices in order to be successful without antibiotics," DeYoung said.
While Perdue's announcement gives hope to animal welfare organizers like Garces that we can see a future where birds are no longer being crushed under their own weight and broilers can move freely in natural light, the immediate changes from Perdue are going to be small. By the end of 2016, Perdue will retrofit 200 of its chicken houses with windows—just 3 percent of its 6,000 houses across the country.
This article was reposted with permission from our media associate TakePart.
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South Korean Poultry Approved for Sale in U.S. Despite Bird Flu Outbreak
On Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) published a final rule that will allow the Republic of Korea to begin exporting poultry products to the U.S.
Most alarming is that Korean poultry flocks have become infected with various strains of avian influenza, prompting the Korean government to cull more than 11 million chickens and ducks in January in order to prevent the disease from spreading further. Recent reports have the disease afflicting other species and sickening dogs.
The rule becomes effective on May 27.
Food & Water Watch filed comments opposed to the rule when it was first proposed last January. In the comments, the environmental watchdog cited violations of U.S. food safety and inspection standards written by FSIS auditors who visited Korean poultry slaughter and processing facilities in 2008 and 2010.
In those audits, FSIS auditors found the following:
2008
- Inspection activities were performed by company employees with no government oversight
- Failure to implement and verify sanitation programs
- Failure to implement and verify Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points requirements within the food safety regulatory system
- FSIS staff was unable to visit Korean government laboratory facilities that conducted chemical and microbiological analyses of poultry products
2010
The Republic of Korea food safety authority did not provide adequate control ...
- for post-mortem inspection in the facilities that would be eligible to export to the U.S.
- over the implementation of laboratory quality systems within its residue program.
- over the implementation of laboratory control quality systems for its microbiological testing program for products destined for export to the U.S.
While the Republic of Korea acknowledged the deficiencies in the 2010 audit, there was no follow-up on-site verification conducted by FSIS to determine whether those issues had been properly addressed or not. Instead, FSIS relied on written assurances.
“We find the decision by FSIS to be irresponsible and surmise that it is trade related,” said Food & Water Watch Executive Director Wenonah Hauter. “This final rule may by a little goodie that the U.S. is using to entice South Korea to join Trans Pacific Partnership talks. Once again, it may yet be another instance of the Obama Administration allowing trade to trump food safety.”
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