Buy organically raised chickens from local farmers to help prevent industrial-scale food contamination

Farm- or backyard-raised chickens like these Dominiques avoid the contamination found in factory farms. (Photo: Bryan K. Oliver)

WHAT IT MEANS: So let's get this straight: Even the "cleanest" brand-name chicken, Perdue, was contaminated about half of the time? That's not exactly comforting. While it's true that these pathogens die during proper cooking, if you fail to handle it correctly or cook the chicken thoroughly, you or your family can become sick, potentially with a germ that doesn't respond well to antibiotics. At fault, say experts like Robert Martin, senior officer at The Pew Center for the Environment and former executive director of the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production, are the current practices used in industrial chicken operations, where most supermarket chicken comes from. Martin, who has visited industrial operations where as many as 100,000 to 250,000 birds are kept in a single building, says many poultry processors call the buildings "bio-secure," but says that's not possible with flies and people regularly entering the buildings. According to Martin, current industry practices call for the floors (covered with feces, litter waste, skin cells, and sawdust bedding) to be cleaned after a flock goes to slaughter. But from his observations, often the cleaning only takes place after four or five flocks pass through, which can take up to 11 months. "There's a high buildup on the floor that adds to bacterial infections," he explains.

To keep animals alive in these conditions, manufacturers routinely feed the chickens antimicrobials, including low-dose antibiotics (which leads to the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria) or even low doses of arsenic. "They live their entire lives in their own feces, the source of salmonella contamination," explains Christine Heinrichs, a Society for Preservation of Poultry Antiquities spokeswoman and the author of How to Raise Chickens: Everything You Need to Know (Voyageur Press, 2007). Inevitably, their meat is contaminated."

A study published earlier this year in the Journal of Infection and Public Health also suggests chickens and factory farms are an unhealthy combination. Researchers found that cars driving behind open-crate poultry trucks from industrial farms to slaughterhouses were harboring drug-resistant strains of harmful bacteria. Yep, turn your air vents off and roll up the windows if you're stuck behind one of these on the road.

Here's how you can buy chicken and protect yourself from food contamination in your home:

• Know who fed your chicken. "Contamination is possible in any flock, but small-flock owners are more likely to keep their birds in cleaner conditions. Producers who sell directly to their customers have a powerful investment in making sure the chicken they sell is clean and safe," says Heinrichs. "The man who set up the first mobile poultry-processing unit for New York State, Jim McLaughlin, told me he had never heard of a single case of foodborne illness from a bird raised on a small farm."