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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Consumer Reports: Most tested broilers were contaminated
  • Date: Wed, 02 Dec 2009 08:25:28 -0700


How safe is that chicken?
Most tested broilers were contaminated
Consumer Reports magazine: January 2010
http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine-archive/2010/january/food/chicken-safety/overview/chicken-safety-ov.htm

You would think that after years of alarms about food safety—outbreaks of
illness followed by renewed efforts at cleanup—a staple like chicken would be
a lot safer to eat. But in our latest analysis of fresh, whole broilers
bought at stores nationwide, two-thirds harbored salmonella and/or
campylobacter, the leading bacterial causes of foodborne disease. That's a
modest improvement since January 2007, when we found that eight of 10
broilers harbored those pathogens. But the numbers are still far too high,
especially for campylobacter. Though the government has been talking about
regulating it for years, it has yet to do so. (See Lax rules, risky food.)

The message is clear: Consumers still can't let down their guard. They must
cook chicken to at least 165º F and prevent raw chicken or its juices from
touching any other food.

Each year, salmonella and campylobacter from chicken and other food sources
infect 3.4 million Americans, send 25,500 to hospitals, and kill about 500,
according to estimates by the national Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention. But the problem might be even more widespread: Many people who
get sick don't seek medical care, and many of those who do aren't screened
for foodborne infections, says Donna Rosenbaum, executive director of Safe
Tables Our Priority, a national nonprofit food-safety organization. What's
more, the CDC reports that in about 20 percent of salmonella cases and 55
percent of campylobacter cases, the bugs have proved resistant to at least
one antibiotic. For that reason, victims who are sick enough to need
antibiotics might have to try two or more before finding one that helps.

Consumer Reports has been measuring contamination in store-bought chickens
since 1998. For our latest analysis, we had an outside lab test 382 chickens
bought last spring from more than 100 supermarkets, gourmet- and natural-food
stores, and mass merchandisers in 22 states. We tested three top
brands—Foster Farms, Perdue, and Tyson—as well as 30 nonorganic store brands,
nine organic store brands, and nine organic name brands. Five of the organic
brands were labeled "air-chilled" (a slaughterhouse process in which
carcasses are refrigerated and may be misted, rather than dunked in cold
chlorinated water).

Among our findings:

* Campylobacter was in 62 percent of the chickens, salmonella was in 14
percent, and both bacteria were in 9 percent. Only 34 percent of the birds
were clear of both pathogens. That's double the percentage of clean birds we
found in our 2007 report but far less than the 51 percent in our 2003 report.
* Among the cleanest overall were air-chilled broilers. About 40 percent
harbored one or both pathogens. Eight Bell & Evans organic broilers, which
are air chilled, were free of both, but our sample was too small to determine
that all Bell & Evans broilers would be.
* Store-brand organic chickens had no salmonella at all, showing that
it's possible for chicken to arrive in stores without that bacterium riding
along. But as our tests showed, banishing one bug doesn't mean banishing
both: 57 percent of those birds harbored campylobacter.
* The cleanest name-brand chickens were Perdue's: 56 percent were free of
both pathogens. This is the first time since we began testing chicken that
one major brand has fared significantly better than others across the board.
* Most contaminated were Tyson and Foster Farms chickens. More than 80
percent tested positive for one or both pathogens.
* Among all brands and types of broilers tested, 68 percent of the
salmonella and 60 percent of the campylobacter organisms we analyzed showed
resistance to one or more antibiotics.





  • [Livingontheland] Consumer Reports: Most tested broilers were contaminated, Tradingpost, 12/02/2009

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