SAFE-FOOD REPORT Mice, Maggots, & Manure After Robin Shaffer and restaurant-goers in at least 10 states became infected by Salmonella in May, epidemiologists in Minnesota and California were able to fi nger the likely source: two factory farms in Iowa that together produce more than a billion eggs a year. But Wright County Egg and Hillandale Farms didn’t just supply restaurants. Their eggs were also sold in bulk to other companies that packaged them for resale in supermarkets under evoca-tive brand names like Sunny Farms, Sunny Meadow, and Wholesome Farms. When inspectors from the Walking on Eggshells “I Keepin Keeping eggs gs—and hens B Y DA VI D S CHARDT and hens—safe t’s the worst thing I’ve ever been through,” Robin Shaffer recalled. “I had no energy. The pain. You’d try to keep something in you and it just comes out.” fe “There is no question that these farms were not operating with the standards of practice that we consider responsible,” said FDA CommissionerMargaret Hamburg. Yet neither egg operation had When Shaffer ate an enchilada, bean burrito, and chile relleno combo meal at a Mexican restaurant in Bemidji, Min-nesota, in May, she had no idea that a raw egg tainted with Salmonella bacteria had contaminated her food in the kitchen. That would knock Shaffer off her feet for three weeks. “My life was literally the toilet,” she told a local TV station. ever been inspected by the FDA. (The agency rarely checks food plants.) The FDA now says that it intends to inspect all 600 of the major U.S. egg producers. Crowded Hens Shaffer and six other diners at the restaurant were among the first of what would become more than 1,600 documented victims of the largest outbreak of Salmonella enteritidis food poisoning since the government began compiling statistics in 1973. Food and Drug Administration fi nally descended on the two farms in mid-August, what they found was anything but “sunny” or “wholesome.” Both companies’ laying houses, which each held tens of thousands of hens, were infested with flies, maggots, wild birds, and rodents. Chicken ma-nure was piled four to eight feet high below some of the cages. Any of that might have been the source of the Sal-monella. In fact, in September, Congressional investigators discovered thatWright County Eggs had detected Salmonella on its equipment and in its barns at least 73 times during the past two years.While the companies agreed to recall a half billion of their eggs, by that point most of them had probably already been eaten. The outbreak set off a national debate about how our eggs are produced. Is it cruel to cram hens into tiny cages, with no access to the outdoors, and with no room to nest or perch? Are “cage-free” eggs more hu-mane? Are they less likely to make people sick? Filth aside, is there a more humane way to produce the nation’s nearly 80 billion eggs each year? And, if so, is it less likely to turn out eggs that are tainted with Salmo-nella? More than nine out of 10 eggs are laid by hens that are confi ned for their lifetimes in battery cages, typically five to eight hens to a cage. (The cages are arrayed in “batteries”—rows of cages stacked one atop another.)Within each cage, every hen has about 67 square inches of fl oor space, less than the size of this page. That’s not enough room for them to stretch their wings or engage in other activities that are natural for hens—like nesting, perch-ing, and rolling around on the ground (dustbathing). It’s also not enough room for themto lay their eggs like uncaged chickens can. “The birds suffer from extraordinary Too close for comfort. A typical caged hen lives in an area no bigger than this page. frustration on a daily basis,” says Paul Shapiro of The Humane Society of the United States. > > > > > NUTRITION ACTION HEALTHLETTER ■ NOVEMBER 2010 9 Photos: © Irochka/fotolia.com (top), The Humane Society of the United States (bottom).
Issue Articles
Walking On Eggshells
David Schardt
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