Should Your Home Be A No-Chicken Zone?!

According to the CDC, each year, more deaths are due to chicken consumption than any other food commodity. Consumer Reports analyzed over 300 raw chicken breasts purchased across the United States and found harmful pathogens in almost all of them, including organic brands. More than half of those samples contained fecal contaminants and about half of those samples contained at least one bacterium resistant to three or more antibiotics.

Cooking chicken to above 165 degrees kills the pathogens but people are still getting infectedthrough cross-contamination in the kitchen. In a study called “The Effectiveness of Hygiene Procedures for the Prevention of Cross-Contamination from Chicken Carcasses in the Domestic Kitchen,” it was found that unless you treat your kitchen like a bio-hazard laboratory, your best bet is to turn your home into a no-chicken zone.

Learning the relationship between chicken and urinary tract infections really sealed the deal for me.  Research has proven that UTI-causing bacteria can be traced from the slaughter houses, then to infected meat and then to infected women.  Now there is proof that bladder infections are an animal-to-human disease.  More than 10 million women in the United States get bladder infection every year and the really scary part is that many of the strains that cause bladder infections are now antibiotic resistant.

Amazingly, some European countries were able to almost eliminate(now only about 2% risk) salmonella tainted chicken by making it illegal to sell any chicken that is infected.  It is possible to have clean and healthy meat but we have to be willing to pay for it.

In the United States, there is a way to get clean chickens that are not from confined feeding operations; that is, get to know a farmer who is raisingchickens on a much smaller scale.  Those chickens do not suffer the diseases of confinement and living in feces and are much safer to eat. In the meantime, in the spirit of my feelings about mass produced chicken, please see the recipe below.

Recipe: No- Shit Tofu Fingers

• Ingredients:

• 1 package fermented soy
• 1 cup almond meal
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• 1/2 cup egg substitute
• 1/2 cup tamari gluten-free soy sauce
• coconut oil for sauteeing

Directions:

• Use a tofu press and drain water from tofu.
• Cut tofu into cubes or strips.
• Dip in Tamari sauce.  
• Dip tofu/tamari into egg substitute and then dredge in almond flour, garlic, and pepper.
• Sautee with coconut oil in a large frying pan.
• Serve with your favorite bbq sauce. yum!