Op-Ed

Word Count: 737 Words

From the Farm to Your Plate

By Sadie Vincini, ‘25

My family has chicken for our meals multiple times a week. We were told by society that it was the “healthier” type of meat. Others do as well: , “today, world wide, we eat 27 pounds of chicken a year” ("Big Bird"). We eat so much of it, considering we don’t know what actually gets put into this chicken. Have you ever heard of where the chicken you eat comes from? Do you know what they have to endure? We tend to believe the lies of “healthy” chicken we see promoted, not knowing how false it is. 

After realizing what’s in the chicken I’m eating, I can’t look at it the same. Farmers are giving false information about the free-range chicken they are providing us and the way they are treating them. Farmers and producers need to stop falsely promoting to their consumers or begin treating the chickens better. 

When you see a free range chicken package, you are most likely going to choose that because it sounds healthier. Yet, free range means they only get to roam the size of a loose leaf paper while getting drugged with medications to make them so fat that they can’t walk (Psihoyos). The majority of the time, you never know what you are actually eating until it’s too late. The companies that package the chicken “freely acknowledged that the chicken industry’s ‘“free-range’” labels were essentially meaningless — a rare instance of an industry insider saying the quiet part out loud” (Torella and Bolotnikova).   Consumers don’t know the truth of what is being put in their own bodies because organizations are lying about their product and it's not fair that we are getting false information. These lies are not only affecting the chicken we put in our bodies, but what the chicken carries because of the lies. They often carry diseases “1 in every 25 packages of chicken will test positive for salmonella. 1 in every 5 packages of chicken will test positive for E. coli” (Psihoyos). Because of the conditions and drugs that chickens have to endure, it is not only impacting them; it is impacting our health by giving off diseases. Drugs aren’t the only condition chickens have to endure.  

When you imagine a farm, you think of open space with luscious green grass where animals are freely roaming. Unfortunately, the reality of these chickens' lives is there are 20,000 of them in one 500 foot house where it is 92 degrees (“Big Bird”). It is absurd that what we think is healthy chicken is actually chicken being squished together to where they can’t move. This isn’t humane. Once again, we are being lied to about conditions they live in just as the labels they get put on them. A farmer, Craig Watts, takes care of chickens for his job and said that each chicken gets 0.67 square feet to move (Psihoyos). Chickens deserve to have free range to roam, especially considering they are being raised in order to be slaughtered and with no quality of life. 

Currently, farms are using drugs and incompetent space in order to get the most product possible, so they can make more money and be successful. They are “raising a bird into a virtual assembly line” (“Big Bird”) and it needs to change. Therefore, we need to raise awareness to this situation in order for farmers to treat animals the way that they should be. We need to get the FDA involved in order to make change. They need to re-evaluate what they consider healthy for us to be eating. The FDA is in charge of making sure what we eat is healthy, yet they are allowing all of this false information and disease to be spread. Along with them, journalists need to help expose these conditions to the public to allow the consumers to know what they are putting into their bodies since the labels aren’t telling them. It is unfair how so many people and animals are getting harmed in order to benefit one person and/or companiesy. 

Considering how much chicken we eat, we should be more aware of what we are putting into our bodies. Farmers and factories are constantly lying in order to raise their production. The way these chickens are being treated is inhumane. This shouldn’t be a competition of who can make the most money. Chickens are living animals and should be treated like that. 

Works Cited

"Big Bird." Rotten, season 1, episode 4.

The Development of Raising Bigger Chickens. Santa Fe, 12 Mar. 2015, www.santafenewmexican.com/life/taste/decades-of-demand-for-chicken-have-pushed-bounds-on-fat/article_9b06bb60-0101-58b4-87f0-5998bdb38ce0.html.

Louie Psihoyos. "Episode 3." You Are What You Eat, season 1, episode 3.

Torrella, Kenny, and Marina Bolotnikova. "Undercover Audio of a Tyson Employee Reveals 'free-range' Chicken Is Meaningless." Vox, 2 Aug. 2023, www.vox.com/future-perfect/23724740/tyson-chicken-free-range-humanewashing-investigation-animal-cruelty. Accessed 2 May 2024.