In many countries of the world, including Russia, chicken is one of the most important food products. According to statistics for 2022, the amount of chicken meat consumed per person was 35 kilograms. This is a really great product because it contains a large amount of protein, and at the same time it is considered low-calorie. Chicken also contains a lot of B vitamins, selenium, phosphorus and other useful substances. But many people are sure that the chicken they sell us in stores is of poor quality. There are good reasons to believe that growth hormones are used in their cultivation, as well as antibiotics to protect against infections. And then, supposedly, all these chemicals enter our body along with food. Is it really so?
Poultry farms do give chickens antibiotics, there's no other way. Source: orenburg.kp.ru
Antibiotics in chicken
If you were hoping until the very end that chicken producers don't use antibiotics, we have bad news for you. Poultry farms contain thousands of chickens, all kept in cramped cages. In such terrible conditions, if one chicken catches a disease, it will quickly spread to all the individuals in the factory. Because of this, the producer can lose a huge amount of money, or contaminated meat will end up in stores.
To prevent this, almost all companies add antibiotics to bird feed. There is nothing illegal about this, the use of such chemicals in poultry farms is permitted in many countries.
If you want chicken without traces of antibiotics, you will have to buy it from private sellers. Source: svoya-ptica.com
In Russia, penicillin drugs are used to prevent diseases in birds. In part, this is good, because they are considered less dangerous than tetracyclines used in the United States. According to modern standards, there are about 20 grams of antibiotics per ton of chicken meat, which is not that much.
Antibiotics protect birds from diseases, and that's good. But birds don't live long in factories, and during that short life, chemicals can't completely leave their bodies. And that means some of it ends up on our tables.
Chickens live in terrible conditions on poultry farms, these shots may make you want to go vegan. Source: agrarnayanauka.ru
In 2020, specialists from Roskachestvo tested chicken from several brands for the presence of antibiotics and actually found traces of them. But the concentration of drugs was so low that it could not pose a danger to human health.
The only thing that is annoying is that due to the active use of antibiotics, types of bacteria may appear that are resistant to them. Because of this, scientists have to invent more and more new drugs.
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Growth stimulator for birds
In the second half of the 20th century, during the Soviet era, stores sold puny chickens. But modern chicken is very large and meaty, so many people are sure that when raising birds in factories, producers use growth hormones. After all, how can you explain the fact that a broiler chicken gains 2 kilograms in a month? Chemicals are clearly involved in this matter.
Perhaps no company will admit that it uses growth hormones. To maintain its reputation, even when using chemicals, manufacturers will strictly deny everything. One can only hope that they add growth stimulants in small quantities so that they do not affect the health of consumers.
Most likely, many producers use growth stimulants, but simply do not admit it. Source: kombi-korm.ru
Journalists once asked a direct question about growth hormones to an experienced poultry farmer. He replied that reputable companies really do not use stimulants. The rapid growth of chickens is due to the fact that for decades breeders have crossed representatives of different breeds to produce fast-growing, meaty offspring.
This answer, of course, is encouraging. But the question of whether poultry farms use growth stimulants still remains open.
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Chlorine in chicken meat
In Soviet times, chicken carcasses were disinfected in chlorine before being delivered to stores. Since 2010, this method of disinfecting products has been banned in Russia. But it is possible that unscrupulous producers still process meat in the old way.
We mentioned above that Roskachestvo once tested several brands of chicken meat for antibiotics. So, as part of this study, they discovered that some meat samples contained chloroform. But its concentration was so low that most likely the chemical compounds remained after using chlorinated water.
At least one study has shown that the amount of chloroform in chicken meat is minimal. Source: bbcgoodfood.com
Today, good producers use peracetic acid to treat chicken before sale. This is the name of an organic compound obtained by the action of hydrogen peroxide on acetic acid. The choice fell on this substance because it kills bacteria, fungi, yeast, spores and other pathogens in a matter of minutes.
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The bottom line is that chicken meat may contain chemicals. But their number is small, and the benefits of chicken are greater than the harm. In addition, chicken is one of the foods you need to eat for good health.