Consumer Reports bought whole chickens from 100 different stores to test for their study. (Photo courtesy of the USDA)
A Consumer Reports study finds
most of the chickens bought at
the grocery store are contaminated
with bacteria that can cause you
to get sick. Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
A Consumer Reports study finds
most of the chickens bought at
the grocery store are contaminated
with bacteria that can cause you
to get sick. Lester Graham reports:
Consumer Reports bought whole chickens from 100 different stores.
Dr. Urvashi Rangan says they tested them for two different strains of bacteria.
“Salmonella and campylobacter infections can give people serious diarhea, abdominal cramping for sometimes days, even weeks at a time.”
Two-thirds of the chickens they tested were tainted.
Rangan says the U.S. government’s guidelines are pretty loose for the chicken processors.
“Each company is basically allowed to script their own hygeine plan. And, clearly, there aren’t enough standards or standardidization among them that has allowed them to achieve a decent rate of cleanliness.”
The chickens that were cleanest were organic air-chilled chickens. The Consumer Report’s study is available online and will be published in the January issue of the magazine.
For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.