f**********n
发帖数: 29853 | | b*********4
发帖数: 1 | 2 The Ugly Secrets Behind the Costco Chicken
An investigator went under cover and brought back disturbing video from a
farm growing those famous birds.
Probably like many of you, I think of Costco as an enlightened company
exemplifying capitalism that works. One ranking listed it as the No. 1
company to work at in terms of pay and benefits — a prime example of a
business that is both profitable and humane.
Unless, it turns out, you’re a chicken.
Rotisserie chickens selling for just $4.99 each are a Costco hallmark, both
delicious and cheap. They are so popular they have their own Facebook page,
and the company sells almost 100 million of them a year. But an animal
rights group called Mercy for Animals recently sent an investigator under
cover to work on a farm in Nebraska that produces millions of these chickens
for Costco, and customers might lose their appetite if they saw inside a
chicken barn.
“It’s dimly lit, with chicken poop all over,” said the worker, who also
secretly shot video there. “It’s like a hot humid cloud of ammonia and
poop mixed together.”
You may be thinking: Huh? People are dying in a pandemic. Donald Trump is
facing a Senate impeachment trial. And we’re talking about chicken, er,
poop?
Yet we must guard our moral compasses. And some day, I think, future
generations will look back at our mistreatment of livestock and poultry with
pain and bafflement. They will wonder how we in the early 21st century
could have been so oblivious to the cruelties that delivered $4.99 chickens
to a Costco rotisserie.
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Torture a single chicken in your backyard, and you risk arrest. Abuse tens
of millions of them? Why, that’s agribusiness.
It’s not that Costco chickens suffer more than Walmart or Safeway birds.
All are part of an industrial agricultural system that, at the expense of
animal well-being, has become extremely efficient at producing cheap protein.
When Herbert Hoover talked about putting “a chicken in every pot,” chicken
was a luxury: In 1930, whole dressed chicken retailed in the United States
for $7 a pound in today’s dollars. In contrast, that Costco bird now sells
for less than $2 a pound.
Those commendable savings have been achieved in part by developing chickens
that effectively are bred to suffer. Scientists have created what are
sometimes called “exploding chickens” that put on weight at a monstrous
clip, about six times as fast as chickens in 1925. The journal Poultry
Science once calculated that if humans grew at the same rate as these
chickens, a 2-month-old baby would weigh 660 pounds.
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The chickens grow enormous breasts, because that’s the meat consumers want,
so the birds’ legs sometimes splay or collapse. Some topple onto their
backs and then can’t get up. Others spend so much time on their bellies
that they sometimes suffer angry, bloody rashes called ammonia burns; these
are a poultry version of bed sores.
“They’re living on their own feces, with no fresh air and no natural light
,” said Leah Garcés, the president of Mercy for Animals. “I don’t think
it’s what a Costco customer expects.”
Video
1:03
Ugly Secrets Behind the Costco Chicken
An investigator from Mercy for Animals goes undercover to bring back painful
video from a farm growing birds for the grocery chain.
Garcés wants Costco to sign up for the “Better Chicken Commitment,” an
industry promise to work toward slightly better standards for industrial
agriculture. For example, each adult chicken would get at least one square
foot of space, there would be some natural light and the company would avoid
breeds that put on weight that the legs can’t support.
Burger King, Popeyes, Chipotle, Denny’s and some 200 other food companies
have embraced the Better Chicken Commitment, but grocery chains generally
have not, with the exception of Whole Foods.
I asked Costco for comment. John Sullivan, the company’s general counsel,
viewed the Mercy for Animals video and said that much of it simply depicts
“normal and uneventful activity” but that “no system is foolproof when
you are raising 18 million broilers at any given time.” He said that the
company is working to adjust the genetics of Costco birds to develop a “
more proportionate” build, but that this takes time.
In one respect, Costco has shown real leadership. The most barbaric part of
the chicken industry is the traditional slaughtering process, which results
in some birds being boiled alive. To its credit, Costco has moved toward a
far more humane approach called controlled atmosphere stunning, so that
birds are stunned before being shackled to the conveyor belt that takes them
to their deaths.
Sullivan argued that the company is focused on animal welfare at every step
of production, even saying that trucks carrying live chickens are set up “
for optimal comfort of the birds.”
Hearing the Costco pitch, you get the sense that Costco chickens are
enjoying a middle-class avian existence until the moment they end up on the
rotisserie. When birds topple onto their backs and can’t get up, when their
undersides sometimes carry ammonia burns, don’t believe it.
Yet what struck me was that Costco completely accepts that animal welfare
should be an important consideration. We may disagree about whether existing
standards are adequate, but the march of moral progress on animal rights is
unmistakable.
When I began writing about these issues, I never guessed that McDonald’s
would commit to cage-free eggs, that California would legislate protections
for mother pigs, that there would be court fights about whether an elephant
has legal “personhood,” and that Pope Francis would suggest that animals
go to heaven and that the Virgin Mary “grieves for the sufferings” of
mistreated livestock.
Hmm. If the pope is right, Costco chickens may have a better shot at heaven
than Costco executives.
I don’t pretend that there are neat solutions. We raised a flock of
chickens on our family farm when I was a kid, and we managed to be neither
efficient nor humane. Many birds died, and being eaten by a coyote wasn’t
such a pleasant way to go, either. There’s no need for a misplaced
nostalgia for traditional farming practices, just a pragmatic acknowledgment
of animal suffering and trade-offs to reduce it.
Abuse of livestock and poultry persists largely because it is hidden — even
as chickens are slaughtered in the United States at the rate of one million
per hour, around the clock. We treat poultry particularly poorly because
humans identify less with birds than with fellow mammals. We may empathize
with a calf with big eyes, but less so with species that we dismiss as “
bird brains.”
Still, the issue remains as the English philosopher Jeremy Bentham posed it
in 1789: “The question is not, Can they reason?, nor Can they talk? but,
Can they suffer?”
Many of us aren’t quite sure what rights animals should have, or how far to
take this concern for animal well-being. We’re learning as we go, but most
are willing to pay a bit more to avoid torturing animals, and that’s why
fast-food restaurants make Better Chicken Commitments; it’s why Costco will
eventually come around, too. | f**********n
发帖数: 29853 | 3 谢谢北京人。
“You may be thinking: Huh? People are dying in a pandemic. Donald Trump is
facing a Senate impeachment trial. And we’re talking about chicken, er,
poop?
Yet we must guard our moral compasses.”
俺很想对记者说，你保护你的道德罗盘，我下流无耻就爱吃个便宜鸡，您允许我不？ | h*******g
发帖数: 1 | 4 Let the animals live like kings, and then it becomes much more justified to
kill them for food. | f**********n
发帖数: 29853 | 5 没人反对你吃你的溜达鸡，但是不要剥夺穷人吃鸡的权利。
【在 b*********4 的大作中提到】
: The Ugly Secrets Behind the Costco Chicken
: An investigator went under cover and brought back disturbing video from a
: farm growing those famous birds.
: Probably like many of you, I think of Costco as an enlightened company
: exemplifying capitalism that works. One ranking listed it as the No. 1
: company to work at in terms of pay and benefits — a prime example of a
: business that is both profitable and humane.
: Unless, it turns out, you’re a chicken.
: Rotisserie chickens selling for just $4.99 each are a Costco hallmark, both
: delicious and cheap. They are so popular they have their own Facebook page,
| g****y
发帖数: 72 | 6 一致要求纽时负担起责任，卖$4.99的溜达鸡，让Costco 的烤鸡卖不出去，Costco的鸡
就解放了。
【在 b*********4 的大作中提到】
: The Ugly Secrets Behind the Costco Chicken
: An investigator went under cover and brought back disturbing video from a
: farm growing those famous birds.
: Probably like many of you, I think of Costco as an enlightened company
: exemplifying capitalism that works. One ranking listed it as the No. 1
: company to work at in terms of pay and benefits — a prime example of a
: business that is both profitable and humane.
: Unless, it turns out, you’re a chicken.
: Rotisserie chickens selling for just $4.99 each are a Costco hallmark, both
: delicious and cheap. They are so popular they have their own Facebook page,
| f**********n
发帖数: 29853 | 7 好主意！道德罗盘丫不维护谁来维护。
【在 g****y 的大作中提到】
: 一致要求纽时负担起责任，卖$4.99的溜达鸡，让Costco 的烤鸡卖不出去，Costco的鸡
: 就解放了。
| b*********4
发帖数: 1 | 8 叔要吃走地乌鸡
【在 f**********n 的大作中提到】
: 好主意！道德罗盘丫不维护谁来维护。
| h*******g
发帖数: 1 | 9 This kind of chicken has no meat, not really tasty at all.
【在 b*********4 的大作中提到】
: 叔要吃走地乌鸡
| p*******k
发帖数: 488 | 10 你不会煮。
用鸡腿菇清炖乌鸡，味道清甜鲜美。
【在 h*******g 的大作中提到】
: This kind of chicken has no meat, not really tasty at all.
| g****y
发帖数: 72 | 11 乌鸡是白毛的。
【在 b*********4 的大作中提到】
: 叔要吃走地乌鸡
| m*******1
发帖数: 1 | 12 lol, 精人又闹笑话了
【在 g****y 的大作中提到】
: 乌鸡是白毛的。
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