Eat meat that doesn’t endanger the environment

April 22nd was Earth Day when we think about protecting the environment by recycling, by driving less, by planting a tree. But rarely do we think about the industrially raised kosher meat we eat. Because factory farms raise huge numbers of animals for meat, they generate huge amounts of waste. Factory farm waste dumps, euphemistically called “lagoons,” endanger the environment by leaking into water and soil and by emitting toxic gases. Even worse, the chemicals and pharmaceuticals added to these animals’ feed are still present in their waste, and these additives are spread throughout the environment when waste is used or disposed of as compost, incinerated waste, and even feed for other animals.

At KOL Foods, all of our meat comes from animals raised artisanally, on small-scale sustainable farms. The chemical- and pharmaceutical-free waste from these animals goes back into a natural cycle of fertilization, enriching the land so that it can continue to support the animals. Choose sustainably raised kosher meat from KOL Foods. It’s better for the environment, it’s better for your Jewish values, and it’s better for your taste buds.

Chicken with a side of arsenic: a poultry industry additive’s threat to human health

By Amy Radding

In March, a bill in the Maryland legislature that would have banned the use of arsenic in chicken feed was killed . Since the introduction of the bill in February, a public controversy arose over this little-known but widespread poultry industry practice. The months of debate, culminating in the death of the bill, force us to closely question what goes into the food that we eat and what we can do to make our food system better.

Why is there arsenic in chicken feed?

In 1944, the Food and Drug Administration approved roxarsone, an arsenic-containing organic compound, for use in chicken feed. This metallic element, a powerful poison, is used “for increased rate of weight gain, improved feed efficiency, and improved pigmentation” and “as an aid in the prevention of coccidiosis a parasitic infestation".  These broadly worded designations that allow for widespread use. Indeed, the routine practice of industrial poultry producers is to dose chicken feed with roxarsone and other pharmaceuticals in order to get as much meat as possible as quickly as possible from each bird.

Who uses roxarsone and why?

Many American poultry producers, in Maryland and across the country, use roxarsone and have done so for decades. It has become common practice to use roxarsone and other chemical and pharmaceutical additives in order to cheaply and quickly produce commodity chicken, since these additives promote maximum growth in minimum time and with minimum inputs. Given this history, many producers rely on the fast growth sped by feed additives in order to maintain their profit margin in the face of all the other producers of identical supermarket chicken using the same chemicals. Thus, the practice persists.

What happens to the arsenic?

Much of the roxarsone fed to chickens passes into chicken waste, which is then spread to the environment in the form of fertilizer, compost, cattle feed, and incinerated waste. The arsenic in this waste can then contaminate water, air, and soil.

The arsenic that doesn’t make its way into the environment accumulates in chickens’ muscles. When people eat these chickens, they consume arsenic. The poultry industry maintains that use of roxarsone is safe for humans because the arsenic in roxarsone is in a different chemical form from the type shown to cause cancer; however, it can convert to this more dangerous form both inside chickens and inside people. Though there is no direct evidence linking the arsenic specifically from poultry to human disease, research has shown that exposure to arsenic in humans causes cancer and may contribute to other health problems including high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, and impaired intellectual function.

What is the problem?

Given that arsenic is a known carcinogen and can be dangerous even at low levels, all possible steps should be taken to limit exposure. The use of arsenic in poultry production unnecessarily risks human health. Not every American poultry producer uses arsenic, and the practice is banned in the European Union, demonstrating that, even though some producers depend on it, roxarsone is not necessary to raise chickens. Unfortunately, there is currently no way to tell from the label of supermarket chicken, be it conventional, kosher, “all-natural,” or “free range,” whether or not roxarsone was added to the chicken’s feed. Only poultry that is specified as raised on additive-free feed or is certified organic can be counted on to be arsenic-free.

Where do we go from here?

The death of the Maryland ban, despite its support by environmental groups and concerned individuals, is a sobering call to question the ensconced meat industry and its power in government. Indeed, the environmental committee in which the bill had originated killed the bill before it could reach a vote, saying that more studies about were needed despite clear evidence showing the dangers of arsenic-containing additives. In the words of a Maryland lawmaker, “[banning arsenic-containing additives] is an issue that makes sense to ten out of ten people,”, and yet, common sense was not enough to ban an irresponsible practice over the protests of a powerful poultry industry and the constraints of our current food system.

By raising awareness about this issue, popular opinion against roxarsone use could lead more states to propose bans and put crucial support behind those initiatives. Public opinion could also pressure poultry companies to stop using a compound that has dubious benefits and well-known costs.

Additionally, policy interventions could be undertaken to help wean the poultry industry off its dependence on roxarsone and similar chemicals. Taxes or subsidies could be introduced to favor producers that do not use these additives and compensate for the additional costs incurred. Labeling law could also be changed in order to force producers to tell customers more about the chemicals they do or don’t use by writing it on their labels, allowing buyers to choose which practices they want to support and allowing producers to charge a little more for a markedly different, feed-additive-free product.

Pushing for change

Unfortunately, the roxarsone issue just scratches the surface of ethical, environmental, and health-related problems associated with industrially raised meat. Industrially produced chickens today come from factory farms where chemical and pharmaceutical food additives, including roxarsone, are the norm. Taking a closer look at practices involved in the production of industrial meat raises the question of whether we can be doing more to reach for higher standards that align with both common values and common sense.

My own questioning of industrial meat practices has led me to intern with KOL Foods, a company that provides kosher meat produced in an ethical, health-protective, and environmentally-friendly way. KOL Foods works with poultry farmers that raise chickens in pastures, eating grass, bugs, and additive-free feed, producing poultry that is healthier, environmentally friendlier, and tastier than the industrial standard. By bringing producers and customers closer together, KOL Foods promotes transparency and good practices in farming. Alternatives to industrial poultry production, like those provided by KOL Foods, begin to break industry’s hold on our food system and offer opportunities for future change.

Our food choices have power to shape a more ethical and healthier world. We can write off the Maryland bill’s failure as evidence of the food industry’s unshakable hold on our diets, or we can take it as a challenge to reclaim power over our own foods. By carefully considering what practices we support on our dinner tables and by raising awareness about practices we choose not to accept, we can change our food system for the better.

  

*Amy Radding is an intern at KOL Foods and a senior at Yale University, where she is studying as much as she can about sustainable food. She prefers her arsenic-free, kosher, pasture-raised chicken spatchcocked and pan-roasted with lemon and rosemary.*

Sustainable Turkey

Here is a nice JCarrot blog about sustainable kosher turkeys for Thanksgiving with a shout out to KOL Foods...

For those who keep kosher, every meal is an opportunity to connect the physical earth with the mystical God. If there is one time a year that all Americans get a taste of this experience, it is the ritualized meal of Thanksgiving. Enter a growing awareness about the savagery of the modern meat industry, an uncomfortable exposure of assumptions about kosher meat, and most of all, a horror of Tofurky, and kosher consumers everywhere are seeking out new options for the holiday.

As recently as a couple of years ago, the availability of kosher turkey bearing the label “organic” or “pasture-raised” or even “natural” was pretty much zero. Now, it’s a land of plenty out there, relatively speaking. While this type of turkey isn’t something that you can find on the shelves of your kosher grocer, you can order them from companies like KOL Foods. With shipping, these companies will send you an 11-12 lb. turkey for $80-100. This is a lot of money, but perhaps not too exorbitant for a special meal that you can truly be grateful for and comfortable eating.
Read more: http://blogs.forward.com/the-jew-and-the-carrot/133194/#ixzz15exEj81U.

The Kosher-vore’s Dilemma: Kosherfest 2010 by Daniel Infeld

If you shop in almost any grocery store in the US, chances are you have bought a product that is certified Kosher. According to Sue Fishkoff’s new “Kosher Nation” “one third to one half of the food for sale in the typical American supermarket is kosher.” This is big business, “$200 billion of the country’s estimated $500 billion in annual food sales is kosher certified.” Kosher food is often perceived to be more pure or cleaner than treyf, yet it seems that there are many parallels between the Kosher and mainstream food industries.

Kosherfest, which is taking place this week in New Jersey, is an annual gathering, highlighting this big business. It is the time a year where Kosher food producers gather to tout their wares to industry professionals, supermarket buyers, chefs, and other food service providers.

In his keynote presentation, Menachem Lubinksy, founder and president of LUBICOM Marketing and Consulting, and co-producer of Kosherfest, claimed that the industry is moving towards offering healthier products. Apparently schmaltz is out, and olive oil is in. Yet, spending a day at Kosherfest made me wonder, is the kosher industry actually trying to produce healthy and sustainable products, or are they just greenwashing (promoting a product as environmentally friendly, when it actually isn’t)? Click here to read more.

Intern Matt's trip to the lamb butcher

Last Tuesday morning my boss, Robert and I went to visit our lamb butcher in Newark, NJ. KOL Foods has to send its meat to be butchered in NJ because there is no USDA certified kosher butchers between Baltimore and Newark. Since KOL Foods’ products cross state lines, they need to be USDA certified. We were there because KOL Foods is start selling lamb by the cut for the first time and we wanted to learn by watching the process, while making sure the butcher understood what we wanted done.  I wasn’t sure what to expect from this butcher after our visit to our chicken processing plant which was completely different than what I expected. Rolling up to the front door of the butcher shop was interesting. It’s in the back streets of Newark almost in a back alley. There wasn’t much of a store front but rather one small door on the corner of the street with little to no signs. Had I been by myself I would have just gone right past it without even thinking. Although all this made it seem like this shop would be somewhat small on the contrary it was very spacious. Walking in Robert and I were greeted by everyone in the office. All the workers were very friendly and professional and it was nice to actually converse with them throughout our stay there as we worked through our order. The head butcher, Irving, was an extremely nice guy. He was very knowledgeable about the business, worked through our order absolutely flawlessly cutting and packaging our lamb exactly as we wanted, and the best part was he was cracking jokes all along the way.  Everyone up in Newark at the shop was friendly and you can tell that they enjoy what they do. Our trip up there was a very pleasant experience and I have to say the lamb we have looks amazing. Both Irving and Robert think so, so I’m sure our customers will be very pleased with it.

Intern Jon's Book Review: Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer

While the average American lives blissfully without a worry of where the meat on his or her plate came from, Jonathan Safran Foer introduces the reader to a harsh reality in his book Eating Animals.  The nostalgic vision of family-farmed raised meat is nearly a dead illusion, as 99% of all meat production is now carried out by the often horrific factory-farming.  Likely recognizing that most Americans prefer to avoid acknowledging this truth, Foer engages the reader into his argument, supplying personal anecdotes of raising his son, fond memories of his grandmother’s cooking, in addition to the experiences of others such as small cattle ranchers who are threatened by corporate agribusinesses. He explains himself as someone who has dispassionately shuffled between vegetarianism and eating meat, and loved to eat meat when it was convenient.  However, through the research he dedicated to writing Eating Animals, he has now fully committed his dietary habits to purely vegetarianism as the easiest way to avoid supporting factory farming.  But his book is not only an argument for vegetarianism but also “an argument for another, wiser animal agriculture and a more honorable omnivory.”  

In other words, Foer is a vegetarian who supports the old fashion style of grass-fed farming.  He contrasts the methods of struggling small family-farmers with the images inside chicken, cow, and hog factory-farms.  For instance, Foer provides mind-numbing statistics such as the 145 marine life species that are killed as bycatch and then thrown back into the sea, for the specific fishing of just tuna; or that all male genetically engineered egg-laying chickens (known as layers), consisting of 250 million a year, are completely destroyed.   He also points out that the kosher meat industry also relies on industrialized factory-farming, and that such cruelty is not limited to treif meat. 

Foer focuses not only on the cruelty in the treatment of the factory-farmed animals, but also the health risks this system poses to us.  For instance, the feces covered confinement is a breeding ground for infectious viruses and bacteria.  Different strains of flu viruses can genetically mix and create drug-resistant hybrids that can and have led to large-scale pandemics.  Foer explains how the USDA and other Governmental regulating agencies are very much controlled by the corporate interests themselves.  For instance, chickens are placed in a water tank bath, after being slaughtered, where fecal-polluted water is absorbed by the meat of the chicken.  This process can be avoided but agribusiness CEOs know that they can sell the heavier water laden meat at a greater price.  Foer also warns the reader of misleading food labels.  For instance, USDA certified “free-range” or “cage-free” poultry or eggs merely means that these chickens came from a factory farm that had a small screen-door that rarely opens, yet these thousands of barn-stuffed chickens are still debeaked, drugged, and cruelly slaughtered.  Foer jokes, “I could keep a flock of hens under my sink and call them free-range.”  

While analyzing both arguments for and against eating meat, Foer considers the family traditions and the comfort that meat gives to carnivores. As a result, Foer truly does succeed in providing a convincing argument for all readers to change how their meat reaches their dinner tables. In doing so, he provides the suspense of a thriller novel with his nighttime break-in into a poultry plant, while certainly not lacking wit and humor that makes reading such a serious topic very easy to swallow.  Overall, Eating Animals is an informative and pleasing read, relevant to meat-eaters and vegetarians/vegans alike.  

Intern Matt's trip to the chicken producer

Paying a visit to the producer that processes and packages KOL Foods’ pastured chickens wasn’t what I expected at all. You walk in the front door and you’re greeted by a receptionist. Waxed tile floors, offices, desks, and the smell could only be described as clean. Heading in I was worried that the smell would be overpowering, or that perhaps the processing wing of the slaughter house would be dark and dirty. On the contrary it was extremely manageable. The workers were very nice and understanding, eager to help ensure our order was complete and correct. The process was very efficient. Workers took shected and kashered whole chickens and made the desired cuts and packaging needed to complete each individual product.

Our processing plant is one of the few kosher poultry processing plants in the country. For our customers, ensuring the poultry from KOL Foods is held to the highest standards of kosher is extremely important. I’m happy to say that as we watched the KOL Foods order being completed from start to finish I saw many Rabbis observing. Every single bag was clamped with a clasp that labels the product as kosher. These bags were then placed in bulk boxes, each of which is sealed extremely tight with plastic bands, bound together with a zip tie labeling each individual box as kosher. All this makes it impossible for their product to be tampered with from the production floor to the super market, or in our case when we ship you your KOL Foods order.