Chicken And Arsenic Contamination In Children

Chicken And Arsenic Contamination In Children

The number one source of arsenic consumed by children was chicken. Can you guess why? Arsenic levels in chicken were 3 times higher than in other meats.^[1]

Children eat a lot of chicken. The chicken industry purposely injected chicken with arsenic. The industry fed chickens arsenic containing antibiotics to make chicken’s skin more appealing by making the skin pinker.

The antibiotics also promoted growth and helped protect against the proliferation of the numerous diseases that afflicted chickens.

The chicken industry promoted this practice since the 1940’s in the United States. In 2006 the National Chicken Council justified the use arsenic in chickens because it used organic arsenic.

Arsenic is an element that is widely distributed in the Earth’s crust and rock, soil, water and air, and is taken up by plants and ingested by animals and humans. It occurs in different forms, including organic and inorganic forms. While chemical compounds containing the inorganic form can be toxic, the organic form doesn’t present such problems.

Organic Arsenic

I presented this quote to show how people use partial information and spread misinformation. Yes organic arsenic exists in nature and is taken up by plants.

Plants though take up the arsenic and modify its chemical structure and the synergistic effect of all the plant’s components make the arsenic useful and harmless.

The amount of arsenic taken up by plants and consumed by animals and humans is also far less than the amount injected in chicken.

The volume of arsenic used to treat chicken changes the whole equation. For example, there are trace amounts of gold in soil that some plants take up, and consuming them is helpful in supporting health.

Consuming large amounts of gold is toxic and results in metal poisoning. The same appears to be the same for arsenic. Human intervention interferes with the grand design of nature and results in harm to the body.

Cooking arsenic containing chicken exposes you to high levels of arsenic, even if it is only organic arsenic, and the arsenic is also converted to its toxic form.^[2]

Ending the Use of Arsenic

It wasn’t until early 2000 that a research student uncovered that the high levels of arsenic in chicken was due to the chicken industry injecting chicken with arsenic.

The student’s study put the spotlight on the sixty-year industry practice that had gone unchecked. This lead to the introduction of legislation in Congress in 2009 and 2011 to ban the use of arsenic in chicken.

The legislation didn’t do well in Congress and support groups sued the FDA in 2013. The FDA continued forward which lead to the banning of the use of arsenic in chicken in 2016.

My thought is you trade one problem for another when it comes to consuming chicken. Lets hope the chicken industry hasn’t found a way around using arsenic. Also, stopping the use of the arsenic containing antibiotics will likely leave chickens more susceptible to disease.

Maybe this is another reason to move to a plant based diet?

Learn About Foods That Support Health and Vitality on the Dr. Sebi Nutritional Guide »

Sources:
[1] Arsenic in chicken: a tale of data and policy.
[2] Roxarsone, inorganic arsenic, and other arsenic species in chicken: a U.S.-based market basket sample.