You may want to think twice before buying your next Styrofoam-and-cellophane-wrapped chicken breast. The vast majority of meat purchased at supermarkets comes from livestock raised on “factory farms” which
concentrates large numbers of animals in relatively small and confined places.
Any animal forced to live in cramped quarters is not going to be especially healthy, so they’re given antibiotics, hormones, de-worming medication, growth-promoting drugs, and other medicines that help them reach their slaughter weight quickly and without getting too sick.
There are some brand name companies producing high-quality raw meat for purchase at grocery stores these days if there are no good butcher shops around. The meat discussed here is sold in non-branded, cellophane-wrapped packages and is often far less expensive than the name-brand meat.
There are some harsh truths about the massive factory farmed meat industry that is producing cheap, low-quality meat. All those antibiotics don’t just disappear when the meat is cooked. Expiration dates on meat packaging are generally meaningless. Thirty states do not even regulate date labeling on supermarket raw meat packaging. This means that if a raw meat item is set to expire and it still looks okay, supermarkets are allowed to put a new label on, pushing the expiration date back by days or even more than a week.
Most supermarket ground beef is made from retired dairy or breeding cows while steaks generally come from younger cows raised for meat not dairy. There are eight grades of meat: prime, choice, select, standard, commercial, utility, cutter, and canner. The more marbling in the meat, the better the grade and usually the younger the cow when it was slaughtered.
While many countries have protections against salmonella in place at chicken farms and hatcheries, there are no such protections in the U.S., where testing is only carried out on a limited basis at the slaughterhouse. About 25 percent of raw chicken pieces contain salmonella.
Meat retailers and producers are no longer required to identify where an animal was raised, slaughtered, or processed. Canada and Mexico, two important trade partners, argued that laws mandating country of origin labeling were discouraging Americans from buying meat that comes from outside the U.S., and Congress caved to them, much to the chagrin of those who support transparency in the food industry.
SUPPLEMENTAL SOURCE: FOX NEWS JANUARY 15, 2016