Sunday was a lot of things, St. Nikolaus Day, My grandmother’s 95th birthday, and a day of travel.
Driving across the state of Washington is not my favorite thing to do. The boring 370 mile trek through the cities, the mountain pass then forever along the straight, mostly flat, roads of the Columbia Plateau on the Eastern side of the Cascade Mountains. It was very cold, well below freezing and gusty winds. The mountain pass was barely passable. Traction Tires required. The kids asked repeatedly “Mom, do we have traction tires.” I said, “Shut up, mom is trying to drive.”
In the midst of all that was my crappy car stereo, it sucks. We usually listen to a story or something interesting but… one of my children decided not to do his homework while we were gone. He saved it up for the ride home. Therefore no story. I did, from time to time, catch a little NPR when we were able to get the signal. Look, there isn’t much once you cross the Cascade Mountains and head East. There is just a lot of land and bunches of tumbleweeds, it was like I was in Star Wars, in the midst of a meteor shower but it was tumbleweeds instead of meteors, thank goodness. My landspeeder would have had trouble with meteors I think.
NPR fades in again with this story Your Chicken Is Probably Contaminated
Click here for the original from Consumer Reports
This is one great reason I buy meat from my neighbors. That said, I have never checked my local chickens for contamination. Do you think it is from the huge amount of animals living in such tight quarters? If you have that many animals isn’t it difficult to notice if they are all healthy? Or maybe from the processing of such a large number of birds at the same time? I don’t know. I will still support my local economy and buy my meat from local small family farms where I know that they love their animals and treat them with the respect that they deserve.
But maybe I am just overreacting that 2/3 of the whole chickens are contaminated with salmonella and/or campylobacter. I wonder what the results would be from the cut-up meat. Good to know that Tyson and Foster Farms are the worst with only 20% of their chickens clean.
Thank you Consumer Reports and NPR.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Your trip sounds like ‘over the hills and through the woods we go to grandmother’s house…’ I have done that trip a few times going over to Idaho so empathize. Re the contaminated chicken have you see the documentary FOOD INC.? It will answer a lot of questions. But local is ALWAYS better in my view!
Charles, yep. that is a fun trip
No, I haven’t seen the movie yet. They are having a local showing that I hope to make. Buy Local is the way to go!