My Dad, the Food Supply, Nicholas Kristof and an Awakening

I received the following voice mail yesterday from my dad, who, over the past several years, hasn't exactly been receptive to my beliefs about our food supply. This is worth all the stress and words that fell on deaf ears:

"What's up, son? If you get a chance, read [Nicholas] Kristof's article in the [New York] Times today about chickens and food. The more I read, the more that I see that you are right, kid."

Here are the first several paragraphs of "Arsenic in Our Chicken":

"Let’s hope you’re not reading this column while munching on a chicken sandwich.

"That’s because my topic today is a pair of new scientific studies suggesting that poultry on factory farms are routinely fed caffeine, active ingredients of Tylenol and Benadryl, banned antibiotics and even arsenic.

"'We were kind of floored,' said Keeve E. Nachman, a co-author of both studies and a scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Center for a Livable Future. 'It’s unbelievable what we found.'

"He said that the researchers had intended to test only for antibiotics. But assays for other chemicals and pharmaceuticals didn’t cost extra, so researchers asked for those results as well.

"'We haven’t found anything that is an immediate health concern,' Nachman added. 'But it makes me question how comfortable we are feeding a number of these things to animals that we’re eating. It bewilders me.'

"Likewise, I grew up on a farm, and thought I knew what to expect in my food. But Benadryl? Arsenic? These studies don’t mean that you should dump the contents of your refrigerator, but they do raise serious questions about the food we eat and how we should shop."

Trust me (and my dad), read the rest of the piece. As more and more is exposed about our compromised (some would say toxic) food supply, more and more nay saying 78-year-olds will realize that not all chickens are the same and that the food their grandchildren are eating is much different than what they ate seven decades prior.