An Organic Chicken A Day Keeps The Salmonella Away

This whole "organic" food trend may be onto something! According to a new study from the University of Georgia, organic chickens have a far lower chance of carrying salmonella than conventionally-raised chickens.

The 700 samples were taken from one poultry company in North Carolina that runs both organic broiler farms and conventional broiler farms. The study says, "[t]he overall prevalence of Salmonella across all farms, sample types, and age group was 4.3% (13/300) in organic broiler farms compared to 28.8% (115/400) in conventional broiler farms." They also found that the prevalence of anti-microbal-resistant salmonella was higher in conventionally raised chickens. And we bet those chickens didn't even have friends!:

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By Jaya Saxena in Food on March 29, 2011 2:47 PM

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Range Free hicken

You are indeed right TheRealCannibal, isn't it weird as our technology improves several diseases are also being developed. I do prefer organic chickens since it is much better for the health knowing that the chickens are only vegetable and fruit fed and are free from growth hormones and some antibiotics.

Stephen Touset

Yep. Salmonella infections are rampant due to our recent practice of soaking chickens in water to increase their weight. You pay the same price per pound for meat, but 15% of that is just added water. All the chickens soak in the same vats and the same water, so one infected chicken carcass easily infects the rest.

TheRealCannibal

Salmonella was never a problem until modern chicken farming in the 80's. No other country has contaminated chickens like we have. Its our own fault, we poisoned our own food supply trying to be as cheap as possible. American chicken is so guaranteed toxic that we would never serve it medium. In Japan they eat raw chicken.