The chicken we'll be eating

Those of you trying not to take food for granted these days, might be interested in knowing my home county of Berrien in Michigan, produces enough chicken to feed each county resident one-half of one ounce per person, per year. That's less than a single chicken drummie per year for each of our 162,000 residents.

So I got to thinking what a wonderful opportunity for local farmers: Here in Berrien County, Michigan, a market exists for 2,700,000 chickens per year. That's almost three million chickens, and over $6 million in local economic stimulus, ripe for the multiplier effect. Meat that makes sense, and cash that will re-circulate within our communities.

But sadly, I predict we'll go on shooting craps with the 50 pounds of industrialized chicken we're each eating per year, on average. Actually, the odds at craps are considerably better than the odds with industrialized chicken: According to the Centers for Disease Control, 30% and 62% of all chicken sold at retail in the U.S., are tainted with salmonella and campylobacter, respectively. Time magazine calls chicken one of the most dangerous items in the American home.

Don't ya think we oughta care about the fact 80 million of us are getting sick every year from food borne illnesses? Care enough to do something?

Well, hard as it is to actually do something about it, I'm not going to eat Tyson, Perdue, or Pilgrim's Pride anymore, and we're going to travel almost one hundred miles and buy local chickens, humanely raised, and free ranged by a family who is feeding themselves the same chicken. Our plan is to buy enough to last till fall. So, we'll still be eating chickens, just not the poisoned ones.... (Uh, excuse me Mr. Tyson, but I'll have my chicken without the feces, if you please.)