On the Edge Of Common Sense

By Baxter Black

The Texas Cattle Feeder's Association has been leading the charge to force the USDA to inflict on the poultry processing industry the same stringent requirements demanded of meat processors (beef, pork and lamb). Why? Because poultry is serious competition and the meat industry wants a level playing field.

The inequities in question include allowing poultry carcasses to have up to eight percent added water (zero percent for meat)... poultry does not have to meet zero tolerance for fecal and ingesta contamination (meat does). Poultry processing equipment does not require 180° for sanitization, nor does equipment have to be sanitized between carcasses (meat does). Poultry carcasses can touch (meat cannot). Detached skin and extra water can be added to processed poultry products (no skin, three percent water to meat)... and meat stew must contain 25 percent meat... (poultry, only 12 percent).

Why, one might ask, has the USDA always maintained a more lenient policy regarding poultry?

To understand, we must first make some general observations about poultry that allows the public's acceptance of these lesser standards, and therefore, the USDA’s willingness to appease the poultry processors.

Chicken is cheap. It usually has less fat, it tastes like whatever you put on it, and it is politically correct.

Chicken is cheap. The single biggest factor for poultry's overwhelming success in the last 25 years. How important is that to the average family? It is paramount. They are struggling to make car payments the size of house payments. To deal with taxes that increase without let-up, late child support payments, the cost of braces, tennis shoes, the need for two television sets, the convenience of eating out 50 percent of the time and the worry of job security. The pressure on the food budget is exaggerated by their inability to garden, can, butcher, cook a pot roast or cut up a chicken.

Increasing the inspection requirements on poultry would increase the cost of chicken. Meat producers know this, but so do politicians. These struggling housewives have a lot more votes.

Chicken usually has less fat and tastes like whatever you put on it. Fifty years ago chicken had its own flavor; chickens ate lots of bugs and gravel and had some age on them. Today they have no need to marble. Tenderness and flavor are not criteria when eating chicken. They are slaughtered as young as possible, which keeps down fat. The public is now conditioned to avoid fat. The only equivalent competition is veal. It is truly the other white meat.

Unfortunately, veal does not fit the last requirement: Chicken is politically correct. Animal rights activists have chosen not to peck on poultry producers. Chickens have a low "cuddle factor." Vegetarians eat chicken with no guilt. Chicken is like manna; nobody questions how it got to the plate.

And finally, chicken is not only politically correct — it is politically connected. Tyson has friends in high places, and those in charge of the USDA are political appointees (of those same friends).