36 Million Pounds of Sickness

Update: The CW affiliate in Columbus, Ohio, WWHO-TV, has agreed to air PETA’s “Turkey Terrorism” TV spot twice a day from August 15 through 19 during Divorce Court and Judge Karen, two shows whose audience consists largely of stay-at-home parents who are often in charge of grocery shopping.

It took months—and people in at least 26 states to fall victim to a super-antibiotic-resistant strain of salmonella (with at least one known fatality)—for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to recall 36 million pounds of ground turkey.

While 36 million pounds is a lot of turkey, it’s likely that far more than that is infected with sickening salmonella. In the most recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analysis, poultry was the most common source of foodborne illness in the United States. As you likely know, bacteria spread like wildfire on filthy factory farms.

Turkeys spend their lives crammed by the thousands into windowless sheds and mired in their own accumulated waste. To keep them alive in these conditions and to make them grow so abnormally large so quickly that they have trouble walking—which results in pressure on their hearts that causes more than a few of them to die before they reach the slaughterhouse floor—farmers feed the birds antibiotics, which leads to the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

Want to stick with turkey that won’t make you sick or cause animal suffering? Look no further than delicious Tofurky products. Your body will thank you.

Written by Michelle Sherrow