Are Fast-food Chickens Safe?

China's Regulations on the Administration of Veterinary Drugs prohibit the addition of hormonal drugs to feed and animal drinking water. Moreover, there is no need to use hormones in raising broiler chickens; they increase mortality and promote growth without any obvious effect.

Animal feeding experts at the Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences point out, "The cost of hormones is not only high, the technical requirements are complex, and according to numerous experimental data, the added use of hormones is actually not effective in promoting chicken growth, but also increases the risk of heart disease, ascites and other diseases in broilers, and increases mortality."

　　

Of course, modern centralised farming on a large scale, while greatly improving space utilisation, inevitably leads to poorer air quality and high concentrations of ammonia in the emission gases can easily cause damage to the eyes and respiratory tract of chickens. And large numbers of chickens crowded together can also easily lead to and transmit diseases. Antibiotics are needed to prevent certain diseases from occurring.

However, the use of antibiotics in Chinese farming is in itself a reasonable and legal practice. As long as the use is regulated according to safety standards and the rest period is strictly observed, the residues are not sufficient to threaten human health.

　

　Food safety control of chicken is a system that runs through the entire process of chicken farming, feed production, slaughter and processing, logistics and warehousing to the consumer's table, and problems at any point can result in major food safety incidents.

The process of raising chickens is not just a matter of spreading grain, but also of using medication when chickens get sick, as is the case with both industrial and free-range farming.

In regulated industrial farming, chicken houses are regularly cleaned and disinfected, and chicks are checked, vaccinated and medicated, so the probability of getting sick and infected with bacteria is much lower. Moreover, industrial farms are more capable of having professional staff, so that even when medication is administered, it is not misused or abused. As a result, industrially farmed chickens are even less likely to have quality problems than free-range chickens.

　

　Is there a big difference in the nutritional value of "fast-farmed" chickens compared to local chickens?

　

　Are there any major differences in quality and nutrition between fast-farmed chickens and local chickens? Zhu Yi, associate professor at the School of Food Science and Nutritional Engineering at China Agricultural University, said there is basically no big difference in the nutritional value of instant chickens and local chickens, but the main difference is in taste and price.

There is indeed a difference in the genetics of the meat quality between fast-moving chickens and local chickens.

Local chickens are usually native Chinese breeds with good constitution, plus relatively long growth time, high exercise, and more accumulated flavour substances and proteins, so the taste is indeed better than fast-moving chickens, but there is not much difference in terms of nutritional value.

There is also a large price difference between the two, with fast-growing chickens generally costing less than $10 per catty and local chickens costing at least twice as much as the former.