Plucked!: The Truth About Chicken

Description

'This is an important book. You can't understand the radical cheapening of food, with all its unpleasant effects, for farm animals and our most cherished rural landscapes, until you begin to understand the industrialisation of chicken. Industrial chicken is now displacing many more sustainable farming systems, driving them out of business. This book explains how that happened and why we should all be worried about it and demand change' James Rebanks, author of The Shepherd's Life Plucked! examines everything that has gone wrong in the modern agricultural system: overuse of antibiotics, threats to the environment, violations of animal welfare, destruction of farming communities, disruption of international trade and delivery of over-processed, obesity-promoting, nutritionally hollow food. Drawing on years of research into the 'big chicken' industry, acclaimed science writer Maryn McKenna uncovers the people searching for solutions and seeking to return chicken to a sustainable and honoured place on our plate and asking whether, with reform, chicken can safely feed the world. Rich with characters who together propelled the story of chicken's unintended consequences, Plucked! will reveal how the antibiotic era created modern agriculture. It is an eye-opening exploration of how the world's most popular meat came to define so much more than just chicken nuggets. Praise......Page 2 Also by Maryn McKenna......Page 3 Copyright......Page 4 Dedication......Page 5 Contents......Page 7 Prologue......Page 9 Part 1. How Chicken Became Essential......Page 13 1. Illness, and a Bad Year......Page 14 2. Better Living Through Chemistry......Page 26 3. Meat for the Price of Bread......Page 43 4. Resistance Begins......Page 57 5. Proving the Problem......Page 75 Part 2. How Chicken Became Dangerous......Page 91 6. Epidemics as Evidence......Page 92 7. The Triumph of the Hybrids......Page 110 8. The Cost of Contamination......Page 126 9. The Unpredicted Danger......Page 138 Part 3. How Chicken Changed......Page 152 10. The Value of Small......Page 153 11. Choosing Cooperation......Page 164 12. The View From the Barn......Page 177 13. The Market Speaks......Page 189 14. The Past Creates the Future......Page 205 Epilogue......Page 223 Acknowledgments......Page 229 Notes......Page 233 Bibliography......Page 270 Index......Page 335