Antibiotics, salted water, dead animal bits and other bad things hiding in raw chicken

After reading what isn't in the Bell & Evans Cut Chicken Wings I bought at Whole Foods Market in Paramus, N.J., I wondered if other big poultry companies like Perdue and Tyson are as careful.

With some supermarket brands,

you never know what you're eating

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

HACKENSACK, N.J. -- My wife is roasting close to 5 pounds of chicken wings she seasoned and the aroma is filling our kitchen and spilling into other rooms.

I'm a pescatarian who gave up meat and poultry more than a decade ago, but I live with and help shop for 3 family members who eat beef, pork, poultry and various animal parts a few times a week. 

This week, I picked up a package of Bell & Evans Cut Chicken Wings for $3.99 a pound at Whole Foods Market, and before I recycled the large plastic tray, I read a label on "what makes Bell & Evans different."

The price label of the Bell & Evans Cut Chicken Wings.

No retained water

Bell & Evans wings (and the rest of the chicken) aren't injected with salted water, and are raised without antibiotics "ever," including no ionophores (a class of antibiotics), in the feed, water, through injection or in ovo (egg).

Human antibiotics are used to raise chickens, cows and other farm animals, and that may cause the transfer of drug resistant bacteria to humans, reducing the effectiveness of drugs prescribed by doctors.

Also missing from Bell & Evans chicken:

• No growth hormones in the vegetarian diet.
• Soybeans without hexane, a byproduct of gasoline.
• No ethanol byproducts.
• Feed with no "junk," meaning no animal byproducts (bits of dead animals), and no expired bakery goods, grease or arsenic.  
• All chicken is fed grains grown in the U.S.A.

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