Feathers fly in exposé on chicken industry

PLUCKED! Maryn McKenna Loot.co.za (R270) Little, Brown

REVIEWER: JULIAN RICHFIELD

HAVE you ever given any thought to how the chicken you enjoy eating was reared?

“The ways we have hidden chickens from view as we raise them, and from our perceptions when we eat them, mask the things that we did to them in order to turn them into what is soon to be the most consumed animal protein in the world. The active bird of 100 years ago is overwhelmingly now a fast-growing, slow-moving, docile block of protein, as muscle-bound and top-heavy as a bodybuilder in a kid’s cartoon.”

This quote comes from the prologue of science writer Maryn McKenna’s startling book Plucked.

In it she meticulously exposes everything that has gone wrong in the modern agricultural system: overuse of antibiotics, threats to the environment, violations of animal welfare, disruption of international trade and production of over-processed, obesity-promoting, nutritionally hollow food.

McKenna takes us from vast poultry farms to laboratories, kitchens and street-food markets around the world to reveal how economic, political and cultural forces converged to make our favourite meat a hidden danger.

“There was a time when any chicken was safe and full of integrity and flavour.” No more.

But as shocking as many of the revelations are, thankfully Plucked is not all gloom, doom and horror.

There is hope and in the book we are introduced to people looking for solutions and seeking to return chicken to a sustainable place on our plate.

It is an engrossing, vital read.