The Salmonella Outbreak!

Surely many of you have been following all the gory details about the DeCoster egg recall. This has definitely meant a boost to local egg economies nationwide (and perhaps to better regulations as outlined in the latest food safety bill in the Senate).

And, yes, let's just add "factory egg salmonella outbreak" to the list of reasons why striking down the ban on backyard chickens in Muncie will benefit our food safety and our health along with the environment and economy.

What about avian flu?

Small flocks are the solution, not the problem.

Dr. Michael Greger author of Bird Flu -- A Virus of Our Own Hatching, an examination of bird flu and what it means to us, writes, "To reduce the emergence of viruses like H5N1, humanity must shift toward raising poultry in smaller flocks, under less stressful, less crowded, and more hygienic conditions, with outdoor access, no use of human antivirals, and with an end to the practice of breeding for growth or unnatural egg production at the expense of immunity. This would also be expected to reduce rates of increasingly antibiotic-resistant pathogens such as Salmonella, the number-one food-borne killer in the United States. We need to move away from the industry’s fire-fighting approach to infectious disease to a more proactive preventive health approach that makes birds less susceptible—even resilient—to disease in the first place."
(This is an excerpt from Urban Chickens Network. To read the entire post, see http://www.urbanchickens.net/2009/04/urban-chickens-solving-spread-of-bird.html)