Looney Toon Chicken Labeling

And How We Are Getting Bugs Bunnied so Hard...

I grew up watching Looney Tunes cartoons alongside millions of other kids from the 80s, and with this month’s research I couldn’t help but think of all the episodes where Bugs Bunny puts on a different outfit just in time for when Elmer Fudd comes around the corner or sticks his gun in the rabbit hole, and out pops Bugs Bunny in costume. Elmer is always caught off guard and then becomes bashful as Bugs Bunny slaps him around a little bit and flusters him. Eventually something happens where Fudd realizes that he is being made to look a fool and his face turns red, followed by Bugs Bunny giving him a big ol’ smoochy on the face and prancing off, forever unscathed.

Folks, we are getting Bugs Bunnied so hard by chicken labeling in this country that we make Elmer Fudd look like a genius in comparison.

I know other labels are doing the same thing; however, I am specifically focusing on chicken labeling as I have been making a big push in terms of marketing locally and I want to be well educated so that I may re-educate. Please, climb on down this rabbit hole with me and I will be glad to show you the many faces that labeling wears, and hopefully by the end you’ll be red faced also!

a quick introduction to the different meanings of popular terms

When you step up to the meat section of the grocery store and displayed before you are multiple packs of chicken breast, thighs, bone-in, bone-out, and whole chicken all nicely packaged in a gross yellow Styrofoam soak pad with stretch wrap around it, what is it that your eyes look to first? Is it the best-by date? What about the price? Maybe the weight? Or are you one of the 7/10 consumers who have bought organic? For the sake of my article and percentages, I am going to presume you look for organic. The term organic means good for you, right? If not good, maybe better than the alternative?

Wait a minute! That labeling is slapping you around a little bit, getting you all flustered so that you don’t look further past the grotesque makeup and ill-fitting dress to see what is going on. Get ready for the smooch and scooch, because it is essentially all hogwash and fiddle faddle.

Here are the components of a modern industrially produced chicken that one might see displayed “proudly” on the label at a store:

·        Organic

·        Pasture raised

·        Free range

Despite the ridiculously low requirements to be labeled as an organic product, 99% of chicken is going to be non-organic. I believe the reason behind that is because non-GMO feed is going to be difficult and expensive to obtain nationwide, and raising chickens in a long shed without the use of antibiotics is going to result in a much higher death rate due to sickness from overcrowding and low to no air flow. Another reason might be because when the consumer buys chicken at fast food or a restaurant no one is looking to see what they are eating, or it is not clearly announced on a screen or menu. I honestly don’t know of any american fast food places that use organic chicken in their food.

Looking past the verbiage and seeing what is actually going on is going to be a reoccurring theme, so why not start with the USDA description of organic:

“… require that the animals are fed 100% organic and non-GMO feed and forage, not given growth hormones or antibiotics and have the ability to graze on organic pasture”.

Okay, that sounds pretty good. I think of organic as a term that suggests something as close to naturally unadulterated as possible, which is hilariously so far off the mark that it makes me want to scream Sufferin’ Succotash! The consumer can’t even be 100% certain that the feed being given to the chicken is non-GMO, much less the rest of the requirements being followed with any kind of morals or honesty.

Page 18 of the USDA’s Guide for Organic Livestock Producers states:

The USDA organic regulations explicitly prohibit continuous total confinement of live-stock, including nonruminant animals such as pigs and poultry. Maintaining vegetation cover is a challenge for pasture-pig production. However, the regulations do not require that pigs or poultry be raised on pasture. Rather, they require, “ … access to the outdoors, shade, shelter, exercise areas, fresh air, clean water for drinking, and direct sunlight, suitable to the species, its stage of life, the climate, and the environment … ”

Growing poultry on pasture is a lot of work, I will be the first to admit it; however, seeing the USDA wash down the requirements due to pigs and chickens being naturally destructive makes me want to give them a soft blanket and big ol’ pacifier because its “weally, weally hawd to waise animals on pastuwe.” (Put finger to lips and proceed to flick it up and down while making the wblwbwblwbwlwblwblwbwlwbwlbwlwbwl noise.)

Does it seem like I am being a little mean to the USDA? To play devil’s advocate against myself, it does state that the chickens must have access to pretty much everything EXCEPT pasture. They have access to everything else listed above…right?

Nope. Incorrectamundo amigos. Outdoor time is a small, enclosed shaded structure stuck at intervals along the side of the long shed in which a small percentage of the poultry will ever even access because modern Cornish Cross chickens choose to lie in filth and next to feed troughs. Those that do go into “the yard” scratch on depressingly dead soil and leave because there is nothing worthwhile there anyway, not even a pair of dumbbells.  

Fresh air and direct sunlight? Nope. Indirect sunlight and semi-fresh air is good enough.

Exercise is a moot point because the birds are genetically designed to not move very much so that they pack on as much weight as possible…also, no dumbbells.

Shade and clean drinking water are the only two requirements that tend to be constant according to what it means to be an “organic” chicken. That is because it is more cost effective to maintain clean drinking water than treat the many diseases that are spread through dirty water, and shade is easy when they never leave the long shed.

Now that the validity of the term “organic” has had its make-up smudged enough that the face of the USDA’s bare minimum can be seen, why don’t we take a look at the “free range” aspect of labelling. Surely something as simple as free range couldn’t be misconstrued to mean anything else!

I can just hear the evil music playing

Oh look, the animals must have access to the outdoors for 51% of their lives. There is some more of that ol’ Looney Tune wording again, trying to fool the consumer into thinking that free range is going to be BETTER than organic; but in reality it is, at best, still the same thing as organic. At its worst the birds now don’t even have to be fed Non-GMO or be antibiotic free.  

In short, if the birds have shaded porches and the door to said shaded porches must be open, then they can be labelled as free range; add non-GMO and organically labeled feed to the CAFO and now they can be both organic and free range with relative ease. Forget the fact that there is absolutely no drive on the bird’s part to go out to the yard; not only because there is nothing there, but also the birds are designed to not move. The mere access to the outdoors allows the bird to be labelled as a free range product though, but it does absolutely nothing to improve the life of the bird nor the value to the consumer. It is just another penny-pinching ploy designed to benefit the company’s stock portfolio by a percentage of an iota.

Us poor Fudds keep falling for it too…but wait, what is that? A tunnel on the side of a mountain leading to distant luscious green pastures where whole and healthy chickens are beckoning us to come and play in the pasture with them! Above the tunnel is a sign that says “Pasture Raised”, and right as we reach maximum speed at the mouth of the tunnel WAM! Rigid as a board we vibrate up and down as Bugs sidles up close with a paint bucket and roller, smiling crookedly as he asks “ehhhh, whats up doc?”

It's okay, you can fall to the ground and start crying in frustration. Elmer does all the time.

Pasture raised chicken labeling has no federal regulations. At all.

It is 100% a term that industrial growers have stolen and started adding to their packaging because the optics about pasture raised chicken are beginning to be recognized by a growing awareness in the public thanks to articles online, documentaries, and people like myself who market poultry online in different formats. In my dive into this rabbit hole of looney labeling, I did find one tiny sliver of realistic hope in the form of 3^rd party verification that seems to do a ton of investigative work into which farms are actually producing a legitimate pasture raised chicken.  Both the HFAC* and the Real Organic Project* do farm research before allowing their stamp of approval to be added onto packaging, the kick to the teeth is that the average consumer doesn’t know about it. Take this Sprouts chicken for example:

That is some solid looking labeling there! Look at all the stuff on there promising that the chicken you are buying is as close to a real farm as you’ll ever get. If that is the case though, where is the 3^rd party verification? Why does Sprouts proudly list where they get local produce from, but there is nothing about where they source their poultry? Why are they a whole dollar more than the same thing from Raley’s?

Psssst, come here…

IT IS BECAUSE THEY ARE VERY LIKELY LYING TO YOU ABOUT THE WAY THOSE CHICKENS ARE RAISED!!!

To the depth of my soul, I despise the daily theft committed by good-guy costume-wearing corporations and their government-ran lackey affiliates like the USDA and others. I am disgusted that some looney tune-watching half-farmer like myself has to take hours out of my life to learn and verify everything that I have written above, and yet that is the cancerous stage of capitalism that we find ourselves; where American corporations have to resort to underhanded tactics to sell what is a complete lie to the American consumer. I implore you to search out local small farms that let you visit and can speak about the way they are raising animals and why it is legitimately the best way to do it.

*I do not endorse, nor am I endorsed, by the third party affiliates mentioned above that perform farm ratings. In fact, the seeming closeness of the HFAC and the USDA, along with some of the farms they have certified humane, leaves much doubt in my mind as to their accountability.