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Cover
story Food
facts
- Poultry processing has almost doubled the injury and illness
rate in U.S. workplaces, with a worse injury rate than trades like coal mining
and construction.
- Meatpacking plants, at 26.7 per 100 employees, had the highest
nonfatal injury and illness rates among industries in the year 2000.
- After reports about the spread of mad cow disease in Europe,
six out of 10 Americans polled said they were concerned that the disease may
affect beef here. Nearly 20 percent of Americans reduced their beef consumption
at that time.
- As much as 8 percent of the weight of supermarket chicken is
not meat, but a fecal soup from water used in processing chickens
into meat. If the U.S. Department of Agriculture were to repeal the 8 percent
rule, Tyson Chicken alone would lose about $40 million in annual gross profits.
- The creation of a single hamburger patty (often containing the
flesh of up to 100 different cows) uses enough fossil fuel to power a car 20
miles and enough water for 17 warm showers.
- If water used by the meat industry were not subsidized by
taxpayers, common hamburger meat would cost $35 a pound.
- Sixty-one percent of U.S. adults and 20 percent of U.S.
children are overweight.
- One-fourth of Americans eat a fast food meal at least once a
day.
- One out of every nine health care dollars in the United States
is spent on conditions related to excess weight.
National Catholic Reporter, May 24,
2002
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