Marketplace on CBC did a show recently about the amount of antibiotic-resistant bacteria found on the chicken Canadians are eating.
They tested 100 samples from a number of our national grocery chains and 67 per cent of the samples contained antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
Some samples were resistant to as many as eight different antibiotics.
They even found antibiotic-resistant bacteria on chicken raised on antibiotic-free farms and on organic farms. Although these samples had less strains than the samples from regular farms.
An organic farmer on the show said that one of the reasons this may be happening is that there are no organic chicks available on the market, so organic farmers have to start their growing process with eggs that may have received antibiotics before hatching. Then these farmers take ten weeks to raise these chicks rather than the five weeks it takes chicks to grow to full size on the antibiotic-using farms.
The Marketplace show explained that the farms that use antibiotics when growing their chickens don’t just use them for sick chickens but also for healthy chickens to ensure they don’t get sick and to help them grow bigger quicker.
At the moment, there are no limits to the amount of antibiotics Canadian farmers can use when raising their chickens. And some of the antibiotics they are utilizing are antibiotics that are prescribed for pregnant women and children.
So what does all this mean for the Canadian consumer? There are people who are getting sick with superbugs, and they cannot be treated by many of the antibiotics on the market because their superbug is antibiotic-resistant.
Some doctors are worried that antibiotics will eventually stop working all together and this could lead to our society returning to times when otherwise healthy people died of an infectious disease like pneumonia because there was no treatment. No antibiotics to cure them.
Should we be buying the antibiotic-free chicken offered at our local stores with the hope that there are less antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria found on these products?
If we want to make a change in the way the food we feed our family is farmed, we have to voice our opinion to our Member of Parliament. You can find your representative by typing in your postal code at the following link.
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