Afghanistan: Americans Want Antibiotic-Free Chicken, And The Industry Is Listening --- In an age when consumers want transparency in how their food is produced, meat producers are under the microscope. -- And the meat industry is responding: Antibiotic-free chicken is showing up everywhere you look. -- Industry leviathans Perdue Farms and Tyson Foods have both come out with their own antibiotic-free brands of chicken — something that might have seemed practically unthinkable several years back. In fact, this week Perdue Farms is launching its first consumer advertising campaign for the Harvestland product line, which the company says is the nation's leading antibiotic-free brand of chicken. The ads urge shoppers to "eat like our ancestors." --- The wave of naturalness is also hitting restaurants. Just last week, chicken-and-waffle-fry purveyor Chick-fil-A announced it will completely phase out the use of chickens raised with antibiotics within five years. With some 1,800 retail outlets nationwide, the restaurant bills itself as the country' s largest chicken chain by domestic sales volume, which makes Chick-fil-A's decision big news in the industry. --- As we've reported in our series Pharmed Food, use of antibiotics in livestock, especially in the low doses fiven for growth promotion, could lead to more antibiotic-resistant bacteria in animals and, eventually, in people too. Last fall, the Food and Drug Administration released long-awaited voluntary guidelines that are intended to end the use of medically important antibiotics to fuel growth or improve feed efficiency within three years. --- "I think it is good for public health that the industry is switching from antibiotic use," Martin says, "because we consume a lot more chicken than any other meat." --- One of the challenges of raising chickens free of antibiotics comes while the birds are still just eggs at the hatchery. As Tom Philpott reported recently for Mother Jones, eggs that will go on to become broiler birds (the kind raised for their meat) are routinely injected with a small dose of the antibiotic gentamicin before getting vaccinated against a common, deadly herpes virus that attacks chickens. The idea is that the antibiotic sterilizes the vaccination site. And guess what? Under USDA rules, even eggs that will go on to be sold as organic chickens can receive this dose of antibiotics on their first day of life. -- Of course, raising birds without antibiotics doesn't address all of the issues that critics raise with industrial chicken production. For instance, Consumer Reports' Rangan notes, it doesn't necessarily mean that chickens will be kept in cleaner or roomier houses.