Plucked!: The Truth About Chicken

(Paperback)

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'This is an important book. You can't understand the radical cheapening of food, with all its unpleasant effects, for farm animals and our most cherished rural landscapes, until you begin to understand the industrialisation of chicken. Industrial chicken is now displacing many more sustainable farming systems, driving them out of business. This book explains how that happened and why we should all be worried about it and demand change' James Rebanks, author of The Shepherd's Life

Plucked! examines everything that has gone wrong in the modern agricultural system: overuse of antibiotics, threats to the environment, violations of animal welfare, destruction of farming communities, disruption of international trade and delivery of over-processed, obesity-promoting, nutritionally hollow food.

Drawing on years of research into the 'big chicken' industry, acclaimed science writer Maryn McKenna uncovers the people searching for solutions and seeking to return chicken to a sustainable and honoured place on our plate and asking whether, with reform, chicken can safely feed the world. Rich with characters who together propelled the story of chicken's unintended consequences, Plucked! will reveal how the antibiotic era created modern agriculture. It is an eye-opening exploration of how the world's most popular meat came to define so much more than just chicken nuggets.

Reviews

A superb scientific expos * Nature *
Drug-resistant infections are among the greatest challenges of our time. Maryn McKenna makes this challenge personal and compelling, illustrating how antibiotic resistance has been developing, why we should care, and what we should all demand to address it -- Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust
A must-read for anyone who cares about the quality of food and the welfare of animals -- Mark Bittman, author of How To Cook Everything
A modern Upton Sinclair, Maryn McKenna explains how our food is actually produced today. Plucked! is highly readable, shocking, and opens our eyes to the risks we have been incurring. A most important book! -- Martin Blaser, MD, author of Missing Microbes
If you think raising farm animals on antibiotics is nothing to worry about, Plucked! will change your mind in a hurry. Maryn McKenna's account of the profit-driven politics that allowed widespread antibiotic resistance should be required reading for anyone who cares about food and health -- Marion Nestle, author of Food Politics
A real-life thriller. With vivid story-telling and forensic research, McKenna uncovers the hidden consequences of chicken becoming America's favourite meat. Plucked! charts the dramatic rise from backyard bird to every day meal with a sting-in-the-tail: cheap chicken comes at a heavy price. The same conditions that enable tiny chicks to become oven-ready in just 42 days are also helping to squander the medical miracle of antibiotics. For the sake of decent food today, and effective medicines tomorrow, if you only read one book, this should be it -- Philip Lymbery, author of Farmageddon, Chief Executive, Compassion in World Farming
McKenna meticulously exposes everything that has gone wrong in the modern agricultural system: overuse of antibiotics, threats to the environment, violations of animal welfare, disruption of international trade and production of over-processed, obesity-promoting, nutritionally hollow food . . . an engrossing, vital read * Cape Times *

Author Bio

Maryn McKenna is an award-winning science and medical writer and author of Superbug and Beating Back the Devil: On the Front Lines with the Disease Detectives of the Epidemic Intelligence Service (named one of the top ten science books of 2004 by Amazon). She currently works as a contributing writer for the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota and is a media fellow at the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. She is a graduate of Georgetown University and the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, and has also studied at Harvard Medical School. She lives in Minneapolis.