In June it ran an expose by NPR contributor Daniel Zwerdling about factory farming of chickens called "View To Kill" replete with a photo of chickens hanging from hooks to be processed.
"Spokesmen at the five biggest companies refused to show me the farms where their suppliers raise the chickens you eat, so that I could see firsthand how they treat them," writes Zwerdling. "They refused to show me the slaughterhouses, so I could see how the companies dispatch them. Executives even refused to talk to me about how they raise and kill chickens."
Undaunted, Zwerdling discovers that 2% of US processed chickens,180 million a year, are "red birds" which the National Chicken Council admits are boiled alive in defeathering tanks because they miss the assembly line blade that should kill them.
"When this happens, the chickens flop, scream, kick, and their eyeballs pop out of their heads," wrote Virgil Butler a "live hanger" in a Grannis, AK Tyson plant in 2003 in a sworn affidavit. "Then, they often come out the other end with broken bones and disfigured and missing body parts because they've struggled so much in the tank."
But Richard L. Lobb, the spokesperson for the National Chicken Council was annoyed at Zwerdling's interest in the boiling mishaps. "This process is over in a matter of minutes if not in seconds," he says with a sigh.
With mainstream magazines suddenly interested in animal welfare, factory farmers no doubt worry what's next. Sports Illustrated exposes veal crates? Forbes visits a Chinese fur farm?
But they shouldn't.
On the opposite page from Zwerdling's article in Gourmet is a recipe for Grilled Lobster and Potatoes with Basil Vinaigrette that instructs the cooks to, "Plunge lobsters headfirst into a 12-quart pot of boiling salted water."
The one to one and a half pound lobsters are alive.
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