Written by PETA
It seems like only yesterday I was writing about the nationwide salmonella outbreak and massive egg recall. But now it's time to move on to the latest food safety scare: The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) just shut down a Tyson Foods meat-processing plant in Buffalo, N.Y., after food safety inspectors found that Tyson hadn't cleaned up its act since August 23, when it recalled 380,000 pounds of deli meat that was potentially contaminated with harmful Listeria bacteria.
Tyson doesn't exactly have a reputation for being hygienic—or humane. PETA investigators have even caught Tyson employees breaking birds' necks and urinating on the slaughter line. Watch the video from PETA's undercover investigation and see for yourself.
Perhaps this latest scandal will convince the USDA to take stronger enforcement action against Tyson. Not only is the company torturing birds, it's also putting the public at risk for food poisoning.
Written by Heather Moore
Oops, they did it again. Tyson Fresh Meats, a subsidiary of Tyson Foods, has been fined $2 million for pumping untreated animal waste (to the tune of 5 million gallons a day) into the Missouri River. The reason for the fine is that they agreed in 2002 to knock it off and, well, they didn't.
It's a given that cows on factory farms are forced to live most of their lives in feces-filled holding pens, and it was so nice of Tyson to share that crap with everyone who relies on the Missouri river for drinking and bathing water.
And if you think this is an isolated case, think again. In 2002, a Cargill-owned hog farm was fined $1 million for illegally dumping animal waste, and Smithfield Foods, the world's largest hog producer, has been fined $12.6 million for polluting the Pagan River, just to name a couple of examples.
Of course, water pollution is just one of the many ways that factory farming wreaks havoc on the environment. Don't even get us started on greenhouse-gas emissions, deforestation, and wasted fossil fuels.
Written by Alisa Mullins
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