Tyson, Perdue, and Pilgrim's Pride Pump Chickens Full of Salt

If you think baked chicken breasts are healthy, think again. Getting those breasts plump and juicy oftentimes requires a ton of sodium. A California dairy and poultry farm has renewed its rightful crusade against the chicken industry's gross, largely unknown practice of "plumping" chicken, or injecting fresh chicken with saltwater or chicken stock before selling it to hungry consumers.

Foster Farms, a West Coast farm which began its campaign against the practice in 2009, will award a year's supply of groceries and other prizes to the Facebook fan who enters its new contest and tells the most people about plumping. Top chicken companies like Tyson Foods Inc., Perdue Farms, and Pilgrim's Pride Inc. have plumped poultry for years to increase and standardize the weight of their chicken. While Foster's contest is definitely a publicity stunt to promote its own chicken, the farm's message is legit: Let's shut down the dishonest, unhealthy practice of plumping that hurts our wallets and our health.

Most consumers that peruse grocery store meat sections or order chicken in restaurants have no idea they've buying chicken stuffed with salt solutions. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) remain remarkably lax on package labeling and allow chicken companies to sell plumped poultry as "all-natural." So a whopping one-third of chicken sold in America is plumped without any disclaimer or difference in cost, according to the Wall Street Journal. Foster's surveyed 1,000 Californians last year and found that 63 percent knew nothing about plumping. Chicken companies claim customers prefer the flavor of added salt, but it's tough to have a preference when we don't realize it's there in the first place.

Even worse, plumped chicken negatively effects consumers' health. High salt intake leads to high blood pressure and heart and kidney disease. In each four-ounce serving of plumped chicken, we intake the same amount of salt as in an order of fast-food French fries, a whopping 200 to 400 milligrams of sodium in each serving. Untouched fresh chicken contains only 45 to 60 milligrams of sodium per serving. The average American eats 90 pounds of chicken each year (about 360 four-ounce servings). That's potentially a serving of French fries each day disguised in what many believe to be a healthy protein.

About 77 percent of the salt we eat comes from processed foods like "all-natural" chicken, and we can't even taste it. No wonder nine out of 10 Americans eat more than double the daily recommended intake, or about 3,400 milligrams, according to a new study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Nutrition and medical councils have recently upped pressure on the FDA to force food corporations to cut the salt content in their products. But for now, most processed goods continue to come packed with sodium.

Clear, accurate labels would also help consumers determine how much salt we're consuming and how much money we're wasting on it. Inspired by Foster Farms' campaign, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) and others have joined the effort to pressure the USDA to tighten regulations on labeling plumped chicken as plumped, not "all-natural."

But if we're really concerned about consumers' health, this misleading practice should be banned altogether. Sign our petition to top chicken producers Tyson, Perdue, and Pilgrim's Pride and demand they quit stuffing their chicken with saltwater and other additives.

Photo credit: BrokenSphere via Wikimedia Commons