We've already heard that organically raised chickens carry less salmonella, and now a new study shows that organically raised poultry may offer another benefit - lower levels of drug-resistant bacteria than conventionally raised poultry and poultry farms.
The new study, published in Environmental Health Perspectives features findings that suggest that when large-scale U.S. poultry farms transition to organic and voluntary remove antibiotics from their practices, the poultry raised on that farm have a lower prevalence of antibiotic-resistant and MDR Enterococcus.
This study makes a compelling case for organically raised meat, especially when you consider recent FDA estimates that US livestock receives about 29 million pounds of antibiotics per year. When humans eat meat raised on antibiotics, bacteria resistance to those antibiotics can be passed to humans - not just through the actual meat, but through the environment as well.
It's always good to have another selling point that you can pass on to customers, and if you're raising organic poultry, this is a great one.
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