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I have not yet confessed my ignorance about one aspect of my diet. I have long favored chicken livers, and I thought my only problems were their cholesterol content and finding fresh livers. However, about the time I was born chicken raisers began feeding their birds arsenic to combat coccidiosis, a parasitic disease. I was ignorant of this until ex-Austinite Tom Philpott's post at Grist. The arsenic is part of an organic molecule, organic in the chemical sense of the word, such as this one approved for use in chicken feed in 1944.
This compound, Roxarsone, was sold in the US by Alpharma, a subsidiary of Pfizer, but no longer. Obviously this chemical doesn't kill chickens when they eat it, because the arsenic is bound up in an organic molecule, as opposed to the free, inorganic form of Arsenic and Old Lace fame. Withdrawing feed containing organic arsenic five days before slaughter was considered an adequate safety margin for humans. Unsurprisingly, I don't have any symptoms of arsenic poisoning after eating these chicken livers for about four decades, but I am happy to have this source of arsenic out of my diet. The FDA confirmed that some of the arsenic bound up in this and other organic molecules is converted to more poisonous and carcinogenic forms and can be found in chicken livers, kidneys and muscle.
It is not even necessary to use one of these arsenic compounds if you let your chickens range free like Jim Richardson of Richardson Farms, but when I asked if anybody had questioned him on this subject after the national media covered the subject, he answered in the negative. Maybe I'll ask him again now that a few months have passed. I'll probably see him tomorrow morning at the Sunset Valley Farmers Market.
Note: I took part of the title of this blog from Tom Laskawy's post at Grist.
Finally, Ben K. Green has an interesting story about how he was defrauded as a teenage stock dealer during the Great Depression. In this case it was old horses fed inorganic arsenic, which plumped them up and made their coat look good. The story appears in Horse Tradin', pp. 101-109, and in Horse Conformation.
This compound, Roxarsone, was sold in the US by Alpharma, a subsidiary of Pfizer, but no longer. Obviously this chemical doesn't kill chickens when they eat it, because the arsenic is bound up in an organic molecule, as opposed to the free, inorganic form of Arsenic and Old Lace fame. Withdrawing feed containing organic arsenic five days before slaughter was considered an adequate safety margin for humans. Unsurprisingly, I don't have any symptoms of arsenic poisoning after eating these chicken livers for about four decades, but I am happy to have this source of arsenic out of my diet. The FDA confirmed that some of the arsenic bound up in this and other organic molecules is converted to more poisonous and carcinogenic forms and can be found in chicken livers, kidneys and muscle.
It is not even necessary to use one of these arsenic compounds if you let your chickens range free like Jim Richardson of Richardson Farms, but when I asked if anybody had questioned him on this subject after the national media covered the subject, he answered in the negative. Maybe I'll ask him again now that a few months have passed. I'll probably see him tomorrow morning at the Sunset Valley Farmers Market.
Note: I took part of the title of this blog from Tom Laskawy's post at Grist.
Finally, Ben K. Green has an interesting story about how he was defrauded as a teenage stock dealer during the Great Depression. In this case it was old horses fed inorganic arsenic, which plumped them up and made their coat look good. The story appears in Horse Tradin', pp. 101-109, and in Horse Conformation.
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