Harming animals harms us

Mo Gilligan soon discovers that the harm doesn’t end inside the animal factories.

First there’s the health impact from eating a diet heavy in ultra processed foods. Ten days into the experiment Mo felt sluggish and experienced regular digestive issues. He went on to experience brain fog, low mood, and by the end he’d gained half a stone of weight. Mo was also found to have increased his average blood glucose level, which would put him at risk of developing type 2 diabetes, a condition in his family history, if the trend continued. This is an outcome Dr Enam Abood described as being “absolutely caused by the food” Mo was eating.

Then there’s the ill effects caused by poultry pollution. When Mo visits a mega farm hotspot in Delaware, USA, he finds communities breathing in a “toxic stew of gases” caused by ammonia pollution from the poultry units. There is also growing public concern about the health of communities living next to factory farming hotspots across the UK, which we’ve documented through our Ammonia Map.

A hugely damaging industry

As outlined by Philip Lymbery in Big Chicken “cheap chicken is far from cheap”. Animals, our health, and the planet all pay the price.

After investigating giant poultry producing corporations, Mo Gilligan said:

It does give you a real understanding of the corners that are cut to make X amount of money and it doesn't matter who is in their way. And it starts to make you think, if this is happening now, what is that going to look like in five, ten, fifteen years’ time.

This is a question that the UK Government must urgently consider. The promised Poultry Sector Growth Plan is set to expand this already highly damaging industry. A backwards move that would lock millions of sentient animals in an unsustainable intensive livestock production system and put our health and the environment at risk.

Speaking in the documentary, our Global CEO, Philip Lymbery, said:

Fried chicken is everywhere and the animals, they have to come from somewhere. But what's going on behind closed doors is something which the industry likes to keep away from the public eye.

Factory farming, the mega farming of animals, started in the US, but it's very much now deeply ingrained in the UK, there are now more than a thousand mega farms, hidden away but nevertheless on the rise.

The mega farming of animals is environmentally hugely damaging. The chickens are raised on grain, including soya that comes from rainforest areas, causing deforestation. And in the UK, artificial fertilisers and pesticides are causing widespread decline in our soil, our soil is literally disappearing. Scientists tell us we have just decades left before our soil is gone. No soil no food. Game over.  

Holding KFC to account

Big Chicken ends by highlighting the people all around the country pushing back against KFC’s broken promise to stop selling Frankenchickens. Please add your voice.

Netflix Documentary Exposes Big Chicken