Chickens are just rats with a good reputation.

--from the movie Staying Together (1989)

Chicken consumption has been on the rise in this country, thanks in large part to the bird's carefully nurtured reputation as a healthy alternative to beef. We Americans have gotten the message that for nutritious, low-fat eating, white meat is far superior to red.

But like those car ads with the fine print, this message should come with a disclaimer. It is true that certain cuts of chicken may hold an ever-so-slight nutrition advantage over certain cuts of beef. But chicken hardly qualifies as health food, as the poultry industry would like you to believe.

In fact, chicken in general has just as much fat and cholesterol as beef. And it is contaminated with the same Pandora's box of pesticides, antibiotics, hormones, and preservatives. Hardly what you'd expect to find in a health food.

Fowl? Foul!

The neatly packaged breasts, thighs, and drumsticks that you see in your supermarket's poultry case belie the torturous process that got them there. These parts usually come from stressed-out, diseased animals whose short lives played out as unnatural nightmares.

Commercial (that is, nonorganic) chickens are raised on so-called factory farms, where they're crowded into close quarters and deprived of fresh air and exercise. Of course, the goal of factory farms is not to make the birds comfortable but to fatten them up and get them to market as soon as possible.

Because of their squalid, disease-breeding living conditions, commercial chickens are routinely given antibiotics and other drugs to keep them "healthy." The Food and Drug Administration has approved some 2,000 chemicals, including medicines, for use in chicken feed. But that's not necessarily all the feed contains: Mixed in with the corn and soybeans may be cardboard, sawdust, used newspapers, and even recycled animal feces.

Even medication can't protect the birds from the devastating effects of a nutrient-poor diet and an unnatural, stressful "lifestyle." A high percentage of commercial chickens suffer from a variety of health problems, including cancerous tumors, brain damage, kidney damage, anemia, blindness, stunted growth, physical deformities, muscle weakness, impaired sexual development, and lethargy.

Each year an unbelievable 14,000 tons of poultry must be condemned, primarily because of cancerous tumors. What happens to meat that doesn't make the grade? It's processed into animal feed.

Poisons on Your Plate

As for the chicken that does make the U.S. Department of Agriculture grade, it retains residues of all the toxic and nontoxic garbage that the bird ate over the course of its lifetime. And those residues get passed along to you.

When you eat chicken, you unwittingly take in unhealthy doses of antibiotics and growth-stimulating hormones. Both of these substances are known to suppress the human immune system. And a weakened immune system, as you know, accelerates the aging process.

Eating chicken also exposes you to pesticides and fungicides, which are sprayed on the grains that eventually wind up in chicken feed. As you'll recall from chapter 6, these chemicals become concentrated in an animal's fatty tissues--a vain if valiant attempt by the animal's body to protect itself from their toxic effects. The poisons eventually find their way into your body via the grilled chicken sandwich you have for lunch or the chicken and noodles you have for dinner. There they become even more concentrated, as your body stores them in its own fatty tissues.

Once stowed away in your body, pesticides and herbicides wreak all sorts of havoc. These chemicals are toxic to all human cells and bodily systems, with the central nervous system, cardiovascular system, endocrine (hormone) system, and immune system taking the hardest hits. In fact, by suppressing immune function, the poisons increase your risk of a host of health problems, ranging from allergies to cancer. They also accelerate the aging process and stymie Renewal.

Under Suspicion

As if all that weren't bad enough, brace yourself for some more foul news about fowl: Despite ingesting high doses of antibiotics, commercially raised chickens have a disturbingly high rate of bacterial contamination. Some experts estimate that as many as one-third of all birds are tainted, creating ideal conditions for an epidemic of food poisoning and perhaps thousands of deaths annually.

According to a report by the consumer watchdog group Americans for Safe Food, scientists contend that contaminated poultry is responsible for a large percentage of the estimated four billion cases of salmonella and Helicobacter pylori infections that occur each year. Salmonella poisoning produces symptoms such as fever, diarrhea, and vomiting, while H. pylori causes gastritis--an inflammation of the stomach lining--and ulcers. The group also cites a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta linking food-borne illness to approximately 9,000 deaths per year.

The Sad Fat Facts

"Okay, so fowl has its flaws," you say. "Isn't it better for me than beef?"

Well, it certainly has been promoted that way. Clever, captivating ad campaigns suggest that because chicken is lighter in color than beef, it naturally has less fat and cholesterol. Seems logical enough. Unfortunately, it just isn't true.

Compare the numbers: A well-marbled T-bone steak gets 42 percent of its calories from fat, while a chicken thigh with skin gets 56 percent of its calories from fat. Removing the skin lowers the fat content a bit, to 47 percent of calories. (Most of the bird's fat is concentrated in the muscle, which is why removing the skin doesn't make more of a difference.) Still, chicken qualifies as high-fat food. And turkey, in case you were wondering, contains only slightly less fat than chicken.

What's more, the fat in chicken--like the fat in all animal-derived foods--is almost exclusively the saturated kind, which does the most harm to our arteries. In fact, an average chicken supplies more saturated fat than the very leanest cuts of beef. And chicken has just as much cholesterol as beef and pork: about 25 milligrams per ounce.

To round out its poor nutritional profile, chicken has lots of protein but no carbohydrates or fiber. If you were to remove all the fat from chicken (which, incidentally, is impossible to do), you'd be left with almost pure protein. And protein, as you know from chapter 10, depletes bone mass--a precursor to osteoporosis--and overtaxes the kidneys.

Need I say more?

The Bottom Line

The message is clear: If you want to be healthier and live longer, if you want to support Renewal rather than stymie it, you should make every effort to give up chicken for good. No, you don't have to go cold turkey (pardon the pun). Instead, gradually shrink the portion of poultry on your dinner plate, allowing more room for legumes, which are a healthful protein, and the other members of the New Four Food Groups (grains, fruits, and vegetables).

If you simply can't imagine life without chicken, remember: The extent to which you follow the Renewal Anti-Aging Diet determines the extent to which you'll benefit from it. Choose organic poultry over commercially raised birds (the label should say "organic" or "free range"). Rather than featuring chicken as the main event in your meal, try dicing it up into stir-fries and other dishes. Or switch from chicken to turkey. Of all bird meats, turkey breast is lowest in fat.

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Now that chicken has "fowled" out of the Anti-Aging Diet, how will fish fare? The next chapter puts seafood in the Renewal spotlight.