Review
------
“In this well-written exposé, McKenna (Superbug)
dissects the controversy of the routine use of antibiotics to
ten chicken, which has led to the rise of drug-resistant
bacteria…Throughout, McKenna offers spot-on commentary on the
dangerous additives in chickens and concludes on a relatively
hopeful note.” –Publishers Weekly
“This superb scientific exposé by journalist Maryn McKenna
skewers the use of growth-promoting antibiotics in chicken
feed.”–Nature
“Solid, eye-opening public journalism.”–Kirkus
“In Big Chicken, McKenna chronicles in exquisite detail how
humanity went from developing antibiotics to prevent the world’s
worst bacteria, to standing on the verge of an onslaught of
unstoppable diseases.”–PBS.org
"Journalist and author Maryn McKenna...describes the consequences
of decades spent feeding chicken antibiotics, in terms of chicken
flavor, poultry well-being, and, most significantly, human
."
–The Atlantic
"A twisting tale that science writer Maryn McKenna elegantly
unspools in her extraordinary new book. –Fortune
“Maryn McKenna, author of Superbugs and the recent Big Chicken —
have reported, the use of antibiotics in agriculture has resulted
in an army of superbugs.” –HuffingtonPost
“Maryn McKenna lays out in details in her superb new book, Big
Chicken, it was clear by the 1960s that using antibiotics this
way contributed significantly to the resistance problem.” –Mother
Jones
“…a book that may make you put down that drumstick and reconsider
your relationship with one of America’s favorite foods.” –The
Washington Post
“As Maryn McKenna details in her fun, fascinating and sometimes
frightening new book Big Chicken, the of this nationwide
breeding challenge was to create, you guessed it, a big chicken.”
–Scientific American
“Maryn McKenna’s Big Chicken (National Geographic) shows how
adding antibiotics to chicken feed after World War II brought
cheap protein to the table and a fast-growing public
crisis—antibiotic resistance—to the world.” –Bloomberg
“The case of chicken’s shift from a local delicacy to an everyday
protein source sheds light on both the history and the future of
how we eat.” –Civil Eats
“In her words, public journalist Maryn McKenna says she
wrote the book “Big Chicken” in hopes of improving the quality of
the chicken consumed in the United States.”
–Food Safety News
“In her book “Big Chicken,” journalist Maryn McKenna tells the
story of how Rick Schiller was infected with a drug-resistant
strain of salmonella, a foodborne illness, during the Foster
Farms outbreak in 2013 that ened hundreds of people. Years
after almost losing his life, Schiller continues to struggle with
medical problems.” –St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“Maryn McKenna has led the charge against rampant antibiotic use
and the resultant superbugs. Here, in a page-turning story, she
tells how chicken became the symbol of factory farming, and why
we can finally be hopeful this dreadful era is drawing to a
close. A must-read for anyone who cares about the quality of food
and the welfare of animals.” —Mark Bittman, author of How to Cook
Everything
“Ms McKenna shows how, for decades, the demand for “meat for the
price of bread” has overridden other concerns.” –The Economist
“McKenna zeroes in on the industry’s longtime reliance on
antibiotics in order to quickly grow nice and plump birds for our
dining pleasure.” –Atlanta Journal Constitution
“Big Chicken is a fascinating story of big food and the price we
pay for cheap food.” —Tom Colicchio, Chef of Crafted Hospitality
and Co-founder of Food Policy Action
“If you think raising farm animals on antibiotics is nothing to
worry about, Big Chicken will change your mind in a hurry.
McKenna, a compelling writer, tells a gripping story: how
antibiotics helped transform chicken-raising from backyard to
industrial. Her account of the profit-driven politics that
allowed widespread antibiotic resistance should be required
reading for anyone who cares about food and , and
especially for congressional representatives who have
consistently failed to take action on this critical issue.”
—Marion Nestle, professor of tion, food studies, and public
at New York University, and author of Food Politics
“A modern Upton Sinclair, Maryn McKenna explains how our food is
actually produced today. Big Chicken is highly readable,
shocking, and opens our eyes to the risks we have been incurring.
A most important book!” —Martin Blaser, MD, author of Missing
Microbes, Professor of Medicine and Microbiology at New York
University
“Always curious, never pedantic, Maryn McKenna shows empathy for
man and sympathy for fowl, while giving voice to scientists and
farmers who have concluded that antibiotic-drugged chickens
imperil the American diet. Big Chicken is beautifully written,
rendering her research and the agitations of reformers all that
more persuasive.” —John T. Edge, author of The Potlikker Papers
“You will never look at BBQ chicken wings or buckets of nuggets
the same way again after you read Maryn McKenna’s meticulously
researched, riveting Big Chicken—and you shouldn’t. After all,
the only reason that chicken is so darned is that it was fed
antibiotics every day of its life. Brava, McKenna, for a tour de
force of environmental, science and food writing.” — Laurie
Garrett, Pulitzer Prize winning writer and author of The Coming
Plague
“Maryn McKenna's enthralling book is ostensibly about chicken
but is really about us: the foolish choices we have made and the
happier, ier future that awaits us all if we liberate this
most American of foods from the drug fix we have imposed on it.
Her deep, careful reporting respects every nuance but builds to a
clarion call that is as persuasive as it is profound. So let the
cry echo throughout the land, from the egg farms of the Delmarva
Peninsula to the bistros of San Francisco: Let chicken be chicken
again!” —Dan Fagin, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Toms
River
“This is a warning: Read this book and you will never look at
bucket of fried chicken the same. In this tour de force,
investigative journalist Maryn McKenna hunts down the history of
antibiotics in the food chain, showing the missteps and collusion
that brought us to a worldwide epidemic of antibiotic resistant
bacteria that could undermine our most powerful public
tool. Every now and then I read a book that I believe holds the
power to radically remake the world for the better. McKenna’s Big
Chicken is just such a book.” —Anna Lappé, author of Diet of a
Hot Planet
“Maryn McKenna is one of the best journalists in America
reporting on public . In her latest book, Big Chicken, she
shows how modern chicken production and drug resistant infections
are part of the same problem. This important book is a must-read
for anyone wanting to understand why our approach to producing
food is unsustainable and the changes we must make if we don't
want to return to a pre-antibiotic era. I love chicken wings but
I will never again look at them in the same way.” —Richard E.
Besser, M.D., President and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson
Foundation
“Drug-resistant infections are among the greatest challenges of
our time, threatening the foundations of modern medicine. Maryn
McKenna makes this challenge personal and compelling,
illustrating how antibiotic resistance has been developing, why
we should care, and what we should all demand if society is to
address it.” —Dr. Jeremy Farrar, Director of The Wellcome Trust
“Maryn McKenna is the leading journalist worldwide on antibiotic
overuse and resistance, and in BIG CHICKEN she tells a crucial
part of that story: the vast misuse and overuse of antibiotics in
industrial farming. Antibiotic resistance is a global emergency,
and agricultural use of antibiotics is a key part of that crisis.
This clear, urgent explanation of how we got here and what’s at
risk should be required reading for anyone who wants to see
change happen.” —Lance B. Price, Ph.D., Founder and Director of
the Antibiotic Resistance Action Center
“Maryn McKenna has told an important and frightening story — and
told it well. As McKenna makes clear, getting antibiotics out of
routine chicken production will make our food tastier and safer.”
—Thomas R. Frieden, MD, former director of the U.S. Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention
“Agribusiness's headlong quest to put "a chicken in every pot"
has come at a tremendous cost: Feeding modern medicine's most
valuable antibiotics to y farm animals has made these
wonder drugs impotent, resulting in thousands on once-preventable
human deaths each year. Through solid research and compelling
narration, McKenna tells the story of how we allowed this to
happen and points to ways to stop the unfolding
catastrophe--before it's too late.” —Barry Estabrook, author of
Pig Tales
“Big Chicken gathers a colorful cast of characters to piece
together the history behind our culture’s massive overuse of
antibiotics in chicken production, illuminating the unintended
consequence of drug resistance around the globe. Through stories
of place-based agriculture from France to Georgia, McKenna leads
us toward an alternative future of food that relies on farmer
knowledge, promotes biodiversity and results in great-tasting,
antibiotic-free chicken.” —Jill Isenbarger, CEO of Stone Barns
Center for Food and Agriculture
“I encourage everyone to read Big Chicken and learn more about
where their food comes from, and more importantly, how it is
raised. Maryn McKenna’s book offers a persuasive understanding as
to why it is imperative to support what is best for the animal,
the farmer, public , the environment, and the customer.”
—Paul Willis, founder of Niman Ranch Pork Company
Read more ( javascript:void(0) )
About the Author
----------------
MARYN MCKENNA is an award-winning journalist and the
author of two critically accled books, Superbug and Beating
Back the Devil. She writes for Wired, National Geographic,
Scientific American, Slate, Nature, The Atlantic, the Guardian,
National Geographic magazine's online science salon Phenomena,
and others, and is a senior fellow of the Schuster Institute for
Investigative Journalism at Brandeis University.
Read more ( javascript:void(0) )