What’s In Your Meat?

The answer you can't afford to miss

Did you know that each year more antibiotics are fed to livestock in North Carolina than are given to all Americans?

Eighty percent of all antibiotics are used on factory farm animals—the animals used in our food supply.

And while using antibiotics to promote growth in these animals might also promote profits for the food and pharmaceutical industries, when our limited supply of antibiotics is used so freely, there are public health consequences.

While a recent alert went out to warn drug makers and shareholders that the agricultural uses of some popular antibiotics may soon be banned, Congresswoman Louise Slaughter took matters into her own hands and sent a letter to over 60 fast food companies, meat producers, meat processors, and grocery store chains asking them to disclose their policies on antibiotic use in meat and poultry production. Almost half of the companies replied to her request, giving public health experts, legislators, and members of the American public insight into the use of antibiotics in food animals.

And it’s tough information to swallow, but the findings from the survey are clear: There is an urgent need to change the practices of American food producers to ensure that antibiotics are used responsibly in the production of food animals.

What follows are top-line survey findings, links to original content, and additional resources.

Key Findings

1. A small number of companies are leading the effort to provide exclusively antibiotic-free meat and poultry products.
Companies such as Whole Foods, Chipotle Mexican Grill, Niman Ranch, Bell & Evans, Coleman Natural Foods, Ozark Mountain Pork, Applegate Farms, and Sweetgreen are leading examples of businesses that have succeeded without relying upon the routine use of antibiotics to produce the meat and poultry that they sell.  According to survey findings, these companies provide a high degree of transparency regarding the food production practices that they or their suppliers employ and do not use antibiotics on healthy animals.

2. An overwhelming majority of companies regularly use antibiotics in food-animals as a preventive health measure and to promote faster animal growth.
Forty-four companies were found to use or purchase meat produced with a “moderate” or “routine” amount of antibiotics. These companies frequently failed to provide details regarding their antibiotic use, and rely upon the regular use of antibiotics in the meat and poultry that they produce or purchase.

3. The law, as currently written, is failing to address the threat of superbugs.
Based upon these findings, and the increasing evidence that ties antibiotic use in healthy animals to the growth of superbugs, it is clear that additional action must be taken by private industry, the US Food and Drug the Administration (FDA) and Congress.

Below are the survey results.  Companies in green provided full disclosure and are antibiotic-free.  Companies in the red provide minimal disclosure and use antibiotics on healthy and sick animals for all purposes, including growth promotion.

For additional information, please visit:

1. Meat Without Drugs (Fix Food Campaign)
2. Food Production & the Public’s Health: Antibiotic Resistance (The Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future)
3. Prescription for Trouble: Using Antibiotics to Fatten Livestock (Union for Concerned Scientists)
4. Pew Campaign on Human Health and Industrial Farming (The PEW Charitable Trusts)
5. “Putting Meat on the Table: Industrial Farm Animal Production in America” (Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production, 2009)
6. To learn more about Rep. Slaughter’s work to address this growing threat to public health, click here.

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