One of the principal objections to cold-storage poultry is that after being taken from the storehouse they decompose much more quickly than fresh birds.
Some dealers aggravate the evil by soaking the poultry when taken out of storage in cold water for the purpose of thawing. This adds to its weight, to the profit of the dealer, but it "causes heavy bacterial infection," as Dr. Charles Harrington, secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Health, has pointed out. Dr. Pennington, in an article on Changes in Chickens in Cold Storage, to which we shall recur, refers to a case in which a frozen fowl, after being immersed in water, had increased in weight eleven per cent. (to the dealer's profit).
In Bulletin 144 of the United States Department of Agriculture we read:
"Under precisely the same conditions of temperature and humidity, drawn fowls will keep from twenty to thirty days longer than those not drawn. The presence of undigested food and of excrementitious substances in animals which have been killed most certainly favors the tainting of the flesh and general decomposition. The viscera are the first parts to show putrescence, and allowing these to remain within the body cannot do otherwise than favor infection of the flesh with bacteria and ptomaines, even if osmosis does not actually carry putrid juices to contiguous tissues. Hunters know the value of drawing birds as soon as possible after they have been shot, in order to keep them fresh and sweet and to prevent their having a strong intestinal flavor."
Read also the following weighty remarks reprinted from Senate Report No. 1991, March 22, 1906:
The process of decomposition and putrefaction begins at once after the death of the animal. Cold storage and freezing may limit the rotting process, but do not entirely stop it. When poultry or animals are taken from cold storage and are thawed out for exhibition and sale, the decomposition continues with marked energy, impregnating the flesh with poisons—and this decomposition is exceedingly rapid even when the poultry is kept in the market or grocery refrigerator, the temperature of which is much higher than that of the cold-storage warehouse. Flesh in which the blood has been permitted to remain is particularly susceptible to such decomposition, and this susceptibility is increased by the long period of freezing and thawing.
Even with poultry which is "freshly killed" there is frequently a period of several days between the time of slaughtering and sale. Not only is it dangerous, but it is repugnant to our sense of decency, that the flesh we are to eat shall lie for several days in close contact with putrefying animal matter.
Undoubtedly undrawn poultry, fish, and game have caused many cases of poisoning which have been wrongfully attributed to other sources. The poisoning resulting often resembles that caused by other poisons administered by persons or taken with suicidal intent. Many sufferers from digestive troubles—headache, nausea, colic, and diarrhea after eating, owe their ailments to tainted foods.
We are advised that the reason for slaughtering poultry without thorough bleeding is the saving in the weight of the fowl, and this reason is doubtless also one for the storing of poultry and offering it for sale without removing the viscera. There is, however, no reason why the consumer should be compelled to purchase a large percentage of excreta, offal, and refuse with his poultry. We would not tolerate the addition of a certain percentage of weight in the form of entrails of the steer with each beefsteak we buy. The consumer purposes to buy edible food and not the disgusting waste which should be eliminated in the process of slaughtering and dressing. It is just as reasonable to ask the consumer to buy hogs, calves, and lambs without the intestines removed as to solicit his purchase of undrawn turkeys and chickens.
WHY DO WE EAT POULTRY?
After the appearance, in "The Century Magazine" of November, 1911, of my article on Ungastronomic America, in which I denounced the practice of offering the public undrawn, cold-storage poultry, I was bombarded with abusive letters from packers and others, and a periodical, called "The Steward," fancied that it had completely demolished me by quoting the results obtained by Dr. Mary E. Pennington, in collaboration with Evelyn Witmer and H. C. Pierce, during a series of observations described in a circular entitled "The Comparative Rate of Decomposition in Drawn and Undrawn Market Poultry" published in 1911 by the Department of Agriculture. This result of these observations was that "undrawn poultry decomposes more slowly than does poultry which has been either wholly or partially eviscerated."
This statement does not agree with the conclusion reached and printed in the Bulletin No. 144 to which I have already referred, that "under precisely the same conditions of temperature and humidity, drawn fowls will keep from twenty to thirty days longer than those not drawn."