How Do I Avoid Arsenic Exposure From Chicken? I nearly had a heart attack when I heard the news that a lot of the chicken sold in supermarkets contains arsenic. That’s horrifying! How did it get into the chickens, and how do I know which chicken doesn’t have arsenic?
I was surprised to learn that farmers have long been mixing roxarsone, an arsenic-based additive that “improves” the color of meat, with chicken feed. As a result, this carcinogen has contaminated America’s supply of poultry. In fact, the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy recently discovered that up to 70 percent of supermarket chicken and 100 percent of fast-food chicken contains arsenic. Unfortunately, there isn’t yet any “arsenic-free” labeling to make this easy for us. So for now it’s best to opt for organic chickens since these animals aren’t given arsenic-laced feed. But if organic options aren’t available, you can try Tyson or Foster Farms chicken. While I can’t vouch for them entirely, these companies claim to have stopped feeding arsenic to their chickens.
