harming animals harms us

Mo Gilligan soon discovers that the harm doesn’t end inside the animal factories. First there’s the health impact from eating a diet heavy in ultra processed foods. Ten days into the experiment Mo felt sluggish and experienced regular digestive issues. He went on to experience brain fog, low mood, and by the end he’d gained half a stone of weight. Mo was also found to have increased his average blood glucose level, which would put him at risk of developing type 2 diabetes, a condition in his family history, if the trend continued. This is an outcome Dr Enam Abood described as being “absolutely caused by the food” Mo was eating.

Then there’s the ill effects caused by poultry pollution. When Mo visits a mega farm hotspot in Delaware, USA he finds communities breathing in a “toxic stew of gases” caused by ammonia pollution from the poultry units. There is also growing public concern about the health of communities living next to factory farming hotspots across the UK, which we’ve documented through our Ammonia Map.

a hugely damaging industry

As outlined by Philip Lymbery in Big Chicken “cheap chicken is far from cheap”. Animals, our health, and the planet all pay the price. After investigating the giant poultry producing corporations, Mo Gilligan said:

It does give you a real understanding of the corners that are cut to make x amount of money and it doesn't matter who is in their way. And it starts to make you think, if this is happening now, what is that going to look like in five, ten, fifteen years’ time." 

Netflix Documentary Exposes Big Chicken