Fast food restaurant advertisements are seen twenty-four seven by the American eye, whether they’re presented on a sign, the TV, or the radio. The sole purpose of advertisements is to draw in more consumers, creating an overall increase in profit for industries. However, are the advertisements showing consumers the whole truth? In recent years, Americans have begun to join the bandwagon of consuming all natural food products due to biased ideas, specifically of the poultry industry. Consumers now believe that chickens that are caged and have been treated with antibiotics live inhumane lives. Fast food restaurant advertisements alter consumers’ perception of free range chicken and antibiotic usage, focusing their attention on quality statements while diverting their attention from the truth of the industry.

A prime example of an advertisement would be one produced by Chipotle. In 2013, they published a commercial called The Scarecrow. Overall, the propaganda presented in the advertisement was crafted to trigger fear in consumers about large corporations and steer them toward consuming Chipotle products because they are more “natural”. In The Scarecrow, the clip that begins at 1’5” and ends at 1’11”, viewers see a chicken being injected with a robotic needle, causing it to puff up like a balloon. This leaves people with the perception that chickens in the poultry industry are living inhumane lives because they are being injected with antibiotics and hormones resulting in an unnatural size. It is advertisements like this that leave people with false ideas and blindside them from the reality.

There are a few realities that consumers should see. One of the most important is that, according to theFDA, no steroid hormones are approved for use in poultry. This law rules out any possibility that a consumers’ chicken product has been treated with hormones; however, consumers are still extremely concerned with hormone usage. Consumer concerns may still exist because advertisements still present the idea. In the 2014 Tyson chicken nugget commercial, starting at the 0"20" mark, Tyson states their chicken is hormone free. This shows how industries continue to advertise hormone free chicken to attract more consumers to their products, by lightening their concerns.

Consumers may be pleased by this propaganda, but they tend to overlook other aspects of their daily lives that may involve hormones. Dr. Beckstead, a professor in the Poultry Science Department at the University of Georgia, provided a great eye-opening example to show an overlooked daily routine of women that involves hormones. He stated, “People are so concerned with hormones in chicken, but females don’t think twice about taking a birth control pill everyday”. This shows how people tend to be more concerned with issues shoved in their face daily by advertisements, rather than simple robotic daily routines. Even though hormone usage is a common misperception, the most important one is antibiotic usage.

Antibiotics are not injected into chickens. They are given to the chickens the same way that humans consume antibiotics, by mouth, with food and water. The reality of injections is that there would be no cost effective way to inject thousands of birds multiple times a day, especially since there are about 25,000 to 30,000 birds in one chicken house. For example, think about when a human gets sick and is prescribed an antibiotic like Penicillin. It is required that the antibiotic be taken three times a day for the infected person. To provide every single chicken in each chicken house with injected antibiotics multiple times a day would be unrealistic. That is why the antibiotics are presented in their feed. The antibiotics are present in minimal amounts along with corn and soybean.

The purpose of the antibiotics is to improve the poultry’s gut health, help their growth, and keep them healthy. On the other hand, there are news articles that argue that the use of antibiotics in poultry is beginning to lead to resistant bacteria for infections like UTI’s. Although, the poultry industry may cause a ‘superbug’ here and there, the majority of superbugs come from our own selves in hospitals. This is because people have an inclination for using antibiotics to make them “feel better” even when they may not have a bacterial infection. Dr. Beckstead said, “The antibiotics given to chickens are not the same antibiotics given to people.” The chickens are given old antibiotics that are no longer used for human consumption. This shows how the industry tries to prevent superbugs from poultry to people. Also, the usage of old antibiotics is cheaper, allowing the meat to be sold safely and for a reasonable amount.

Without the use of antibiotics it would cost the industry more money to raise their poultry. The industry must begin with a greater number of antibiotic free chickens, in order to produce the same amount of marketable chickens, as if antibiotics were used. This is because without antibiotics the chance of disease is greater, resulting in higher death rates. By going antibiotic-free it also creates the need for more energy, more feed, and the time it takes to raise the chicken to marketable size. The production without antibiotics requires so much more because chickens’ gut health becomes weaker causing them to grow slower. With slower growth come slower production and more time and feed to be used in the chicken house. All of these factors contribute to a higher production cost.

Since the cost of production increases, the industry must make up for the costs somewhere else. They do it through consumers’ bank accounts. A modern day example would be Chick-fil-a. They have made a statement about their journey in the next five years towards the use of antibiotic free chicken. They plan on accomplishing this by only buying chicken from industries that are ‘antibiotic free’. The reason for their journey is based off of consumer want for antibiotic free chicken, but consumers don’t realize that the transition from antibiotic raised chicken to antibiotic free chicken will create the price of their precious chicken sandwich to rise.

The increase in the price of this chicken may cause some consumers to question, “Why has the cost of this sandwich become more expensive?” They will probably never know that the answer to that question is because of consumer wants. The consumers want of antibiotic free chicken is leading the fast food industry to change the way they produce their chicken. The industry changes as the people’s desires change, so they don’t lose profit. Although, this change may be for the worse, especially since people’s misguided perceptions of the industry are solely based off of propaganda based advertisements, and not off of education about the science behind what is humane and inhumane when it comes to the production of poultry.