If it's available, buy poultry that is organic, or at least free from antibiotics, and you will help reduce the incidence of resistant bacteria in humans and in the environment.

Factory-raised poultry are given 10.5 million pounds of antibiotics per year to fight diseases that tend to be common in crowded coops. Most antibiotics given to livestock are identical or nearly identical to the drugs used to treat people.

According to the Institute of Medicine at the National Academy of Sciences, this overuse has been linked to resistant bacterial infections in humans, a medical issue that costs $30 billion per year to treat.

State Environmental Resource Center
Organic Consumers Association