cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/26864906
Britain must allow US chlorine-washed chicken into UK markets if it wants relief from sweeping tariffs, Donald Trump has indicated.
It comes after the UK failed to avoid tariffs imposed on the global economy, with the US president slapping a 10 per cent levies on all British exports to the United States.
…
In a statement published alongside the tariff announcement, the White House said: “The UK maintains non-science-based standards that severely restrict US exports of safe, high-quality beef and poultry products.”
It suggested that Britain’s ban on chlorinated chicken was among a range of “non-tariff barriers” that limit the US’s ability to trade.
The UK has long ruled out allowing imports of chlorine-washed chicken from the US due to health concerns, with Downing Street on Thursday reiterating its manifesto commitment to high food standards.
Asked whether the UK could allow imports of chlorine washed chicken in order to appease the US, the prime minister’s officials spokesperson said: “Our position on that is unchanged. You’ve got the manifesto commitment on food standards, which obviously remains.”
…
The last major polling done on the issue, conducted in 2020, revealed that 80 per cent of Britons are opposed to allowing imports to the UK, and the same proportion is also against allowing chicken products that have been farmed using hormones.
There is also growing pressure from the farming industry to rule out concessions on the issue, amid fears it could undercut British farmers and drive down food standards.
Nigel Farage admitted he would allow American chlorine-washed chicken to be sold in the UK as part of a free trade deal with the US.
There’s no way that the uk is going to be ok with this. It’s gross and not how the world works. Stop it America
The UK maintains non-science-based standards
Maybe look at who is in charge of your health department before your start complaining about “non-science-based standards”
They only say “Science-Based” as a dogwhistle to mean “Ignoring what science says about transpeople and substituting my own evidence based on ignorance and vibes.”
The “head” of any department is often not a scientist. Scientists conduct technical work, they don’t manage departments or orgs.
Shut the fuck up Donny, you’re out of your element.
Wait…does that mean Americans are currently consuming chicken thats been washed in chlorine?! How the FUCK is that up to scientific and health standards??
Do you drink tap water?
It’s not the chlorine that’s the problem, it’s the disease it masks from testing.
Tap water isn’t chlorinated in most of Europe as well
It’s not as much of a thing in the US today, but even the European Commission has found that it’s not a problem unless you’re eating 5% of your bodyweight in chlorinated chicken every day. It’s mostly protectionism for European poultry farmers under the guise of safety.
Sources: European Commission. (2003, April). The evaluation of antimicrobial treatments for poultry carcasses.
European Commission. (2008, April). Environmental impact and effect on antimicrobial resistance of four substances used for the removal of microbial surface contamination of poultry carcasses
European Food Safety Authority. (2015). Risks for public health related to the presence of chlorate in food.
The problem with chlorine washed chicken is NOT the chlorine, it’s the diseased underside of battery chickens who spend all day wading in their own filth and with endemic salmonella which passes tests for disease and bacteria because the chlorine sanitises the outermost layer and any needle that passes through it without killing the source of the problem at all. Americans get food poisoning FAR more often than Europeans, and the disgusting conditions the animals are kept in is a big part of the problem.
Most of our tap water has a touch of chlorine to kill off microorganisms. No need to jerk that knee.
The difference is that the chlorine disperses throughout the water and genuinely kills the bacteria, whereas the chlorine wash for chicken only sanitises the surface of the diseased chicken’s skin and any needle pushed through it. It does nothing to the meat and merely hides bacteria from detection.
America doesn’t have animal welfare rules anything like like the UK and EU have, and their chickens are usually kept in cramped conditions and bathe in their own filth all day long. It’s not very uncommon for their bellies to be actually rotting.
Chlorine washes the evidence away.
Honestly, given all the cramped factory farms and wide spread disease in poultry factories, it’s probably good we chlorine them up. Not to say I’d expect another country with better production methods to want to buy our shitty meat though
The chlorine only sanitises the outside and any needle that passes through it.
Haven’t you heard? It rinses away all the covid from the internal organs. If it works for people it’s definitely good enough for chickens.
Why do they want us to eat their chlorinated chicken so badly? Sounds like an evil agenda coming along…
We have our own farmers anyway.
Nigel Farage admitted he would allow American chlorine-washed chicken to be sold in the UK as part of a free trade deal with the US.
So called “nationalist”, support local farmers.
So called “nationalist”, support local farmers.
Nothing more British than shutting down a local business to reap profit from outsourcing. Just ask Thatcher.
😂
I wasn’t born in the US but find myself living here. The food is awful. Cutting corners and padding some pockets, but listeria outbreaks on our food has become a weekly commonplace. Hundreds of recalls a month. The food is so treated its inedible. I cut almost everything out and buy from imported stores as much as possible. Even European brands often have an American version that is full of junk, so I have to read labels so carefully. I wish it wasn’t this way. No one here wants this.
Yeah, there’s a phenomenon where stereotypically fat Americans move abroad, and suddenly start losing a ton of weight. Not because their eating habits consciously changed, but simply because the food that was readily available was suddenly so much healthier than when they were in America. Almost as if infrastructure has a huge impact on the public’s health.
Portions in the US tend to just be larger as well. So you’re eating larger portions of bad food.
No one here wants this.
I agree with your post otherwise, but clearly the food industry wants things to be the way they are. So, some people want this, and they bought the politicians to make it so.
Now with real bleach - certified Covid-free!
EU should respond by banning all type of chicken from US
If I remember, Project 2025 also wanted to open up the NHS to “foreign competition” too.
It won’t stop at just chlorinated chicken.
“Free market”
“Buy our chicken or you will lose your market here”
Nigel Farage admitted he would allow American chlorine-washed chicken
Annnnd there you have it.
Didn’t this guy also just remove food regulation in USA? Smert move!
generally kinda fucked up to think about raw meat being bulk shipped across oceans anyways
Oh boy if you think that’s fucked up: They take American chickens, send them to China to process, then ship them back to the USA to sell to us.
Of course, the crazy works both ways: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/why-is-china-treating-north-carolina-like-the-developing-world-122892/
Whatever is going on in that article, the Carolinas are developing
countriesstates. Most of America is, really.I have heard Arkansas compared to Cuba and been found similar in terms of economic development.
The only time that doesn’t seem f-ed up is when you stand outside the processing plants, here or there…
I think it’s better than cooked meat which spoils quicker
How does the chicken cross the Atlantic?
We’re back to the chicken tax… it’s the reason why 'Muricans all drive big pickup trucks:
Frozen in vacuum sealed bags, to get to the other side.
Nigel Farage admitted he would allow American chlorine-washed chicken to be sold in the UK as part of a free trade deal with the US.
God, what a sniveling excuse for a politician.
Pretends to be a nationalist as well.
Nigel Farage is a trump suck up who was literally paid off or bribed by Elon Musk I would just ignore everything he ever says
A 2014 report by US non-profit Consumer Reports found that 97 per cent of 300 American chicken breasts tested contained harmful bacteria, including Salmonella, campylobacter and E.Coli.
Around half of the chicken breasts tested also contained at least one type of bacteria that was resistant to three or more antibiotics.
Meanwhile, if you ate a large amount of chlorinated chicken – the equivalent to 5 per cent of your body weight in one day –you could be exposed to harmful levels of the chemical compound known as chlorate,
Yeah, I’d suggest holding out on this one. The way US farms raise chickens is deplorable and leads to the spread of disease.
Americans tend to be unhealthy af for a reason. Regulatory capture is a major issue in our ever more corrupt government.
We are fed garbage from birth and become immediately addicted to it. And no one knows how to cook anymore (exaggeration, but not by too much).
I’m glad people say these things, because it reminds me that the death of critical thought isn’t strictly an American crisis
That’s absolutely
I think we should not overinterpret this. Lets walk through it backwards.
5% of your body weight in chicken in one day? Assuming you are a small thin person of 55 kg. That means you would need to eat around 2.9 kg of chicken in a day. If you were a 80kg tall person, you’d be looking at eating 4 kg of chicken in a day. Neither is realistic imo.
Now antibiotic resistance bacteria definetly is an issue.
As for harmful bacteria including Salmonella… Unless there is data to compare with from other countries that does not mean much in itself. Raw chicken is notorious for giving food poisioning and being much more dangerous in that regard than raw beef, pork, or even fresh fish. I got a very bad food poisoning from undercooked chicken not to long ago and that was in the EU.
Doesn’t mean that US farming practices aren’t much worse than most EU standards (if enforced), but these metrics mentioned by themselves are not the best indicators for that.
I am a small and thin person of 40kg. Now would I realistically eat 2kg chicken in one day? That would be two whole chickens, which is not impossible but unlikely as I don’t really like chicken.
Would I still prefer my food not to contain a potential risky chemical? Absolutely.Every chemical is potentially risky in sufficient amounts, even water.
I agree. I think there is better arguments to be made for that though. More interesting than short term health effects would be health effects from long term exposure. Rather than just stating the presence of Bacteria, spread of diseases like “Bird flu” that could also infect humans or the building of multi-resistant Bacteria in industrial farming is more relevant than the presence of Salmonella, which is quite prevalent in chicken, even under good farming practices.
