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.
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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.”
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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.
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.
You’d die from water poisoning before that would matter. 2kg chicken in 24 hours is doable. Just imagine someone who likes chicken eating one chicken in the evening and one the next day for lunch. That’s already the dangerous amount. Or imagine a kid with an even lower weight eating one chicken.
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.