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EU does enforce food safety and labeling laws quite well. That might be because every EU country has its own FDA equivalent that provisions much smaller market.
by kbart 10y ago
EU does enforce food safety and labeling laws quite well. That might be because every EU country has its own FDA equivalent that provisions much smaller market. Sure, incidents happen, but fake food is nowhere such widespread in EU than USA.
- thaumasiotes 10y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_horse_meat_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_horse_meat_scandal
- kbart 10y agoAs I said - incidents happen. And if the last scandal you have found is dated back to 2013, that only confirms my point.
- thaumasiotes 10y agoSorry, I thought you were claiming that fake food was not widespread. ("because every EU country has its own FDA equivalent that provisions much smaller market") > if the last scandal you have found is dated back to 2013, that only confirms my point. Words fail me at your reasoning. How closely do you think I follow foreign food purity issues?
- chappi42 10y agoWell if you don't follow foreign food purity issues (closely) then, please, try to comment a little bit more humble. Maybe asking instead of definitive statements?
- anexprogrammer 10y agoThe point is, which many commenters seem to be missing, is UK Trading Standards and equivalent EU bodies regularly test to see that foods meet claimed ingredients and are not adulterated. Prosecutions, sanctions and bans are frequent. The periodic outrages are relatively rare and become front page news. If you claim on the label that your product is 52% tuna it can be (and frequently is) randomly tested and if it's not tuna, or 52% you can be open to prosecution. By the sounds of the US system you're probably eating horse regularly, but no one ever tests to establish this. In the case of the UK, austerity has resulted in Trading Standards being stretched to breaking point or beyond as funding has sunk way below actual need. Presumably the Tories will soon point to this as proof that a state owned system cannot work so let's privatise it. Brexit leaves me deeply concerned the UK will resemble the US more.
- LoSboccacc 10y agoalso all EU producers ferociously compete with each other and won't esitate to force the local health authority to inspect foreign products at the slightest hint
- pbhjpbhj 10y agoSpeculating, I wonder if there's the echoes of an historical effect too: frontier peoples make do with whatever food they can get, in contrast many regions in Europe have centuries old traditions requiring very specific treatments of food items; does USA have that sir of tradition (the only one I know of is putting off-milk flavour in chocolate).