11 ms·

What's the health impact of the chemical-washed chickens?

advisedwang 7y ago
One objection is that it allows the initial chicken production to be dirtier as you can then just disinfect later even. In the EU, the entire processing needs to be clean.
- mrec 7y ago
  Yes, from what I've seen this is the primary objection (aside from realpolitik considerations i.e. wanting to keep agricultural prices high). Salad has routinely been chlorine-washed in Europe for years, and nobody complains about that.
  - guitarbill 7y ago
    I hope most people would agree chickens are a bit more sentient than salad.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - pintxo 7y ago
      They are about as sentient as the salad when this washing we are talking about occurs. (I really hope I understood it correctly that this happens after they have been killed)
      - guitarbill 7y ago
        The point isn't when the washing occurs, it's in what conditions they have to be kept in before that to either require or not require washing.
- rtkwe 7y ago
  Isn't the real concern how safe the final product is though?
- DiffEq 7y ago
  BUT....what if it isn't clean? One worker can infect a whole host of chickens and there is no mitigation that will stop it before it is consumed except for the hope that it is cooked properly. Besides, the "chemical washing" is not chlorine anymore it is just vinegar (What many people put on chicken to eat anyway). So ideally you would have clean farms, clean processing and clean storage and then the consumer would properly cook it...but if one of these does not happen ideally, another cheap way to prevent killing people is to use vinegar to reduce possible sickness even further. The only reason why I can think that this would be apposed is to protect poultry producers in Europe.
  - ubercow13 7y ago
    So why aren't the Americans showing us how clean their farms are, instead of going on about this vinegar strawman?
    - DiffEq 7y ago
      How is it a strawman? Chemical washing is a sensible thing to do. You know I live in the mid-west and I have seen some iffy chicken farms and some really clean ones. I have also been to Europe (mainland, Britain, and Ireland) and have seen the same. The thing is you simply can not inspect everything all the time and guarantee the entire supply chain will be free from issues...but you can put mitigations in place that can help.
      - KozmoNau7 7y ago
        Acetic acid and peracetic acid are completely different things. Peracetic acid has the following health warnings: GHS Signal word Danger GHS hazard statements H226, H242, H302, H312, H314, H332, H400 GHS precautionary statements P210, P220, P233, P234, P240, P241, P242, P243, P260, P261, P264, P270, P271, P273, P280, P301+312, P301+330+331, P302+352, P303+361+353, P304+312, P304+340, P305+351+338, P310, P312, P321
    - bluGill 7y ago
      Because the media who shows people things gains far more from manufacturing crisis and various trade wars then telling the other side of the story.
reaperducer 7y ago
An excellent question. If anyone can link to some authoritative information on this, I'd be interested in reading it, too. All I got from a Google search is yoga mom blogs. I'd like to see what a .gov health agency has to say about it.
- nottorp 7y ago
  but .gov means US health agency... doubt they can be trusted on this issue.
  - bluGill 7y ago
    More trustworthy than most other sources. I'll acknowledge the bias, but at least they have people who know something about the subject they are talking about and have done actually research. That is .gov normally tells the truth - not always the whole truth, but at least the truth. The "yoga mamas" scream chemical and pass on friend of a friend rumors as pure truth.
    - nottorp 7y ago
      Yoga mamas... why do you even bother mentioning them? However, it looks to me that an US organization talking about US produced food under the Trump administration is about as trustable as the FTC when talking about net neutrality or the FAA when talking about Boeing airplane safety.
      - bluGill 7y ago
        "yoga mamas" comes from the grandparent post. Far too many people get their "facts" from their friends and repeat whatever they made up/heard without any critical thought. This isn't just Trump, I see at least as many liberals do that. A large part of the Trump-hate I see is from made up facts that have no basis in reality. (which isn't to saw Trump is good or honest, just that his opponents are doing the same thing they accuse him of - they believe they have the real facts)
pkaye 7y ago
Seems like the EU approved peracetic acid for use on some food products but just not chicken. https://chemicalwatch.com/biocideshub/47111/eu-commission-approves-peracetic-acid-for-six-uses https://chemicalwatch.com/biocideshub/47111/eu-commission-ap...
donatj 7y ago
To quote the article: > It’s vinegar, essentially. To say that’s unsafe or not to be used, we don’t think there’s a basis for that in sound science. If you're fine with using vinegar elsewhere in food, you should be fine with this.
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  I'm fine with vinegar in my salad dressing, but I'm not OK with the chef using it to clean his hands in the place of soap+water. Sanitized poop is still poop. I'd rather the poop not be there at all, as much as possible.
  - Jamwinner 7y ago
    You'd better not look any closer in to sanitization standards in the food industry then... plenty of sanitized (rat) poop.
    - ceejayoz 7y ago
      There's a substantial difference between "a certain amount of contamination is basically unavoidable" and "we could raise chickens more humanely like the Europeans do but choose not to for more profits".
- joshuaissac 7y ago
  EU member states put chlorine in their water supply, too, but chlorine itself was never the problem. Chlorine washing can be used to hide problems further up the supply chain, so if vinegar washing enables the same, it should also be disallowed.
  - zaarn 7y ago
    Not all states do, atleast in my region, there is no requirement to clean water with chlorine once it comes from the water table other than if a farmer screws up their schedules.
JakeTheAndroid 7y ago
My understanding is the chemical wash isn't the inherent issue here. It's the fact that they need to be chemically washed in the first place. Due to factory farming, chickens live in piles of their own poop, and with that comes tons of other unhealthy side effects. To combat that, in the US we simply give them a chemical bath. The issue at hand is that the EU doesn't want low quality chicken entering the market because it could cause health issues if not cleaned properly, and at the volume we produce, it's likelier than not to be done improperly at some point, at scale. It's just not worth the risk. But, I could be missing the mark entirely. This is all from memory when I read up on EU food standards a few years ago. My memory of all of these things could be completely off here.
- mech1234 7y ago
  Seems to me like the real motivation is defending their own agricultural industry. American chicken is cheaper and likely just as good. The health claims are weak, everyone can understand protectionism, but it is often masked behind other claimed goals. The data on salmonella is not super solid, but points to higher levels in the U.S. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-47440562 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-47440562
  - paganel 7y ago
    The US imported food has been the stuff of jokes in my country for almost 20 years now, even before we entered the EU, and we are an Eastern-European country with all sorts of other problems. Can’t really understand how can many US commenters say that US food is as good and healthy as European food with a straight face.
    - jshevek 7y ago
      Many US residents are speaking from their own experience as consumers, and probably only experience the lowest quality chicken after it has been turned into highly processed foods like chicken nuggets or dogs, masking the quality issues. The chicken that many US commenters see as intact wings and breasts are probably higher quality than the exports (unless they go specifically to a discount store specializing in low quality foods).

One objection is that it allows the initial chicken production to be dirtier as you can then just disinfect later even. In the EU, the entire processing needs to be clean.

mrec 7y ago
Yes, from what I've seen this is the primary objection (aside from realpolitik considerations i.e. wanting to keep agricultural prices high). Salad has routinely been chlorine-washed in Europe for years, and nobody complains about that.
- guitarbill 7y ago
  I hope most people would agree chickens are a bit more sentient than salad.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - pintxo 7y ago
    They are about as sentient as the salad when this washing we are talking about occurs. (I really hope I understood it correctly that this happens after they have been killed)
    - guitarbill 7y ago
      The point isn't when the washing occurs, it's in what conditions they have to be kept in before that to either require or not require washing.
rtkwe 7y ago
Isn't the real concern how safe the final product is though?
DiffEq 7y ago
BUT....what if it isn't clean? One worker can infect a whole host of chickens and there is no mitigation that will stop it before it is consumed except for the hope that it is cooked properly. Besides, the "chemical washing" is not chlorine anymore it is just vinegar (What many people put on chicken to eat anyway). So ideally you would have clean farms, clean processing and clean storage and then the consumer would properly cook it...but if one of these does not happen ideally, another cheap way to prevent killing people is to use vinegar to reduce possible sickness even further. The only reason why I can think that this would be apposed is to protect poultry producers in Europe.
- ubercow13 7y ago
  So why aren't the Americans showing us how clean their farms are, instead of going on about this vinegar strawman?
  - DiffEq 7y ago
    How is it a strawman? Chemical washing is a sensible thing to do. You know I live in the mid-west and I have seen some iffy chicken farms and some really clean ones. I have also been to Europe (mainland, Britain, and Ireland) and have seen the same. The thing is you simply can not inspect everything all the time and guarantee the entire supply chain will be free from issues...but you can put mitigations in place that can help.
    - KozmoNau7 7y ago
      Acetic acid and peracetic acid are completely different things. Peracetic acid has the following health warnings: GHS Signal word Danger GHS hazard statements H226, H242, H302, H312, H314, H332, H400 GHS precautionary statements P210, P220, P233, P234, P240, P241, P242, P243, P260, P261, P264, P270, P271, P273, P280, P301+312, P301+330+331, P302+352, P303+361+353, P304+312, P304+340, P305+351+338, P310, P312, P321
  - bluGill 7y ago
    Because the media who shows people things gains far more from manufacturing crisis and various trade wars then telling the other side of the story.

reaperducer 7y ago

An excellent question. If anyone can link to some authoritative information on this, I'd be interested in reading it, too. All I got from a Google search is yoga mom blogs. I'd like to see what a .gov health agency has to say about it.

nottorp 7y ago
but .gov means US health agency... doubt they can be trusted on this issue.
- bluGill 7y ago
  More trustworthy than most other sources. I'll acknowledge the bias, but at least they have people who know something about the subject they are talking about and have done actually research. That is .gov normally tells the truth - not always the whole truth, but at least the truth. The "yoga mamas" scream chemical and pass on friend of a friend rumors as pure truth.
  - nottorp 7y ago
    Yoga mamas... why do you even bother mentioning them? However, it looks to me that an US organization talking about US produced food under the Trump administration is about as trustable as the FTC when talking about net neutrality or the FAA when talking about Boeing airplane safety.
    - bluGill 7y ago
      "yoga mamas" comes from the grandparent post. Far too many people get their "facts" from their friends and repeat whatever they made up/heard without any critical thought. This isn't just Trump, I see at least as many liberals do that. A large part of the Trump-hate I see is from made up facts that have no basis in reality. (which isn't to saw Trump is good or honest, just that his opponents are doing the same thing they accuse him of - they believe they have the real facts)

pkaye 7y ago

Seems like the EU approved peracetic acid for use on some food products but just not chicken. https://chemicalwatch.com/biocideshub/47111/eu-commission-approves-peracetic-acid-for-six-uses https://chemicalwatch.com/biocideshub/47111/eu-commission-ap...

donatj 7y ago

To quote the article: > It’s vinegar, essentially. To say that’s unsafe or not to be used, we don’t think there’s a basis for that in sound science. If you're fine with using vinegar elsewhere in food, you should be fine with this.

ceejayoz 7y ago
I'm fine with vinegar in my salad dressing, but I'm not OK with the chef using it to clean his hands in the place of soap+water. Sanitized poop is still poop. I'd rather the poop not be there at all, as much as possible.
- Jamwinner 7y ago
  You'd better not look any closer in to sanitization standards in the food industry then... plenty of sanitized (rat) poop.
  - ceejayoz 7y ago
    There's a substantial difference between "a certain amount of contamination is basically unavoidable" and "we could raise chickens more humanely like the Europeans do but choose not to for more profits".
joshuaissac 7y ago
EU member states put chlorine in their water supply, too, but chlorine itself was never the problem. Chlorine washing can be used to hide problems further up the supply chain, so if vinegar washing enables the same, it should also be disallowed.
- zaarn 7y ago
  Not all states do, atleast in my region, there is no requirement to clean water with chlorine once it comes from the water table other than if a farmer screws up their schedules.

JakeTheAndroid 7y ago

My understanding is the chemical wash isn't the inherent issue here. It's the fact that they need to be chemically washed in the first place. Due to factory farming, chickens live in piles of their own poop, and with that comes tons of other unhealthy side effects. To combat that, in the US we simply give them a chemical bath. The issue at hand is that the EU doesn't want low quality chicken entering the market because it could cause health issues if not cleaned properly, and at the volume we produce, it's likelier than not to be done improperly at some point, at scale. It's just not worth the risk. But, I could be missing the mark entirely. This is all from memory when I read up on EU food standards a few years ago. My memory of all of these things could be completely off here.

mech1234 7y ago
Seems to me like the real motivation is defending their own agricultural industry. American chicken is cheaper and likely just as good. The health claims are weak, everyone can understand protectionism, but it is often masked behind other claimed goals. The data on salmonella is not super solid, but points to higher levels in the U.S. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-47440562 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-47440562
- paganel 7y ago
  The US imported food has been the stuff of jokes in my country for almost 20 years now, even before we entered the EU, and we are an Eastern-European country with all sorts of other problems. Can’t really understand how can many US commenters say that US food is as good and healthy as European food with a straight face.
  - jshevek 7y ago
    Many US residents are speaking from their own experience as consumers, and probably only experience the lowest quality chicken after it has been turned into highly processed foods like chicken nuggets or dogs, masking the quality issues. The chicken that many US commenters see as intact wings and breasts are probably higher quality than the exports (unless they go specifically to a discount store specializing in low quality foods).