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Government ready to open British markets to chlorinated chicken for US tradedeal

16 points by kasperni 6y ago

dkdk8283 6y ago
I had to look up what chlorinated chicken is - although I’m still confused by this article. Seems like a political issue and not really about food safety?
- Klinky 6y ago
  The concern is that poor practices are masked by chlorinating the chicken. That could be things like poor slaughter hygiene, handling and worker safety, and poor animal conditions leading up to slaughter.
- olliej 6y ago
  Basically, low quality control, poor sanitation, and wanting to push back the sell by date has led to US companies using many very questionable preservatives over the years. Prior legislation to protect consumers has reliably been fought back by the relevant industry groups, even when the preservatives were knowingly toxic - for example us companies we using formaldehyde as a preservative for decades and beat back any attempt to disallow it. Needless to say this track record has meant the rest of the world doesn't really trust the quality controls or management of the US ag industry. So now we can look at to today's chlorinated chicken. US industry claims that they perform a chlorine wash of the chickens they produce to remove microbes to make it safer. The obvious response from other countries is "we don't need to do this, and your industry has a bad track record, so we think your chlorine wash is an attempt to cover up poor sanitation in your facilities". Honestly there are other US ag processes that I think are much worse than this - chlorinated chicken seems to be a case of something that taken in isolation wouldn't be strictly be terrible, but the surrounding context makes it suspicious.
evgen 6y ago
Thankfully there is not going to be any US trade deal until after the election and most likely not until several months after the Biden administration gets down to work. The UK will get hosed by the deal no matter how it goes, but the US House is not going to pass any sort of deal that might, even for a single second, make Trump look good (and screwing Boris is just the cherry on top) so I am not quite sure why the UK even bothers to try. The release of information like this does nothing but hurt the Tories, shows everyone how desperate they are now that the winds of no-deal are starting to blow across the channel, and even a casual observer knows what a fools errand it it. If anything this shows the Tory negotiators to be incompetent for even trying...
- heywusnsnai 6y ago
  That's why USMCA is dead. Moron.

16 points by kasperni 6y ago

I had to look up what chlorinated chicken is - although I’m still confused by this article. Seems like a political issue and not really about food safety?

Klinky 6y ago
The concern is that poor practices are masked by chlorinating the chicken. That could be things like poor slaughter hygiene, handling and worker safety, and poor animal conditions leading up to slaughter.
olliej 6y ago
Basically, low quality control, poor sanitation, and wanting to push back the sell by date has led to US companies using many very questionable preservatives over the years. Prior legislation to protect consumers has reliably been fought back by the relevant industry groups, even when the preservatives were knowingly toxic - for example us companies we using formaldehyde as a preservative for decades and beat back any attempt to disallow it. Needless to say this track record has meant the rest of the world doesn't really trust the quality controls or management of the US ag industry. So now we can look at to today's chlorinated chicken. US industry claims that they perform a chlorine wash of the chickens they produce to remove microbes to make it safer. The obvious response from other countries is "we don't need to do this, and your industry has a bad track record, so we think your chlorine wash is an attempt to cover up poor sanitation in your facilities". Honestly there are other US ag processes that I think are much worse than this - chlorinated chicken seems to be a case of something that taken in isolation wouldn't be strictly be terrible, but the surrounding context makes it suspicious.

evgen 6y ago

Thankfully there is not going to be any US trade deal until after the election and most likely not until several months after the Biden administration gets down to work. The UK will get hosed by the deal no matter how it goes, but the US House is not going to pass any sort of deal that might, even for a single second, make Trump look good (and screwing Boris is just the cherry on top) so I am not quite sure why the UK even bothers to try. The release of information like this does nothing but hurt the Tories, shows everyone how desperate they are now that the winds of no-deal are starting to blow across the channel, and even a casual observer knows what a fools errand it it. If anything this shows the Tory negotiators to be incompetent for even trying...

heywusnsnai 6y ago
That's why USMCA is dead. Moron.