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Food Practices Banned in Europe But Allowed in the US

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Re: Food Practices Banned in Europe But Allowed in the US

#41

Post by samatman »

Shivetya wrote: post #35
samatman wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All seven practices relate to animal foods, with the exception of a possible trickle-down effect on rice arsenic levels. Whether a vegetarian/vegan diet is a 'good way' is up to your taste.

Except that many outbreaks of salmonella occur from greens sold loose and packages in super markets. Quite a few large scale farms use animal waste in one form or another to fertilize crops. I would prefer they settle the irradiated foods disputes and use that to clean up much that is done with chemicals. I have seem far less its unsafe than safe yet radiation is a boogeyman that is hard to beat.

Quite true, and indeed, partially-treated municipal sewage is used on crops in many places, which gives me pause. It happens to be the case that this article focuses on deficits in our meat supply, and wider reading suggests that animal food safety is in fact poorer on many spectra.

Re: Food Practices Banned in Europe But Allowed in the US

#42

Post by Gmo »

paganel wrote: post #38
tokenadult wrote: post #10

The most sensible European regulations of those listed in the article kindly submitted here are "What Europe did: Banned all forms of animal protein, including chicken litter, in cow feed in 2001." and "What Europe did: In the EU, all antibiotics used in human medicines are banned on farms—and no antibiotics can be used on farms for 'non-medical purposes,' i.e., growth promotion." I'd like to see the United States fo…

> "What Europe did: Banned all forms of animal protein, including chicken litter, in cow feed in 2001." I think this came in the aftermath of the Mad Cow Disease that affected the UK in the mid-'90s ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bovine_spongiform_encephalopat... ). I know that UK does not necessarily mean Europe, but nevertheless, that was really huge no matter where in Europe you happened to live, it showed that a…

Mad Cow Disease did not hit only the UK (France, for instance, was also significantly hit). But anyway, for this kind of regulations, it is definitely at the European level and it is quite likely MCD is the reason for it

Re: Food Practices Banned in Europe But Allowed in the US

#43

Post by tptacek »

tezza wrote: post #8

A reasonably informative article. It must pain HNers in US that if they perceive these items as problems then they have little access to tasty unpasteurized cheeses which would help ease the blows. http://www.fda.gov/Food/ResourcesForYou/consumers/ucm079516.... I'm from Oz originally, and they unfortunately ban unpasteurized cheese too.

I have no trouble getting access to raw milk cheeses in Chicago.

Re: Food Practices Banned in Europe But Allowed in the US

#44

Post by mmcnickle »

zeteo wrote: post #27

How can you take such decisions while considering only the purported benefits and not the costs as well? Let's take antimicrobial sprays for example. They presumably protect some consumers from food-borne illnesses. Shouldn't this be balanced against the risk of rashes and such? If say we estimate antimicrobial sprays save a hundred thousand salmonella etc. cases a year at the cost of ten eye irritations, maybe they'…

The US has roughly 42,000 reported cases of salmonellosis each year.

The "asthma and other severe respiratory problems, burns, rashes, irritated eyes, and sinus ulcers and other sinus problems" are occupational hazards associated with the practice, not hazards to consumers of the product.

The author is saying that some committee in the EU has banned the practice, and are unlikely to have done so without weighing costs and benefits.

Re: Food Practices Banned in Europe But Allowed in the US

#46

Post by jlarocco »

haliax wrote: post #2

Is there a good way to buy only products that avoid use of these chemicals?

Most of them involve animal products, so eating vegan would help.

The first two would be more difficult to avoid. I think the first one can be avoided by buying organic corn. Avoiding rice fertilized with arsenic manure would be more difficult. You could try buying rice at a farmer's market and asking the seller what he fertilizes with.

FWIW, I've been trying to eat vegan for a few months now and it's surprisingly difficult at first. A surprising number of the weird ingredients in everything are derived from eggs and dairy. I was vegetarian before, and I still had to make some big changes to my diet. I like that it's made me think about what I'm eating, though.

Re: Food Practices Banned in Europe But Allowed in the US

#47

Post by rmc »

jkldotio wrote: post #6

The flipside of this are things like the banana regulation, more commonly known as Commission Regulation (EC) No 2257/94.[1] I believe it's now rescinded under ridicule but there are people who try to deny it even existed. It's well worth reading in full on eur-lex for riveting prose like "the measurement, in millimetres, of the thickness of a transverse section of the fruit between the lateral faces and the middle,…

battles over who has the right to make certain types of sausages

What do you mean? There are people in England who think that the EU is going to ban British Sausages being called "sausages", forcing them to be called "emulsified high-fat offal tube".

It was actually a joke from the political satire show "Yes, Minister" from 1984 (watch the clip here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzeDZtx3wUw ). There are a lot of euro-scare stories in England of similar levels of ahem reliability.

The European Commission in the UK has a blog where they try to rebut false stories in the UK media ( http://ec.europa.eu/unitedkingdom/blog/index_en.htm ). (The UK's Health and Safety Executive also has a "things that are mentioned in the UK media which are wrong" section http://www.hse.gov.uk/myth/index.htm )

Re: Food Practices Banned in Europe But Allowed in the US

#48

Post by coldtea »

jkldotio wrote: post #14
arethuza wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your comment about "right to make certain types of sausages" refers to the various protections around food actually coming from a particular area I actually think that is a good thing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographical_indications_and_t... After all (to pick an example from the news today) - if something is described as "Stornoway Black Pudding" I'd like to believe it actually came from Stornoway: http://…

You mean like the traditional Croatian wine Prosek being banned from sale because it sounds too similar to prosecco which was developed long after (and they are different types of wine).[1] Or the feta cheese I buy from Germany that can't call itself feta and that anyone in day to day conversation will refer to as feta. [1] http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/23/us-croatia-food-eu...

>Or the feta cheese I buy from Germany that can't call itself feta and that anyone in day to day conversation will refer to as feta.

And that anybody that has eaten actual feta will tell you immediately it's a bad imitation (often with the wrong process and/or ingredients).

(Same goes for any "feta" sold in American supermarkets, at least Kroger, Walmart etc that I know of (as in the US the point of origin protection doesn't hold). Also real feta is NEVER sold in crumbles, as you often find it there).

Whereas American may like their food standardised by restaurant chain (I can walk into any X chain and get the same food), in Europe it has traditionally be standardised by region (local cuisine, etc).

So think of it the same as Burger King being unable to name a product "Big Mac". Only instead of protecting/benefiting just some private chain, it protects/benefits a whole country/region where the food was first developed.

Those protections, besides having rules for the "point of origin" also have strict guidelines on the ingredients etc. So you know your feta is X% milk etc, fermented for Y time, etc, and not some random cheap knockout.

Of course, nothing stops a company from selling the same product, or a different mix. They just can't name it feta. They can include a sign like "feta like product" though.

Re: Food Practices Banned in Europe But Allowed in the US

#49

Post by rmc »

Svip wrote: post #11
jkldotio wrote: post #6

The flipside of this are things like the banana regulation, more commonly known as Commission Regulation (EC) No 2257/94.[1] I believe it's now rescinded under ridicule but there are people who try to deny it even existed. It's well worth reading in full on eur-lex for riveting prose like "the measurement, in millimetres, of the thickness of a transverse section of the fruit between the lateral faces and the middle,…

I too would find it naïve at best to think that the EU was perfect; everyone knows that it isn't. I don't understand your complaint about civil law, though; why is common law better than civil law? Civil law has the added benefit of being fairly simple and court rulings not making precedence.

Because it's FOREIGN!!!

(unfortunately accurate satire....)

Re: Food Practices Banned in Europe But Allowed in the US

#50

Post by specialist »

dsr_ wrote: post #15
arethuza wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your comment about "right to make certain types of sausages" refers to the various protections around food actually coming from a particular area I actually think that is a good thing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographical_indications_and_t... After all (to pick an example from the news today) - if something is described as "Stornoway Black Pudding" I'd like to believe it actually came from Stornoway: http://…

Yes, that's a truth-in-labelling law rather than an exclusive right to make a product. "Champagne-method sparkling wine" can come from California, "Champagne" has to come from a particular region of France.

The lack of a requirement for truth in advertising, labeling, news, etc drives me nuts.

*"After being fired, the couple successfully sued under Florida’s whistleblower laws. However, Fox won on appeal as courts found FCC regulations against news falsification was a policy, and not a law. Fox then countersued in 2004 for court fees and legal costs."

http://consumerist.com/2006/08/30/fox-news-reporters-fired-f...

Meaning it's perfectly fine to knowingly lie. Some tortured rationalization about free speech. I'm sure that's exactly what the founding father's had in mind while writing Second Amendment.

I'd take the free market zealots a lot more seriously if they were spear heading the fight for consumer protections as a precondition to deregulation.

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