Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

U.S. wants the EU to accept chemical-washed chicken as part of trade deal

latimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 219 posts

Re: U.S. wants the EU to accept chemical-washed chicken as part of trade deal

#121

Post by ksec »

lhopki01 wrote: post #89
mech1234 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Having lived in Europe (UK, France) and North America (Canada) I can assure you that American chicken is not just as good. It's not just chicken. All sorts of meats are worse in quality.

>All sorts of meats are worse in quality.

Well not really, especially when it comes to Beef. Pork has has a rather diverse selection from both side, but generally I think they are about the same.

Re: U.S. wants the EU to accept chemical-washed chicken as part of trade deal

#122

Post by derision »

uhtred wrote: post #82

Who is still eating meat in 2020? Disgusting. No excuse whatsoever for supporting animal cruelty. Shame on you.

I buy all my meat from Butcher Box. All their meat is humanely raised. All their animals are pasture raised and free to roam. Pigs have bedding in open barns, chickens roost in barns and are free to roam. https://www.butcherbox.com/sourcing/ They work with American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) on their chicken standards as well.

Not all meat is cruel.

Re: U.S. wants the EU to accept chemical-washed chicken as part of trade deal

#123

Post by [deleted] »

guitarbill wrote: post #61
mrec wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I hope most people would agree chickens are a bit more sentient than salad.

[deleted]

Re: U.S. wants the EU to accept chemical-washed chicken as part of trade deal

#124

Post by bluGill »

nottorp wrote: post #21
reaperducer wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

but .gov means US health agency... doubt they can be trusted on this issue.

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.

Re: U.S. wants the EU to accept chemical-washed chicken as part of trade deal

#125

Post by rayiner »

sharkmerry wrote: post #51

Some stats. EU - ~500 Million people. "In the EU, over 91,000 salmonellosis cases are reported each year." [1] US. ~330 Million People. "CDC estimates Salmonella bacteria cause about 1.35 million infections, 26,500 hospitalizations, and 420 deaths in the United States every year. Food is the source for most of these illnesses." [2] 1- https://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/topics/topic/salmonella 2- https://www.cdc.gov/salmon…

Those numbers are comparing different things: https://briefingsforbrexit.com/fact-checking-the-bbc-fact-ch...

> Unfortunately Morris is making the statistical rookie error of comparing two statistics measuring completely different things. For the US, he reports estimates of total illnesses whilst for the UK he uses recorded lab reports. The actual number of illnesses in any country are unknown as many will not be diagnosed or reported. We do know for sure that the number will be far higher than lab reports of known, reported cases.

> And in fact, the lab report data are available for both countries and could have made a valid comparison. The US reported 46,623 salmonella lab cases in 2016, a rate of 14.5 per 100,000 people and a similar rate for Campylobacter. The latest UK figures (reported on the Reality Check article) are 10,089 for Salmonella (around 17 per 100,000 people) and 63,946 for Campylobacter (over 100 per 100,000 people). It might justifiably be queried whether lab reports are collected on the same basis in the US and UK but on the basis of what we have, rates are actually higher in the UK than the US.

Re: U.S. wants the EU to accept chemical-washed chicken as part of trade deal

#126

Post by ska »

nostromo wrote: post #104
bosswipe wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe, but it's not going to be wrong by several orders of magnitude like this.

Well, it is though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salmonellosis_in_the_United_St... 142,000 cases were reported annually several years ago. Not 1.3 million. So it is indeed an order of magnitude off. Imagine comparing estimated flu infections vs people that go to the doctor for flu and you'd get similarly ridiculous results.

You are comparing apples and oranges.

The 142000 number is from chicken, alone. The 1.3 (or 1.2 at the top of the same wiki page you cite) is for all sources.

There is a epidemiological problem here, of a) reported vs. estmated and b) the basis of both those things. But it isn't the one you thought it was.

Re: U.S. wants the EU to accept chemical-washed chicken as part of trade deal

#127

Post by xtian »

rjzzleep wrote: post #24
moksly wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they do, I hope they make sure that it has to be labelled on the food. They do that with a lot of things, and then it’s really easy not to buy it.

That's the whole point of the trade deals though. It wouldn't be labelled properly, since it would be considered unfair competition.

Interesting that so much of the activity of "free market" advocates is centered around reducing access to information.

Re: U.S. wants the EU to accept chemical-washed chicken as part of trade deal

#128

Post by ars »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #52
gadders wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just protectionism. It's not like the chicken tastes of bleach. Have you ever eaten food in the US?

The US has 450 deaths from Salmonella every year, the UK has had 1 in the last ten years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salmonellosis_in_the_United_St...

That's because of mandatory salmonella immunization in the UK, it's not because of sanitary practices.

Re: U.S. wants the EU to accept chemical-washed chicken as part of trade deal

#129

Post by pintxo »

joecool1029 wrote: post #42

So, I fail to see the issue with the chemical currently used. Chlorine had obvious negative health issues, but peracetic acid and hydrogen peroxide both decay quickly when exposed to air: http://www.foodprotection.org/files/food-protection-trends/m... I understand the concerns about using such processes over having a clean processing facility but I don't trust the cheap labor (prisoners, migrant farmers, etc) the US…

The (socialist) European way then would be to regulate the industry, to ensure certain standards. Basically trying to attack at the root of the problem instead of the outcome. We are not necessarily very good at it, but we try and it does work reasonably well on average.

Re: U.S. wants the EU to accept chemical-washed chicken as part of trade deal

#130

Post by nottorp »

bluGill wrote: post #124
nottorp wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but .gov means US health agency... doubt they can be trusted on this issue.

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.

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.

Post reply on HN