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

latimes.com

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

#191

Post by Will_Parker »

axlee wrote: post #116
Will_Parker wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The US in particular is wedded to the notion that meat is essential and primary food, and it set up its entire agriculture industry to making that cheap Nothing is particular about the US here, humans are omnivores whose optimal diet for health contains both meat and plants.

> Nothing is particular about the US here, humans are omnivores whose optimal diet for health contains both meat and plants. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_meat_cons... In 2017(latest data I could find), the US was topping the world's charts on meat consumption per capita. There is something at least noteworthy about that. The average american eats 40% more meat than the average EU citizen. Not ev…

Fair enough, but nothing about eating 50kg of meat per person per year suggests not treating it as primary or essential.

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

#192

Post by guitarbill »

pintxo wrote: post #138
guitarbill wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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)

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.

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

#193

Post by [deleted] »

driverdan wrote: post #106
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…

This is a great misuse of data and not relevant as presented. Perhaps the US has a significantly higher per capita consumption of Salmonella infection vectors. Perhaps people in the US are less clean in ways that increase infections. Perhaps EU cases are under reported.

[deleted]

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

#194

Post by uhtred »

Jamwinner wrote: post #183
uhtred wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course there's nothing wrong with atheism, it's rational. People who believe in God are the assholes.

Thanks for nailing the point home. Can we just go about our day without insulting people without knowing them? The range of human experince is too vast to be constrained to any one belief system, of which athieism is just another class of variations.

Atheism isn't a belief, it's a lack of belief. And anyway, the person I replied to called atheists assholes, so I hope you told them off too.

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

#195

Post by uhtred »

derision wrote: post #122
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.

You're kidding yourself if you think the meat you buy isn't the product of cruelty.

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

#196

Post by uhtred »

stiray wrote: post #84

(Read to the end, it is not what you think it is!) I have stopped eating meat in 1990, due to the discusting way the animals are treated and I couldn't care less. At well over 40s I still look young, no gray hair, medical results are fabolus. BUT!!! I would seriously ask all the vegans/vegetarians to STFU, they are annoying to the point where everyone attacks me when I tell him that I don't eat meat and try to argue.…

Why should people be able to eat whatever they want? If people's food choices directly support cruelty towards another creature then someone has to speak up to defend that creature. Most vegans are not militant activists, but they also shouldn't have to keep silent. People will figure out much sooner how much cruelty is involved in producing their Popeyes Chicken sandwich if vegans speak up.

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

#197

Post by rayiner »

tptacek wrote: post #186
rayiner wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hershey’s chocolate is fine, so is American cheese. (You’d be insane to make S’mores or a grilled cheese with anything else, and if you don’t like those things you’re unamerican and should just move to Europe.)

Hershey's chocolate is pretty bad, and American cheese is barely cheese. But both have functional properties that make them desirable for some applications: it's difficult to make a truly good cheeseburger without American cheese because of its melting properties, for instance. That's also why people use it in grilled cheeses, although it's less essential there (swiss melts just fine on a sandwich, for instance), and…

What makes Hershey’s chocolate bad? A Hershey’s bar with almonds is pretty much as good as it gets chocolate wise. Certainly better to my palate than the fancy high cacao chocolate that is trendy these days.

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

#198

Post by tptacek »

rayiner wrote: post #197
tptacek wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hershey's chocolate is pretty bad, and American cheese is barely cheese. But both have functional properties that make them desirable for some applications: it's difficult to make a truly good cheeseburger without American cheese because of its melting properties, for instance. That's also why people use it in grilled cheeses, although it's less essential there (swiss melts just fine on a sandwich, for instance), and…

What makes Hershey’s chocolate bad? A Hershey’s bar with almonds is pretty much as good as it gets chocolate wise. Certainly better to my palate than the fancy high cacao chocolate that is trendy these days.

You like what you like. You can go read any number of blind taste tests, or any of a million Reddit threads where it is tediously re-explained that the sour milk note in the stabilizers Hershey's grosses Europeans out, or the NYT's notes about how bitter their cocoa is, but really it's just commodity chocolate whose overwhelming characteristic is sweetness with almost no texture or anything of interest to recommend it.

If you're looking for something to serve an almost functional role in a product, like a S'more or whatever, it's... fine? Do you bake with Hershey's? Like in a brownie, where you can dial the sweetness in instead of swinging it all the way to 11?

I don't think there's anything wrong with liking Hershey's chocolate, and I myself like American cheese! I'm just saying they're objectively not as good as other products, and the people who point that out aren't wrong to do so. Honestly, I think most people who say Hershey's is good would prefer Cadbury's.

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

#199

Post by nate_meurer »

joecool1029 wrote: post #114
atoav wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is about something else. If you are allowed to clean meat that aggressively it usually means what passes as good enough to be sold has a lower standard. Or the other way around: because we in the EU can't use these methods the whole supply chain and quality control has to be much much stricter to deal with this. We can't just dip the thing in chlorine and assume it is clean now.

1. Chlorine isn't used anymore, it's dishonest to claim that it is just as it's dishonest to claim peracetic acid is dangerous or ends up in the end product. 2. Well aware of the problems and concerns with the supply chain in the US, but not treating and dealing with salmonella outbreaks would have measurably worse health outcomes. These problems don't get fixed overnight. I'm fine with those problems being attacked…

1. No, chlorine is still widely used on processed poultry in the U.S. The latest data from the National Chicken Council suggests that it's used in around 10% of chicken processing facilities. This is not a small amount of chicken.

2. There is no evidence that the absence of antimicrobial treatment of chicken carcasses yields "measurably worse health outcomes", as you say. Data collected by USDA and the UK's Food Standards Agency use different criteria for their respective streams, and thus can't offer definitive conclusions, but there don't appear to be large differences in contamination between the American and British systems.

@atoav's comment accurately conveys the official position of EU and UK trade and food safety agencies. I see nothing here to indicate that you have any better understanding of the topic than @atoav.

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

#200

Post by joecool1029 »

nate_meurer wrote: post #199
joecool1029 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Chlorine isn't used anymore, it's dishonest to claim that it is just as it's dishonest to claim peracetic acid is dangerous or ends up in the end product. 2. Well aware of the problems and concerns with the supply chain in the US, but not treating and dealing with salmonella outbreaks would have measurably worse health outcomes. These problems don't get fixed overnight. I'm fine with those problems being attacked…

1. No, chlorine is still widely used on processed poultry in the U.S. The latest data from the National Chicken Council suggests that it's used in around 10% of chicken processing facilities. This is not a small amount of chicken. 2. There is no evidence that the absence of antimicrobial treatment of chicken carcasses yields "measurably worse health outcomes", as you say. Data collected by USDA and the UK's Food Stan…

>1. No, chlorine is still widely used on processed poultry in the U.S. The latest data from the National Chicken Council suggests that it's used in around 10% of chicken processing facilities. This is not a small amount of chicken.

Seems it is still used, I was under the prior understanding that farms were phasing it out as it's far more corrosive and incurs a larger maintenance cost. I can't find anything more on the topic other than that industry page claiming about 10% from 2015.

> 2. There is no evidence that the absence of antimicrobial treatment of chicken carcasses yields "measurably worse health outcomes", as you say.

I have been consistent in claiming that the US supply chain has issues EU/UK don't appear to have. Increased salmonella concentrations are absolutely a health risk and these treatments show large measurable reductions on the level of surface salmonella. There's more than a few studies published in recent years covering outcomes on on chlorine, lactic acid, peracetic acid, SBS, and other rinses. I've never claimed that it's a magic bullet, only that all the data says 'it helps'.

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