Why Chlorinated Chicken

[calmck]

The US wants chlorinated chicken to be imported to the UK to enable a trade deal. Does the UK not breed enough chickens without the need to import any chickens from anywhere. Surely home bred chicken is fresher than any imported from anywhere

[AuntPollyGrey]

No the UK can't breed enough chickens.
I've eating lots of chlorinated chicken without any negative results, In most North American states prepared veg like salad is dipped in chlorinated water and you can in fact by chlorination tablets to wash fruit and veg.. Chickens are chlorinated to kill off bacteria and then rinsed -a bit like parents use Milton to sterilise bottles. There are far fewer cases of food poisoning by chicken in the USA. It does not necessarily go hand in hand that the welfare of the animals is compromised.

[ichkeria]

It’s not a question of what we “want”
The US would like to sell us their chicken as part of a few trade deal.
The issue with chlorinated chicken as I understand it is not the actual chlorine: it’s the fact the chlorine is not wholly effective in cleaning the chickens, which are held in far less hygienic conditions - to put it mildly - there

[ichkeria]

I believe in the contrary their ARE more cases of food poisoning from chicken in the US.
Hardly surprisingly

[Togo]

All the salad we buy bagged at supermarkets is washed in a chlorine rinse. Particularly the imported salads. This is never highlighted by the anti American trade deal advocates(we know who they are) or the animal rights fanatics. Note,,,chickens are not washed in chlorine whilst they are alive.

[AuntPollyGrey]

ichkeria I would be interested to read the report(s) you are referring to. Chicken in the USA costs around twice the price of chicken in the UK. UK gets a lot of chicken from the poorer countries of the EU and their welfare and hygiene standards are far less than the USA.

[ichkeria]

Like I just said, the chlorine per se is not the issue

[mushroom25]

Coq Au Domestos, anyone?

[ichkeria]

I read it somewhere I cannot remember where. The cases are in fact much higher.
As for other countries, well that wasn’t the question

[Togo]

""the European Food Safety Agency has passed chlorinated-washed chicken for safe consumption. As well, it might, given that it is quite happy for us to drink water which has been chlorinated in order to kill off microorganisms. At the levels used by US producers, the agency concluded, you would have to eat three whole chickens every day to risk exceeding safe limits. Even among regular consumers of US-produced chicken 99 per cent of the chlorine they ingest comes from drinking water rather than food.

What washing chicken in chlorine does achieve, however, is to kill off salmonella, which is endemic in raw chicken sold in Britain. For the consumer, the choice is pretty simple: would you rather increase your chlorine intake by one per cent – or remain at risk of salmonella poisoning through cross-contamination in the kitchen? Chlorinated chicken is banned in the EU on the pretext that washing in chlorine might be used by producers to hide other hygiene problems. But food premises are supposed to be inspected, chlorination or no chlorination – so if someone is dragging chickens through the dirt before they are sent off to the supermarket it ought to be picked up anyway. The ban is really just one more form of EU protectionism. EU chicken-producers don’t like US chicken because it retails for around 80 per cent the price of European chicken.""

https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2017/07/ignore-the-scare-stories-from-remainers-over-chlorinated-chicken/

[Spicerack]

chkeria//I believe in the contrary their ARE more cases of food poisoning from chicken in the US.
Hardly surprisingly//

You believe wrong. They have half the cases(per capita} of food poisoning from chicken in the US.
Hardly surprising,

[AuntPollyGrey]

ich its not the amount of food poisoning cases, its the percentage per capita, which is substantially lower than in the UK

[Spicerack]

As Togo says, it's part of the EU protection racket. Easy to deceive gullible people, innit.

[Togo]

Just more project fear and misinformation. No outcry from the EUSSR fanatics when the Spanish producers were found to be irrigating the salad crops and tomatoes with untreated sewage.

[pastafreak]

Can someone post actual, recent, comparison figures please.

[pastafreak]

APG... where do you get the figure that chicken cost 2x as much in the US?
According to a site called Globalprice info, a whole chicken is about$2.60- $3 per kilo...that's £1.98- £2.29
Sainsbury charge about £2.06...so not a huge difference.

[AuntPollyGrey]

Pasta because I've lived in North America longer than I've lived in the UK. When I lived there, a free range roasting chicken cost around $12 and that was about 10 years ago.

[ichkeria]

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna998586

The best I can do for now.
I’m intrigued that there’s a National Chicken Council ..

[pastafreak]

APG...comparing ordinary, supermarket chicken might be a more realistic comparison.
But a quick Google tells me that an organic fryer(weighs 2.5 to 4.5lbs) is $2.99(2.29) per pound.
At Sainsbury's an organic chicken is £7.45 per kilo
My tired brain says we pay more...

[bhg481]

I must say I'm a little confused here; if the chlorinated chicken is labelled as such (even if it only says "Imported from USA") anyone can choose not to buy it. Or am I missing something?

[ichkeria]

They could, yes