I always thought the EU doesn't want this procedure because it effectively allows farmers to take a short cut and cover up bad practices used earlier in the chain. Under this premise, this quote just argues against a straw man for an otherwise meaningless counterargument.
Lol. Sure, lets all just drink hydrogen peroxide. It's water, essentially.
Peroxides and carboxylic acids(vinegar is an example) are very different things...
On the other hand, peracetic acid is something I would accept as a chemical treatment without qualms, while chlorine compounds would squick me out. It actually will break down into vinegar when it oxidizes something, and on the surface of raw meat, this process will be completed by the time a consumer gets it.
I use hydrogen peroxide to disinfect contact lenses. It neutralizes into water and oxygen in the presence of a catalyst. It would do that over a long enough period when exposed to air. I linked a paper in the thread elsewhere that shows the same decay for the chicken washes.
Using peroxide as a lens disinfectant has advantages over other multi-purpose solutions which cause increased corneal staining and are at much higher risk of allergic reactions.
But they do all breakdown fairly safely (peroxide becomes water iirc) and don't warrant the hysteria they're being given.
Why aren't they just using vinegar if it's the same thing?
Hydrogen peroxide is a rather - comparatively - unstable substance, it decomposes to water and oxygen; hydrogen peroxide is a rather strong oxidizer, which defines a lot of its properties.
I'd assume double -O- bond in peracetic acid behaves the same - decomposes with release of O and acetic acid (or the anion of the acid). This oxidizing effect likely provides the effect which is desired - the same which chlorine would produce, that is, oxidizing a lot of things in chickens making them safer.
I've heard that hydrogen peroxide is used in Europe instead of chlorine in US for water treatment - for example, in swimming pools. I'm not sure why peracetic acid is chosen.
Why aren't they just using vinegar if it's the same thing?
Do you really not like chicken adobo? You are the first [non-vegetarian] person I've ever encountered for whom this is the case.
That's warning sign right there. It has a certain interpretation which is different from "good science". Quoting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junk_science#Use_as_corporate_...
> Theories more favorable to corporate activities are portrayed in words as "sound science." Past examples where "sound science" was used include the research into the toxicity of Alar, which was heavily criticized by antiregulatory advocates, and Herbert Needleman's research into low dose lead poisoning. ...
> According to epidemiologist David Michaels, Assistant Secretary of Energy for Environment, Safety, and Health in the Clinton Administration, the tobacco industry invented the "sound science" movement in the 1980s as part of their campaign against the regulation of second-hand smoke
But no, it isn’t essentially: vinegar contains acetic acid:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acetic_acid
which is a "carboxylic acid" with the following GHS statements:
“GHS hazard statements H226, H314
GHS precautionary statements P280, P305+351+338, P310”
Vinegar doesn't contain peracetic acid:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peracetic_acid
which is an "organic peroxide" with the following GHS statements:
“GHS hazard statements H226, H242, H302, H312, H314, H332, H400
GHS precautionary statements P210, P220, P233, P234, P240, P241, P242, P243, P260, P261, P264, P270, P271, P273, P280, P301+312, P301+330+331, P302+352, P303+361+353, P304+312, P304+340, P305+351+338, P310, P312, P321”
I would mostly be concerned about the sub-products of peracids reacting with foods. I don't know if there is any studies on this subject.
I think they'd argue "cleanliness" is not the only aspect of what "good" is. The chickens' diets and living conditions affect the quality of the chicken. To say nothing of the animal cruelty angle...
Since a young age I visited egg farms and I can tell you the conditions are far from ideal, they even turn on the lights at 3am to enhance egg production. We're talking about egg farms that are regulated by EU laws. About 12 years ago the EU regulated how many chickens were allowed in a single case (about 8 I believe).
Even with EU regulation it is well known that the amount of antibiotics is simple too much and dangerous, we've law holes like: It is regulated in France but you can cross the border and get it in Spain as they don't control who buys it.
If this gets approved, I demand it to be labeled.
Could it be woody breast?
https://old.reddit.com/r/keto/comments/c9lbu3/psa_can_we_tal...
https://www.wsj.com/articles/bigger-chickens-bring-a-tough-n...
I think that's a diet thing, though.
Woody breast tends to give a striated appearance to the meat.
I can tell you that chicken breast in the UK, France and Portugal looks and tastes the same to me.
https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2016/05/ukraine-poultry-giant-...
If the EU allows this as well (or finds some weird amended way to do the same while proclaiming something else) what's next?
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/salmonella/index.html
Also the US and EU have different approaches to meat production. In the EU, the principle is to prevent meat contamination in the first place throughout the food production chain whereas in the US emphasis is placed on decontamination at the end of the chain.
Finally, some recent bacterial food poisoning outbreaks in Europe were due to vegetables so comparing numbers of infections without taking the source into consideration can be misleading.
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 uses to not cause an outbreak. For those doubting this logic please look at the shit lettuce outbreaks we have every 2-3 months.
In Germany, this was the favorite scare topic of the press in articles about the TTIP negotiations.
So I doubt that they will be able to include that in any new treaty without causing a major freak-out here in Germany.
Not all meat is cruel.
To be clear, I'd still consider killing me cruel even if you treated me nicely up until that point.
Isn't all chicken "chemical-washed chicken"? Surely, they wash it in water at some point?
1 - https://www.indy100.com/article/trump-snl-sketch-2004-chicke...
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. It is embarasing that, as a vegetarian (lacto/ovo whatever, who cares), I rather don't tell this to anyone, due to radical groups too stupid to understand, that their aggressive actions are beeing counterproductive. There was an old saying that fighting for peace is like f* for virginity. It just doesn't work. And I am so sorry that I think that there is no need to make every meat eater on barricades due to agrasive stand you unneededly take.
Just let people eat whatever they want. They will figure out on their own.
> 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.
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.
Maybe USA eats more salads - but agreed, pushing out this data without a breakdown going X % was due to chicken and outlying the data without that context to induce a perception that all is due to such chicken is a bit off-key.
> Outbreaks due to Salmonella are on the rise, with S. Enteritidis causing one in six food-borne disease outbreaks in 2016. Salmonella bacteria were the most common cause of food-borne outbreaks (22.3%), an increase of 11.5% compared to 2015. They caused the highest burden in terms of numbers of hospitalisations (1,766; 45.6% of all hospitalised cases) and of deaths (10; 50% of all deaths among outbreak cases).
https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/news-events/salmonella-cases-n...
For one thing, those two quotes are talking about different stats: “cases reported” vs “estimates”. How many cases are reported in the US? What is the EU’s estimate of the actual total?
The issue at hand is that the EU doesn't want low quality chicken entering the market because it could cause health issues if not cleaned properly, and at the volume we produce, it's likelier than not to be done improperly at some point, at scale. It's just not worth the risk.
But, I could be missing the mark entirely. This is all from memory when I read up on EU food standards a few years ago. My memory of all of these things could be completely off here.
The data on salmonella is not super solid, but points to higher levels in the U.S. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-47440562
Salad has routinely been chlorine-washed in Europe for years, and nobody complains about that.
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.
Does one process result in a less healthy product or not?
In other words what is the advantage of being sterile all they eat through versus ensuring sterility at the end of the process? Is one more prone to letting pathogens slip through?
https://chemicalwatch.com/biocideshub/47111/eu-commission-ap...
> It’s vinegar, essentially. To say that’s unsafe or not to be used, we don’t think there’s a basis for that in sound science.
If you're fine with using vinegar elsewhere in food, you should be fine with this.
Sanitized poop is still poop. I'd rather the poop not be there at all, as much as possible.
They do that with a lot of things, and then it’s really easy not to buy it.
The noises from the UK are that it won't [0]. But in reality let's see.
We won't really know what happens until the ink has dried on the trade deal with the US and it has been published.
> The UK will not lower food standards to secure a post-Brexit trade deal with the US, the government says.
I'm not a vegetarian, but god I hope the American chicken never enters this market.
In Europe we believe it's indirectly harmful: Being able to wash germs off meat and eggs allows tolerating more diseases in the farms. If you can't just sanitize diseases off products, you have to keep the farms clean of diseases.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salmonellosis_in_the_United_St...
Hydrogen Peroxide under UV light can burn a lot of toxins that the chlorine cannot catch, so to speak.
Usually it's a checiken not produced like this: https://youtu.be/RV-rO2-Rwz4?t=63 that taste like nothing without seasoning or marinade.
Already today, I always read on the label to find out from what country the meat I'm about to buy comes, I always prefer local over imported as I think it is something little I can do to reduce unnecessary emissions and would hence anyway not buy meat that comes from another continent, just to get it few cents cheaper
It is however often not possible when eating meat at restaurant for example :(
Hell in Denmark where I live, half of our super market chains outright refuse to carry things like eggs from cage-hens. So they likely wouldn’t ever offer chemical washed chicken American for sale, and they’ll likely even use it in commercial to tell consumers how much better than their competitors they are.
I mean, if you order a pizza from the cheapest place then sure, but they already sell some really dodgy meats. We’ve had quite a few scandals where the beef turned out to be horse. Illegal, but you kind of know the stuff they sell is close to poison.
[1] https://api.worldanimalprotection.org/
[2] https://www.britishpoultry.org.uk/identity-cms/wp-content/up...
> In the USA, there are currently no federal regulations to control or safeguard the welfare of animals used in agriculture. An Animal Welfare Act is in place but it applies only to animals kept for non-farming purposes. State laws govern animal welfare in some parts of the country but currently no such legislation applies to poultry in any of the three major poultry-producing states considered here (Georgia, Alabama and Arkansas).
As an American, I agree with you 100%. Our opinions on taste are utterly worthless.
It's not just Hershey's chocolate either (which is already bad enough), it's so many other foods that are commonplace here. Food quality in this country is abysmal. You can get great food here, but it's harder to find and you'll pay dearly for it, but the stuff that regular Americans eat is generally awful.
Hershey's chocolate breaks that rule and contains butryic acid. Here's a link explaining why and how that affects the taste: https://www.chemistryworld.com/podcasts/butyric-acid/1017662...
EDIT: To be fair I think the butryric acid thing can be overlooked as an acquired taste. Same way that IRN BRU tastes like bubblegum to Americans, even though UK'ers claim it isn't. I still think Hershey's regular milk chocolate works better with peanut butter than any other chocolate I've had. The bigger issues I have with Hershey are the cloying amounts of sugar they keep adding as they knock down the cocoa butter and cacao solids in each of their products to save money. I used to run boxes of UK KitKats down from Canada's duty free stores so that other Americans could see what they were missing out on.
You can add American's functional properties to almost any cheese with sodium citrate powder (we make and slice up baking sheets worth of "Americanized" aged cheddars, gruyere, and even blue).
I would not confuse these useful properties with goodness. Grapeseed oil is also extremely useful. But California olive oil is a better oil. American cheese is like the grapeseed of cheese.
On the face of it "chlorinated chicken" sounds unappealing, but I've been to America multiple times over the years, eaten all sorts of food (including chicken) and never noticed any difference or ill effects.
Like most people here, I get to choose what food I eat. I could eat organic, ethically sourced meat every day if I chose to. However, if chlorinated chicken let's people on a lower income eat better than before, I'm all for it.
I don't think campylobacter kills, but it's certainly not very nice to get.
63 million population in the UK. 330 million in the US. Ratio = 1/5.2 .
57K cases in the UK, 1.3 million in the US. Ratio = 1/23 .
=> about 4x more likely in the US.
Although personally I think the US should have mandatory salmonella immunization (currently about half of egg laying chickens are immunized).
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 but don't spread FUD about what you don't understand.
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.
Corneal staining is basically scratching of the outer part of your eye. It is usually asymptomatic but can result in a burning sensation. It was found that the surface of SiHy is affected by what material is used to clean them. This link includes some research and plenty of linked studies: https://contactlensupdate.com/2013/08/14/what-do-we-know-abo... I had a better link that compared various products on the market but I'm unable to find it as this time.
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.
This isn't just Trump, I see at least as many liberals do that. A large part of the Trump-hate I see is from made up facts that have no basis in reality. (which isn't to saw Trump is good or honest, just that his opponents are doing the same thing they accuse him of - they believe they have the real facts)
I'm definitely not an expert on the matter but comparing an estimate vs a reported value is silly.
In the US all commercial eggs must be washed, which destroys the cuticle and is why eggs are stored in a fridge to keep fresh. In the EU commercial eggs cannot be washed, and are typically stored outside the fridge (and vaccinated against salmonella, iirc).
There is a lot of contention about the effect on bacterial culturing, but research I've seen suggests it's a bit of a wash (e.g. 10.1371/journal.pone.0090987)
You know I live in the mid-west and I have seen some iffy chicken farms and some really clean ones. I have also been to Europe (mainland, Britain, and Ireland) and have seen the same. The thing is you simply can not inspect everything all the time and guarantee the entire supply chain will be free from issues...but you can put mitigations in place that can help.
Peracetic acid has the following health warnings:
GHS Signal word Danger
GHS hazard statements H226, H242, H302, H312, H314, H332, H400
GHS precautionary statements P210, P220, P233, P234, P240, P241, P242, P243, P260, P261, P264, P270, P271, P273, P280, P301+312, P301+330+331, P302+352, P303+361+353, P304+312, P304+340, P305+351+338, P310, P312, P321
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'.
However, peroxide solution does have some big drawbacks. The better two-stage systems where you add a neutralizing solution to the peroxide when you're about to put the lenses back in I haven't been able to find in the US, and this is the safest gold standard (as you're leaving max disinfection power until right before you get them in your eyes). All that's sold are 1-step systems with a catalyst disk/ring at the bottom of a special case.
While I haven't had issues with the catalyst wearing off of the Clear Care cases, some of the other brands seem to not work as well and if the lens case is left in a sub-60F room, it will not neutralize in time. Honestly, this wasn't something on their documentation and if I wanted to be a pain about it I could probably put a consumer safety claim in. Putting un-neutralized peroxide solution in your eyes is a pretty traumatizing experience, worse than hot sauce. I don't recommend it!
EDIT: I'm not an optometrist/opthamologist, but I'll tell you how I got the background on this stuff: I did a project with some dude on IRC that was like the human bat, he had severe photophobia. We studied quite a bit about the characteristics of various contact lens technologies in preparation for our project. He wanted to acquire tinted contacts and vary the % of opacity. (I'm aware J&J is selling transitions contacts now and unsure of their efficacy but at the time the only options were extremely expensive traditional hydrogels.)
Long story short: We downloaded a bunch of patents and he built a small lab and dyed his own hydrogels using their patented processes. It was a neat and very illegal project, but he got his own sun contacts so he didn't have to live in his cave anymore and I got a ton of semi-useless knowledge.
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/salmonella-raw-ch...
"Salmonella from raw chicken has made 92 people sick across 29 states, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Wednesday."
Maybe the trade agreement should be modified to require only immunized chickens to be exported to the UK.
Looks to me you use it as 'those hippie commie bastards' while around where I am it means 'the (optionally center) right'.
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.
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.
If you can find actual reported cases in the US from all sources, that would be great to compare -- otherwise we shouldn't make the comparison at all.
So, for example, if it's the case that only 1/100 people who get salmonella have symptoms severe enough to cause them to go for treatment, then the _estimates_ of salmonella will be 2 orders of magnitude _higher_ than the _reported_ cases.
Huh? On non-fast-food cheeseburgers, cheddar is typically the standard cheese, and swiss is also popular. One of the best burgers I ever ate had caramelized goat cheese (in Europe). I don't even know the last time I had American cheese (on a burger or anything else), and I'm pretty sure the cheeses I've had on burgers were not "Americanized" as you mention, they were just normal cheese.
There is a reason that the nationally-famous burgers at Au Cheval in Chicago, Hog & Hominy in Memphis, Holeman & Fitch in Atlanta, Shake Shack in NYC, Husk in Charleston, and probably a bunch of other destination burgers all use American, despite many of these places being sit-down establishments.
And what is that reason? We have Shake Shack here in DC, and the reason there is pretty obvious: Shake Shack is fast food. It's a tier higher than Five Guys, and two or three tiers higher than McDonald's, but it's still fast-food, and their burgers do not cost $12-15 like in nice restaurants, so of course they're going to use cheap cheese. As for those other places, I've never heard of them.
Maybe I'm just weird, because I generally consider fast food to be inedible, so I really don't pay much attention to chains like that. Shake Shack is probably the cheapest type of restaurant I would ever eat at, and that's pretty rare. I make enough money to eat good food.
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.
American cheese is the standard, at the high end and the low end, for burgers that aren't eaten with a knife and fork. The reason is that it has superior functional properties to other cheeses: it remains emulsified when melted, and easily melts completely.
At this point, I'd probably just send to you J. Kenji Lopez-Alt if you want to read more about the virtues of American cheese. It's useful stuff. Ironically, though, I'm here in the thread to talk it down as "cheese". It's a good product. It's not good cheese.
Well...if you stop and think about it for a second - of course it is. If our, European farmers have to abide by certain animal welfare standards and the American ones don't, then of course American meat will be cheaper. Equally, I wouldn't want to eat chicken meat from China or Vietnam - their animal standards are nowhere near ours, so why should they be sold here? If Americans improve their standards then they are welcome to our markets.
The chicken that many US commenters see as intact wings and breasts are probably higher quality than the exports (unless they go specifically to a discount store specializing in low quality foods).
Of course its gonna be mostly packaged, mass produced crap....
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.
Don't even get me started on trying to get unsmoked ham but that's a cultural thing.
That's a long way from "all sort of meats are worse in quality", though.
Do you have any data on rates of salmonella from chicken, specifically, in both regions?
Edit:
"Chicken, beef and pork account for just 33% of salmonella poisonings in the United States, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture"
https://www.mnn.com/food/healthy-eating/blogs/foods-more-lik...
Be nice to see some stats comparing that, though different countries have different ways of measuring stats and then culture of accessing such services. UK, it's free so people wont hesitate, USA - not free, be cases that ppl ride it out themselves, or not and only then would be a statistic. Turkey - no idea and not easy to find such stats in western language as "Turkey health stats" won't end well in the likes of google and as it in effect, flips you the bird :groan:.
Your keyword is TÜİK; the statistics institute of Turkey.
That's besides the point though, you said US food isn't as healthy as EU food. You didn't say "imported, mass produced stuff isn't as healthy as fresh EU produce and meat". I was simply saying that you are getting a very skewed perception of US food if you are only comparing against imported US food.
US food in the US is generally high quality.