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I don't want shit food from the US

563 replies

flashbac · 25/10/2020 10:10

So word has it BJ is waiting to see who wins US election. Trump = no deal with EU. Biden = half arsed attempt at EU deal.
I think Trump might win because too many people are so gullible and brainwashed.
So how can we avoid eating crap food from the US? Thus far EU standards have protected us from dangerous additives, excessive phalates in packaging, the list is long.

OP posts:
slipperywhensparticus · 25/10/2020 15:06

They are already law? There are labeling laws and all sorts of laws surrounding food

Rummikub · 25/10/2020 15:08

I thought that currently we are protected by the EU legislation regarding food standards
But once we brexit then this is no longer the case.

purpleleotard · 25/10/2020 15:15

Don't like the possibility of buying unbranded American meat.
A simple solution............don't buy meat.

Lemonsyellow · 25/10/2020 15:15

@slipperywhensparticus

They are already law? There are labeling laws and all sorts of laws surrounding food
Those are EU laws. But if we want a trade deal with the US we will have to accept what they want- which is for those laws to go. Labelling will disappear, along with British-owned farms.
Lemonsyellow · 25/10/2020 15:16

@purpleleotard

Don't like the possibility of buying unbranded American meat. A simple solution............don't buy meat.
Irrelevant. It affects fruit and vegetables too.
SerendipityJane · 25/10/2020 15:23

The shit food won't come from the US.

It will be produced in the UK to exacting US standards by UK farmers that have been bought out by US companies. And it will only be allowed to be labelled as complying with the minimum standard required.

2bazookas · 25/10/2020 15:24

Many of the highest EU food, farm and livestock regulations originated in UK and are part of our own law. The mere fact of Brexit won't lower our standards. Along with that in UK we have very strict food labelling regulations. US raw meat imports would be easily identified and rejected by label.

I've bought/eaten only British born/raised/killed meat for many many years ( none from EU, NZ or South America). It's more expensive so we just eat a little less, and not every day. Much as we enjoy meat., we also love vegetarian food. Probably half our main meals are vegetarian already so if US dirt-cheap imports put UK livestock farmers out of business I'd just stop eating meat altogether.

Rummikub · 25/10/2020 15:25

It’s not just meat!

Rummikub · 25/10/2020 15:25

It’ll be flour, wheat, corn, fruit, veg etc

Nottherealslimshady · 25/10/2020 15:30

We will be reading labels and making sure everything is either british or European. Not putting money into American shit or putting American shit in our bodies. It'll reduce the amount of premade stuff we buy because that's where the cheap produce is so I guess it'll be good for us in the long run to be cooking from scratch more.
I'm also against trump so would really rather we didnt make a deal with them at all. Wonder in those that voted to leave EU would still choose this, is this really what you voted for or did you just think "stop immigrants"?

plinkplinkfizzer · 25/10/2020 15:33

Have not read the whole thread but word has it tories are desperate to use this sub-standard food in school meals , hospital food , care homes , prisons ( although a prison riot would sort that ) It goes without saying ready meals and restaurants .

Rummikub · 25/10/2020 15:35

I don’t think the full
Implications of brexit were considered by many.
Or maybe they were willing to accept a trade deal with the US and food Standards Or nhs don’t matter. Everything is for sale.

SerendipityJane · 25/10/2020 15:46

Many of the highest EU food, farm and livestock regulations originated in UK and are part of our own law. The mere fact of Brexit won't lower our standards. Along with that in UK we have very strict food labelling regulations. US raw meat imports would be easily identified and rejected by label.

What part of the current repeated avoidance of parliament to maintain those standards makes you think this time next year will be the same as now ? Law can be changed and in this case, laws are being changed.

Thesearmsofmine · 25/10/2020 15:46

I’m pretty worried about this. People talk about buying locally which is all well and good if you live somewhere you can do that and you have the money but if you don’t then you have little choice and the government know it.

20mum · 25/10/2020 15:47

@LockdownLil

they can't make us do away with branding.

I am really shocked and upset at how little posters seem to know on this thread. We won't be able to label our food. Putting a union jack on it or calling it Smith's Local Beef COUNTS AS LABELLING and there will be lawsuits and firms won't be allowed to do it. Supermarkets will stock the cheapest food which will come from the US after Brexit as the European food markets will no longer be open to us in the same way. So standards will go down. Individual consumers will be able to do nothing about it and no choice will be possible especially if you are on a low income. It's really happening, people.

The lack of proper press in this country has driven us over a cliff. This is vital for us all to understand and we're like a bunch of fucking idiot lemmings unable to act in our own best interests.

This. Already, labels can lie, because chopping up the food and packing it counts as country of origin for the label. But the worst thing is, as @LockdownLil says, the overseas producers have made a trade condition that origin labels on their produce are banned, for the specific purpose of preventing squeamish consumers knowing what they are buying.

Obviously, the majority of the unthinking will waddle into a fast food place or a supermarket only in search of more buckets of fodder, and prepacked ready made packs won't tell them the ghastly grisly details, even if they are sentient enough to look at labels.

It is apparently untrue that there is a shortage of food. There is a glut. More than half, worldwide, is wasted. Not by old people, and certainly not by the genuinely poor. Just everyone else. The French love quality food and import our fish and our lamb. The obese British won't eat it.

That ought to be another chance for a bit of lateral thinking and initiative and for stopping doing everything in exactly the Same Way Things Have Always Been Done. (A quasi religious practice in every aspect of British life) Don't furlough anyone. Call a spade a spade and call a jobless person jobless. Then assist them by any reasonable means to engage their time in something useful. Useful could include : Shadowing carers, assisting food producers, preparing beautiful ready meals for others to buy, with beautiful British food, picking up the filth their fellow Brits have hurled around out towns and countryside, visiting isolated people and advocating for those imprisoned in care homes, hospitals or alone in their own homes, coaching and encouraging exercise for mind and body for the ignored, such as disabled and older people
.

These 'furloughed' are not missing out if they never go back to devoting their lives to encouraging drinking and gambling and non essential consumption. They won't lie on their own death beds regretting time spent time doing something valuable to the planet and to others. Nobody's dying words are " Oh, if only I had encouraged more people to die of alcoholism"

RincewindsHat · 25/10/2020 15:49

@Florencex

So how can we avoid eating crap food from the US

Very easily. Read the packaging. Confused

Here we go with the unhelpful, uninformed comments.

US food will not be labelled as originating from the US under their rules, because they think it's discriminatory. So reading the packaging won't be helpful. That's why the OP posed the question.

AuldAlliance · 25/10/2020 15:52

I'm repeating myself here:

The HoL just tried to enshrine current UK food standards in law. The HoC voted against that.

So food imports won't necessarily have to comply with them. And when farmers/producers are competing with cheap imports they will either lower standards too or go bust.
www.newfoodmagazine.com/news/121607/disappointment-as-mps-reject-food-standards-protection-amendments/

SerendipityJane · 25/10/2020 15:53

US food will not be labelled as originating from the US under their rules, because they think it's discriminatory.

That will be the start. Until enough UK farms have been bought up by US conglomerates (they already have a hit list of nice juicy farms that are on the edge of bankruptcy provided as part of the US-UK negotiating protocols). Then they will simply produce shit food in the UK down to US standards that can be sold in the UK (truthfully*) as "Produced in the UK Exclusively for the UK" and everyone will be happy.

*Because they're hardly going to export the shit stuff back to the US are they ?

So reading the packaging won't be helpful. That's why the OP posed the question.^

Lemonsyellow · 25/10/2020 15:55

@Nottherealslimshady

We will be reading labels and making sure everything is either british or European. Not putting money into American shit or putting American shit in our bodies. It'll reduce the amount of premade stuff we buy because that's where the cheap produce is so I guess it'll be good for us in the long run to be cooking from scratch more. I'm also against trump so would really rather we didnt make a deal with them at all. Wonder in those that voted to leave EU would still choose this, is this really what you voted for or did you just think "stop immigrants"?
You won’t know if things are British or European, because there will be no labels. It also doesn’t matter if you cook from scratch, because you still won’t know where your apples, pork, carrots, chicken etc etc come from.
Rummikub · 25/10/2020 15:55

“they already have a hit list of nice juicy farms that are on the edge of bankruptcy provided as part of the US-UK negotiating protocols“

That there is frightening

JennyMcLenny · 25/10/2020 15:56

I've found a farm about 45 mins away that has a farm shop in a nearby village. All meat is born, raised, prepared and butchered on the farm and sold in the shop.

I'll miss supermarket prices but hey ho!

Lemonsyellow · 25/10/2020 15:57

@2bazookas

You really have no idea.

SerendipityJane · 25/10/2020 15:58

And when farmers/producers are competing with cheap imports they will either lower standards too or go bust.

And our own DEFRA will have a nice list of the farms already at risk, so speculating US outfits won't even need to use a phone book.

Make no bones about it. If you are a UK farmer, and you've been seeing a decrease in your wafer thin profitability, then your business is on a list somewhere in the UK-US trade talks.

If I thought the present administration had the competence required, I'd also state that the farmland ripe for conversion to luxury housing has also been identified. But that's less likely for now.

Rummikub · 25/10/2020 15:58

Is lamb the safest meat? It’s not produced in the US to a large extent.

Unless all our lovely lamb is earmarked for export.

It’s interesting looking at the allocation of space to beef compared to lamb (3.5 tines more allocated to beef by my reckoning)

2bazookas · 25/10/2020 16:02

Some of you may be too young to remember WHY salmonella in UK chicken farming is so tightly controlled ; nothing to do with EU standards. It was forced by British consumer pressure, after MP Edwina (Eggwina) Currie almost singlehandedly killed the British egg industry overnight.

www.myrecipes.com/extracrispy/how-one-politician-nearly-broke-the-british-egg-industry

Apart from the Eggwina mess, UK went through devastating livestock epidemics ( BSE, Foot and Mouth, swine fever) which made UK consumers far more aware of of farm animal welfare and far more educated and demanding about food-chain standards. That anxiety underlies why GM farming can't get a foothold in UK.
Trump's zero awareness of any history , science, health and culture means he has no clue what a Sisyphean task it would be, for the USA govt to introduce US standards on UK 's food market (or the NHS).

Cynically, one might suspect Boris is absolutely counting on Trump's blind ignorance and hubris, in order to sell him a pig in a poke.

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