Guardian : is chlorinated chicken about to hit our shelves?

[lottieandmia]

Has anyone seen this?

www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jan/29/britain-us-trade-deal-gm-food-eu-rules

I'm so worried. Most people just didn't / don't see the far reaching consequences of leaving the EU.

There's pessimism and there's realism. The latter seems in short supply lately.

I come from a farming family and I can tell you that I and everyone I know are certainly not going down the road of lowering standards. We currently have higher standards than many and our home grown food is affordable for most. I try where ever possible to buy meat from Britain. I shop in the usual supermarkets and don't have a problem finding affordable meat in our local stores so I don't expect that to change even if we do decide to increase welfare standards for our animals.

“The notion that a country can have complete regulatory sovereignty while engaging in comprehensive free trade with partners is based on a misunderstanding of the nature of free trade" said cross-party Lords report.

I try where ever possible to buy meat from Britain.

Seriously, do you think that's an option for everyone?

Free trade with the US requries harmonisation of standards, which will then cause problems with trading with the EU.

Producers will not be obliged to lower their standards, but they could if they wanted to.

Lower standards are often cheaper, and UK producers will be competing with cheaply produced US food, so the temptation will be there.

To echo a pp poster, you can choose to shop at Waitrose for good quality meat, but the lower quality stuff will turn up everywhere from schools, takeaways, fast food restaurants etc.

This will disproportionately affect the poor, who may not want to eat such food, but may not be able to afford shopping at Waitrose. Poorer areas are much more dependent on their local shops as people can't afford to travel elsewhere. So it will be a question of what those shops choose to stock.

Cory, it's up to politicians not farmers to make the decisions on harmonising standards. If some farmers here lower their standards to compete with cheaper food, that will affect all your friends.

Our Farmers are already being undercut by poor quality meat from the EU.

Are they lowering standards?
I only buy pork - British, I o0nly buy meat where I know where its come from

Standards are supposed to be harmonized throughout the EU and yet at least 6 countries ignore those standards and nothing is done.

Support our famers.

It is an utterly bizarre argument to say that the answer to a breach of safety regulations is to abandon those regulations. It's like saying because people break the speed limit we should abolish speed limits.

Our Farmers are already being undercut by poor quality meat from the EU.

Yes and it's going to get worse. If you think EU meat is bad, US meat is a lot worse.

I would also like to remind people that we have had some major scandals in food production - BSE in beef and salmonella in eggs. There was rightly a public outcry, and e.g. beef sales collapsed, so producers have had to clean up their act.

There will always be premium ranges, but by definition, they are not mass market products.

"Brexit will allow us to protect endangered species from being transited through the UK, and to ban imports of wildlife trophies, body parts and extracts of bodies. It will allow us to have stronger regulation of animal testing and research, banning that which is causing severe suffering."

I don't know who said this in parliament, but what a load of tripe! Trade in endangered species is banned internationally through CITES. It will be unaffected by Brexit unless we exit the customs union and even then, I would imagine trade from the eu is minimal as most non-captive bred endangered animals will be coming from elsewhere in the world.

We already have the highest welfare standards for animals in research in the world, so how do you intend to increase them and why do they need to be increased? To do so would make research on animals prohibitive in the uk, which is great if you're a member of the ALF, but disastrous for scientific research.

unless we exit the customs union

We are ...

I'm fervently hoping our government rein in the insanity before we get to that point, its 😬

Worth revisiting this chart from time to time showing UK perceptions on matters relating to the EU versus the reality.

It's routine in the US

I just wanted to correct the assumption that you only get British meat in Waitrose. I shop in Aldi and buy Scottish meat only. You can't of course predict where the meat has come from when you buy premade meals and takeaways which could affect the poorer sections of the community.

Waitrose had an offer on New Zealand lamb the other day, so they don't just sell British meat.

I don't think chlorine will help his stomach

I don't know about dogs, but the evidence appears to be that using chlorine to kill bugs in chicken isn't harmful to human health (and I believe the EU knows this). However, rightly or wrongly European consumers and national governments are strongly opposed to it (for both health reasons and protectionism) - which is why it's banned in the EU. It's an example that shows that consumers and individual EU states have more influence over EU laws than brexiters would have you believe.

OTOH there are genuine animal welfare and drug-use issues with some US meat production.

Yes I think the use of steroids and antibiotics is probably more of a problem.

Peregrina - I wasn't suggesting Waitrose only sell British meat but that you don't have to go to a 'top end' supermarket or butcher to find British produce at reasonable prices.

to have far better pig welfare than the eu

Last time I checked the UK was in the EU.