Posted on 04/15/2025 11:24:12 AM PDT by BenLurkin
When President Trump recently griped about Europe's distaste for buying American chicken, his comments touched on a long-running and divisive trade spat that's flared up from time to time.
Europeans disparage U.S. poultry as "chlorinated chicken," or "Chlorhünchen" in the German press, and see it as possibly unsafe.
The phrase refers to the use of chlorine in poultry processing plants after the birds have been slaughtered in order to cut down on harmful bacteria that are frequent sources of food-borne illness like Salmonella and Campylobacter.
Rinsing poultry in chlorine was common practice in the U.S. when the European Union first passed a ban in 1997 that prohibited chlorine and other so-called "pathogen reduction treatments."
Over the weekend, the U.K. business secretary Jonathan Reynolds said his country will "never change" its food standards" when asked during a Sky News interview if "chlorinated chicken was on the table or off the table" during trade talks.
It's not surprising the specter of chlorine-soaked chicken has staying power for European consumers.
But the accuracy of the term has eroded over the years.
"The vast majority of chicken processed in the United States is not chilled in chlorine and hasn't been for quite a few years," says Dianna Bourassa, an applied poultry microbiologist at Auburn University, "So that's not the issue."
Less than 5% of poultry processing facilities still use chlorine in rinses and sprays, according to the National Chicken Council, an industry group that surveyed its members. (Those that still do use a highly diluted solution at concentrations deemed safe.)
Nowadays, the industry mostly uses organic acids to reduce cross contamination, primarily peracetic, or peroxyacetic acid, which is essentially a mixture of vinegar and hydrogen peroxide.
Bourassa says this is typically used as part of the chilling process. Poultry carcasses are immersed in cold water with a dilution of peroxyacetic acid.
"It extends shelf life and very significantly reduces the number of bacteria," she says.
Moving away from chlorine has let the U.S. export poultry to other countries that prohibit chlorine, but the U.K. and European Union are still off limits because they don't allow any chemical treatment of their poultry.
While there may be a "yuck" factor for consumers, the chemicals themselves are not really the driving concern for overseas regulators.
European authorities have analyzed the use of the chemical washes and found they don't pose a risk to human health at the concentrations used in poultry processing.
In the U.S., it's not even required to disclose on the label of the poultry what chemical was used to process the chicken.
The European prohibition centers on the belief that disinfecting poultry with chemicals is, in essence, a way to mask subpar food safety in the U.S. industry.
"European regulators are seeing the antimicrobial washes as a band-aid to cover up what's really a lack of adequate hygiene," says Sarah Sorscher, director of regulatory affairs at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a consumer advocacy group.
"Our practices are essentially, in their minds, inadequate," she says.
The U.S. poultry industry rejects this argument and has pushed for the EU to roll back its rules on imports.
So is poultry in the U.S. more likely to make you sick? It's challenging to accurately compare rates of foodborne illness linked to poultry in the U.S. and Europe because of how the data are generated.
The EU cites data that its "integrated" approach to food safety dropped cases of Salmonella by nearly 50% over five years when it was implemented in the early 2000s.
"Fundamentally, the regulations are very different," says Byron D. Chaves, a food microbiologist at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln who studies poultry processing.
Europe relies on "pre-harvest interventions," to reduce pathogens when the animal is still alive, including vaccination and different types of additives that are used in feed. Whereas the U.S. tends to focus on chemicals and other strategies to kill pathogens once the animal is already slaughtered.
Sorscher argues American producers should heed their European counterparts and try to emulate their "farm to fork" approach, not lobby to have those countries change their standards to accommodate the U.S.
But Chaves says it's not accurate to say European standards are necessarily more stringent or safer.
"I would be very cautious about pushing that narrative," he says.
European consumers are likely more risk averse than U.S. consumers and have different values, which is also reflected in their rules, he says. Europe tends to operate on the "precautionary principle" when it comes to food safety.
But Chaves says the prevalence of infection from Salmonella and Campylobacter is very high in both Europe and the U.S. And research finds neither region's approach is entirely effective at eliminating the risk.
America 🇺🇸 deplores NPR. How safe are American tax dollars?
We need to clean up our food supply—and not keep trying to force it on the rest of the world!
It’s just slamming the country with BS lies, deceit and half truths because that’s the in thing right now. NPR is garbage and the EU are Fascists
Crazy, ain’t it? But chicken producers discovered it’s cheeper to pack up the chickies and ship them to China for processing than to process them here. It’s the usual reason: dirt-cheap labor and no worker benefits, no labor union complications, no regulatory hoops to jump thru, etc.
More reason for the tariff. Stop the insanity.
I rather prefer chicken without built in salmonella.
Agree on the eggs. We get them free from our neighbor (he has several breeds). I can really taste the difference in the meat however. It may be due to the breed, but my beef guy only raises Angus, the chickens are Cornish Cross (same as you get at most grocery stores). The guy I buy pork from raises several breeds. I’d like to think that it has more to do with the methods used.
If the EU is willing to accept US chicken if its rules are followed, then follow its rules if you want EU sales.
You didn’t read your link.
NO SHIPMENTS!
National Chicken Council spokesperson Tom Super described the Facebook post as "fake news" in a July 12 email to USA TODAY. Super said there "have not been any shipments of US chicken sent to China to be processed and sent back here."
FALSE
"It makes zero economic sense to do so, especially in light of record input costs, and sky-high shipping and freight costs," Super said.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2022/07/15/fact-check-years-old-usda-rule-allows-china-process-us-poultry/10031250002/
The No Regular Shipments comment was backed up by a Fact Check from USAToday from 2022.
Hoo Boy.
Football helmets are the cause of all manner of head injuries if you ask a rugby player. You get shoulder injuries in rugby - CTE not so much.
Safety standards are often a cornerstone for an industry maintaining a regulatory competitive advantage. So can you even sell chicken without a chemical wash? IDK. If so, that woul be a nice way to stop me from buying from the Ahmish down the street.
Same deal with US requiring all milk be pasteurized - you can have horrible cow hygiene an get away with it - except for horrible tasting cheese that has lost all manner of nutrition and beneficial bacteria.
I haven’t eaten a turkey for years. Since I opened up the package and smelled formaldehyde. And now, every time I think of a chicken or a turkey unless it’s organic I can’t even think about eating it.
God the level of ignorance is appalling. Go to your sink turn it on, pour a glass and drink it. Oh the horrors chlorine! It is in every municipal water supply and most well water systems use chlorine tablets too. There is no other better disinfectant, ozone works but has no lasting effect so if you store the water it goes off quickly same UVC light treatments it’s instant and then not effective. For lasting effect you need a halide ion and chlorine is the best one.
all I know is most times I open a package of chicken from the supermarket there is an off putting odor and it’s rubbery. date is fine, but some thing isn’t ok.
I started buying “air chilled” and so far less if any smell.
of course it costs more.
“God the level of ignorance is appalling.”
yes it is.
Chlorine is harmful to people, if you recall Dems were up in arms when they thought Trump was telling people to inject bleach during pandemic.
seriously, if you have thyroid issues you are told to avoid chlorine, so why would we want to eat food treated with it? you may say it’s tiny amount, but enough drops of poison adds up.
all these chemicals are hurting us. people years ago didnt use them. I’d rather we bring back fresh kill butcher shops.
You and these others are eating these eggs with no seasoning on them?
Yuck.
That’s so unpleasant, I’d be unable to discern a difference anyway.
OTOH, I’d think any seasoning added would swamp minor differences in taste.
With meat, whatever was used to wash it could make a difference in the taste, even IF only water was used, as some can get absorbed into the meat, and water varies hugely.
At the very least there are different (more) pigments in free range eggs than in your “industrial” eggs, and I’d be willing to bet some trace “nutrients” (or contaminants?)* are higher in free range eggs. Whether that is “better” I’m not certain, but the “more orange” free range eggs yolks are certainly more visually “attractive”.
*I will grant you many a keeper of free range chickens has no idea what was dumped or buried 50 or 150 years ago on the land their chickens roam... I find all sorts of crazy stuff if I do any digging in the woodlot out past our east yard and garden.
Only vaguely related: Have you seen the info. that has come out that Gene Hackman’s wife knew she was sick, and apparently thought she might have COVID? Unfortunately, there is a lot more than COVID “out there”. I’m NOT a “run to the doctor” if I’m not really sick sort of person, but it’s so sad she didn’t go to a doctor once she got more than moderately ill... I wonder if she took heavy nighttime cold medicine, zonked out, and then in the morning was so sick she never COULD call for help.
Gotta understand your limits as ya’ get older...
Thats not the truth with eggs either if you compare relevant things.
The difference is flavor is not related to housing or weather they had their butts massaged by pandas.
For example, there is a couple we know that has a few dozen chickens. They have a coop and a small enclosed area. The chickens are let out once in a rare while but for the most part kept in a 1/2 acre plot. According to the dirty cramped housing theory their chickens and eggs should taste much better than “factory” farm eggs.
Their eggs are absolutely disgusting. They keep their birds locked up until they are into maturity. They dont readily identify “wild” food. The chickens eat a low grade budget crumble. If you throw a worm their way they stand terrorized wondering what the worm is going to do. Their eggs taste like the smell of hot wet corrugated cardboard. These eggs are much worse than “factory” eggs.
My personal flocks are let out within days of hatching. They dont say what they eat but it has to be almost exclusively bugs and weeds along with any corn left from last year that the crows, cranes, and wild geese havent picked up. I do not hire pandas to rub their butts. I open the door in the morning so they can go to work. I close the door at night so the raccoons cant come to work. They dont tell me where they go but I know that some go quite far to feed on things like wild grapes, gooseberries, junebugs, and whatever else mother nature puts on the menu. There are kitchen scraps and sometimes that box of smashed week old donuts I picked up for 25 cents. My eggs, not really the whites but especially the yolks, taste entirely different and significantly better than “factory” eggs.
‘At the very least there are different (more) pigments in free range eggs than in your “industrial” eggs, and I’d be willing to bet some trace “nutrients” (or contaminants?)* are higher in free range eggs’
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