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What you guys eating?
Posted: Tue Nov 05, 2019 11:13 am
by Gob
Jeremy Corbyn will claim US food is laced with 'rat hair and maggots' today as he accuses Boris Johnson of plotting a 'sell-out' trade deal with Donald Trump.
In a dramatic escalation of his rhetoric, the Labour leader will say Mr Johnson is trying to 'hijack' Brexit so he can lower standards.
The veteran left-winger will say the Tories are preparing to unleash 'Thatcherism on steroids', opening up the NHS to US pharmaceutical companies and stripping workers of their rights.
The attack is slated for a speech in Harlow this morning, where he will try to get his campaign into gear.
'Given the chance, they'll run down our rights at work, our entitlements to holidays, breaks and leave,' he will say.
'Given the chance, they'll slash food standards to US levels where 'acceptable levels' of rat hairs in paprika and maggots in orange juice are allowed and they'll put chlorinated chicken on our supermarket shelves.
'And given the chance, they'll water down the rules on air pollution and our environment that keep us safe. They want a race to the bottom in standards and protections.'
The jibe is a reference to the difference in approach between US and EU food standards. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has guidelines on 'maximum levels of natural or unavoidable defects in foods for human use that present no health hazard'.
By comparison, the EU does not set any 'action levels' for foreign bodies in food.
However, critics point out that does not necessarily mean that the standards are higher - merely that the FDA spells out in detail what will prompt enforcement action.
By comparison, the EU does not set any 'action levels' for foreign bodies in food.
However, critics point out that does not necessarily mean that the standards are higher - merely that the FDA spells out in detail what will prompt enforcement action.
The Conservatives have consistently denied that food standards will be dropped after Brexit, or that the NHS would be 'on the table' in trade talks with the US.
Re: What you guys eating?
Posted: Tue Nov 05, 2019 11:27 am
by Lord Jim
The jibe is a reference to the difference in approach between US and EU food standards. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has guidelines on 'maximum levels of natural or unavoidable defects in foods for human use that present no health hazard'.
By comparison, the EU does not set any 'action levels' for foreign bodies in food.
However, critics point out that does not necessarily mean that the standards are higher - merely that the FDA spells out in detail what will prompt enforcement action.
Gee, Crazy Corby is using dishonest fear tactics to try and win votes...
Re: What you guys eating?
Posted: Tue Nov 05, 2019 1:45 pm
by BoSoxGal
Those aren’t dishonest claims. We do have chlorinated chicken and acceptable levels of insect and rodent matter in our food. What standards the FDA/USDA does set are almost laughable considering how underfunded and overburdened the agencies are in trying to enforce standards that do exist. Many prepared foods have different formulations for the US market than for the EU, because the EU bans carcinogens and other chemical formulations that the US does not - once recent case I recall hearing about involved Kraft Mac-n-Cheese. There’s a reason we have regular episodes of widespread food poisoning cases and that’s because we are nowhere close to the leader of the free world when it comes to protecting consumers from the profit-driven practices that allow shitty (literally) food onto our tables.
Re: What you guys eating?
Posted: Tue Nov 05, 2019 3:09 pm
by Lord Jim
What's dishonest, is Corbyn's attempt to paint EU foods standards as higher than US standards. The article makes clear that there is no basis for this claim.
Re: What you guys eating?
Posted: Tue Nov 05, 2019 5:58 pm
by BoSoxGal
Anyone who follows food safety issues knows that EU/UK food standards are in fact better than those in the USA. Not sure what article you’re talking about (just what’s posted above?), but I’ve read repeatedly in multiple sources over several years regarding this issue.
Re: What you guys eating?
Posted: Tue Nov 05, 2019 8:39 pm
by ex-khobar Andy
It's called 'filth' and there are FDA standards. Food products are natural products so there are times when the best practices fail to prevent (say) insect parts or mouse hairs from getting into food. You're not going to die if there are desiccated fly parts or mouse hairs in your corn flakes.
Two things about the EU regs. Firstly they hand off a lot of that responsibility to the countries. Secondly EU and member countries tend to regulate based on process rather than results. That is a general quality initiative - ISO, for example, for manufacturing operations, always concentrates on the processes used to create the product. It's a philosophy which works: see the Japanese car industry (Deming QA procedures) and how it ate the American and European lunches for decades before the Europeans (especially) woke up.
There are a lot of practices banned in Europe which are OK in the US and to some extent vice versa. But as a general rule (not always) as BSG says, for drinking water, air and food, European procedures are tighter than US. I've worked to both US and European standards for years. Then you get Japanese, Chinese, Australian rules . . . you get the picture. If you're a manufacturer of a processed food item or a pesticide you want to sell it all over the world so you go for the most strenuous criteria if you can. Otherwise you restrict your market. Some countries who can't afford their own rules just hijack US or European levels.
And Trump and his anti-regulations philosophy is not helping.
Re: What you guys eating?
Posted: Tue Nov 05, 2019 8:47 pm
by Crackpot
All it really does is make sure cheap crap is dumped here
Re: What you guys eating?
Posted: Tue Nov 05, 2019 8:51 pm
by Crackpot
The problem with being profess oriented is that it stifles innovation.
Re: What you guys eating?
Posted: Tue Nov 05, 2019 9:51 pm
by Lord Jim
BoSoxGal wrote:Anyone who follows food safety issues knows that EU/UK food standards are in fact better than those in the USA. Not sure what article you’re talking about (just what’s posted above?), but I’ve read repeatedly in multiple sources over several years regarding this issue.
Yes, i was referring to the OP (It's the part I put in bold in the quote in my post)
But if you have evidence to the contrary I'd be happy to take a look at it, if you would provide a link...
Re: What you guys eating?
Posted: Tue Nov 05, 2019 10:57 pm
by BoSoxGal
There is a mountain of evidence regarding this issue out in the world LJ, and on my little iPhone it’s a PITA cutting and pasting web addresses. You’re more than capable of doing the research yourself, I’m quite confident - and I feel no compulsion to prove to you something I know as a certainty and which isn’t even a matter of debate among people who pay any attention to food safety issues.
But here are two articles to get you started.
https://www.focusforhealth.org/the-amer ... nsumption/
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytime ... e.amp.html
I have numerous friends who live in the EU, either who are natives or who are Americans expats. We are constantly comparing the ingredients of certain foods sold here and there both but which are formulated differently in the EU because they don’t allow all the questionable additives whose safety is unproven. In the USA it’s poison at will until the poisoning is proven; I posted about this very issue recently in another thread with regards to DuPont and how they recently replaced one proven carcinogenic chemical (C-8) that they’ve poisoned all of us with, with another formulation that is already showing to be carcinogenic and which is now showing up all over the environment too. See The Devil We Know documentary if you’re actually interested. Nothing all that much has really changed in this country since Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle; greed and profit motive wins out every day over the health and safety of Americans. Ignore that truth at your own risk.