Cheap food just keeps getting cheaper and cheaper and cheaper.
Oh, how low can it go??
If you’ve been buying conventional chicken and ordering it in restaurants thinking it is so much healthier than red meat (what a joke), try this info on for size.
Yet another round of bad news for conventional chicken is on the horizon hot on the heels of a recent lawsuit filed on behalf of the Center for Food Safety, the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) and several other environmental groups to force the FDA to respond to a three year old petition calling for immediate withdrawal of the FDA’s approval of arsenic-containing compounds as feed additives for chickens (yes, arsenic is STILL in your chicken).
“FDA leadership is asleep at the switch, if not turning a blind eye to public health,” said David Wallinga, MD, a physician with the IATP.
In typical stealth-mode fashion just before the Labor Day holiday, the USDA joined the FDA in its wallowing in the mud chicken policy by quietly green lighting 4 chicken processing plants in China effectively lifting the ban on Chinese processed poultry. The chickens must be raised in either the US, Canada, or Chile (of all places) but after slaughter the chickens can be shipped all the way to China for processing. The processed poultry can then be exported by China back to the US for consumers to unwittingly buy sans any labeling of country of origin (of course).
How’s this for warped logic? The USDA says that country of origin labeling is not necessary because no matter what is done to the chickens during processing in China, the chicken meat itself originated in the US.
What would you expect from the USDuh USDA? After all, China is the world headquarters for food safety scandals with the most recent incident involving an outbreak of H7N9 bird flu virus in fresh meat markets.
The truth is that food safety standards in China are far below US standards and you may (or may not) be surprised to learn that USDA inspectors aren’t even required to be on site at these Chinese processing plants to make sure things stay on the up and up.
The scariest part of all of this to me is how it drives home the point of how globalized the industrial food system has truly become. Containerized shipping to the other side of the world on freighters which pollute and destroy our precious oceans (there is a vortex of garbage the size of Texas swirling in the middle of the Pacific Ocean primarily caused by these freighters) has now become so cheap that it makes more sense for companies to create a chicken nugget in China from chicken meat raised and slaughtered on the other side of the world to be ultimately sold on the other side of the world again in a Happy Meal to a US child than to do it all in roughly one place.
Buying local as a critical element to sourcing quality, nutritious food and voting green with your food dollars have never been more important than it is now!
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist
Sources:
FDA ignores toxic arsenic in animal feed
Playing Chicken: Avoiding Arsenic in Your Meat
Officials say “okay” to processed chicken from China
Food Safety in China and the Risk to the US
USDA: Chicken Processed in China Can be Sold in the US Without Labels to Say So
Wow, interesting! Thanks for the informative post. I buy Costco’s organic chickens somewhat reluctantly, but just can’t bring myself to pay twice as much for a local chicken. Do you know anything about where Costco’s organic chicken’s are sourced?
abolish the FDA + USDA
We know this was done with dollars in hand supporting it! I am so sick of this government and the policies they sign, benefitting only themselves!! We need to rise up against all this, are we, the American people, tired enough to make changes? I would but I don’t know where to go, or what to do. Does anyone know how to begin? Give me some ideas!! I’ll start and do what I can. I’m not ready to just sit here and take what they shovel out anymore!
It always pains me to read stuff like this. Governments rushing legislation through in the late nights before a national holiday and then hope like hell nobody notices and if they do well, its already been signed in so the damage to the people is done, the benefit to the few is made. Its that childlike mentality of ”easier to ask for forgiveness than permission” and its a nasty political habit seen all over the world. Happens here in Australia as well, not as severely (or perhaps they are just better at hiding their tracks?)but it still breaks my heart to see hard working people get treated like crap by the systems they voted to put in place.
“vortex of garbage the size of Texas swirling in the middle of the Pacific Ocean primarily caused by these freighters”
You frequently get caught up in your own hyperbole and thus detract from the important messages you’re trying to deliver. Less than 20% of ocean garbage is marine sourced and much of that likely from cruise ships pumping out 8 tons of waste per week. Just another of the many travesties that we have visited upon our little world.
Beyond speechless here. It’s now time to start finding solutions to this madness. Yes raising and buying chickens locally is part of the answer but what else?
You should probably do some fact checking in regards to where the trash in the ocean comes from as it certainly does not come from the ships. MARPOL and OPA are in place to keep these ships from dirtying up the oceans. Your car probably spills more oil than most ships. NOTHING OVER THE SIDE.
Hi Kylie I agree most of it is land based trash from Asia dumped at sea. Here is a sad link to see how terrible it is. http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/hawaii/268139-pacific-trash-vortex-wow-i-had-no-idea-bad.html
This is just another reason we have started raising all of our own poultry. They are all pastured and butchered with respect and care. How can we feel good about serving industrial meats to our families???
Its really insane to hear about this food safety travesty. Producing chicken here in the US to simply outsource the processing to Chinese factories all in the name of cheap? Even if one didn’t care about the health aspect of factory meat still theres the economic aspect of millions having their jobs outsourced to China. So much of the low quality crap bought in the US anymore comes from other countries… now we’re owned by China and now the food system as well.