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by vilaca 1611 days ago
> benefits would be spread among consumers throughout Europe

The EU has banned poultry meat from the US on psytosanitary grounds for more than two decades.

1 comments

Which is a lot younger than the chicken tax from the 1960s

For some context: it is about washing chicken meat with chlorine dioxide to kill bacteria, especially salmonella, at the slaughterhouse. It may seem ridicoulous that europeans prefer salmonella to chlorine on their chickens, but european food health and safety argues that the practice is needed in the USA due to the very unsanitary, and therefor cheaper, chicken meat production, whereas europa requires high standards during production instead of washing the end product in chlorine, and is therefore more costly. Some argue this cost difference is the major driver of the ban, and it is not an actual health and safety issue.

The US also has more lax rules than Europe has governing what food chickens can be fed. Without going into the rather revolting details, this is a legitimate reason to exclude US chicken.