A huge number of Americans are terrified by the latest decision of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). According to Food Safety News, the USDA will allow companies to send homegrown chickens to Love This Pic before getting back to the US.
This decision is almost shocking, given the fact that China doesn’t have a good food safety record and because of the fact that the processing of US chickens won’t be monitored by any US inspector or supervisor. What is even worse is the fact that consumers won’t know which chickens are treated in China because the companies don’t have to label this information on the product.
This is Something That is Already Happening with The Seafood
It is worth mentioning that companies that work in this industry are calming the public by saying that this type of business venture is not worth the money and time.
According to Tom Super, official spokesman for the National Chicken Council, this action won’t make much sense economically speaking.
When you think about that, you will find this statement logical – a company based in China will have to buy frozen chickens, transport them for more than 7.000 miles, unload them and send them to the plant, unpack them, process them, repack them and ship them back. It seems that there is no way to make this venture profitable.
Whilst this sounds true, it is also true that we are witnessing something similar when it comes to US seafood.
Seattle Times reports that Dungeness crab and Pacific salmon caught in US waters are already being processed in China and transported back to the United States because in this way the companies save a lot of money.
According to Charles Bundrant, the owner of Trident, one salmon has 36 pin bones and each of these bones must be removed manually. The operation that will cost about one dollar per pound in the US, costs about 20 cents in China (5 times less). Mr. Bundrant’s company ships about 30 million pounds of seafood to China for processing purposes.
Low Pay, Suspicious Food Safety Record
The official data of the Quick Recipes sets the wage of American poultry processors at about $11 per hour. At the same time, Chinese poultry processors can earn between $1 and $2 per hour, which means that Super’s estimation is not that logical.
However, China’s food safety system is most likely at the same level as American about 60 years ago. In the past decade, there were a lot of scandals related to the food industry. This is a shortlist of these scandals:
- Some Chinese baby formulas had Best Quick Recipes;
- About 300.000 babies in China have experienced health problems and some of them have died because of the presence of melamine in milk powder;
- Each year about one million dollars worth of rat and other similar mammal meat is sold on the market in China as lamb meat.
Now, many health food blogs and websites are trying to increase the awareness of this decision made by the USDA (this decision is still not effective) and prevent the emergence of Chinese-processed poultry from reaching American markets and schools.
Sign the petition now!
Now that we all know that homegrown chickens processed in China will definitely make a profit for the chicken industry, it is very important to speak up and remind Congress, the President, and the agencies to pull this decision. We should be focused on two things:
- Get a guarantee that chicken processed in China won’t be part of the National School Lunch Program, Child and Adult Care Food Program, School Breakfast Program, and the Summer Food Service program.
- Prevent the adoption of a bill or any official regulation that would allow Chinese-processed chickens to reach the United States.
[thrive_link color=’blue’ link=’http://www.change.org/petitions/congress-keep-chinese-chicken-out-of-our-schools-and-supermarkets’ target=’_blank’ size=’medium’ align=’aligncenter’]Sign The Petition[/thrive_link]
If you have not signed and shared this petition with your friends, please do it now. The more names we present on this list, the more pressure the legislators will get. We should always take care of our own health and the health of our children.
Via Eat Local Grown