OT: 'Organic' bicarbonate of soda

No evidence that treating them well has any effect on the need for chlorine water washing of the meat.

And I don?t bother to pay more for free range chicken. I will choose it when it?s the same price.

They do take proper precautions, they chlorine water wash the meat.

Because the bacteria on the meat has been killed.

It doesn?t hide it, it is killed so that it isnt there when its tested.

No it doesn?t when the meat is properly handled after it has been chlorine water washed.

That?s wrong.

Of course there has, but it isnt possible to produce the salad veg in a way that eliminates the need for any chlorine water wash with massive great salad veg operations.

If you don?t like that, you are free to grow your own or to buy from farmers markets which grow salad veg in small scale organic operations.

It doesn?t work like that. What happens is that there can be a minimal amount not killed and so the test is fine because there is so little of it, but what happens after that is down to how that meat is handled temperature wise.

Its never going to be possible have no surface contamination at all, no matter how the animals are reared and killed. That?s why there are stringent constraints on how you should handle raw chicken meat even when it has been reared and killed in the best possible ways.

Of course it can if it isnt all killed.

Only if the raw meat isnt handled properly.

Chlorine doesn?t cause that.

That mangles the real story and is in fact allowed with salad veg.

Its just another EU terminal stupidity.

If poor conditions for rearing are the true problem, masked by chlorine-washing, then the focus should be on that aspect, and chlorine shouldn't come into the discussion as it's misleading. 'Don't import US chicken because they're reared in poor conditions', and chlorine shouldn't get mentioned as it's not relevant.

As the Publicity Relations Department of the Meat and Livestock Federation would doubtless point out if they worked Saturday morning shifts -

a) "Chlorinated Chicken" is a two word term which rolls easily off the tongue, and is a practice we naturally abhor here in the UK. And so is a clincher in arguments.

b) Arguing that we shouldn't import US chickens because they're reared in poor conditions, although true would then give opponents of the meat and livestock industry here in the UK, along with politically motivated types the pretext to post Youtube videos of all sorts of unpalatable (to more sensitive types) industry practices along with plenty of backyard nasties. Basically whether they're covered in their own s*it or not, most chickens have a pretty lousy time of it, as it is. More especially as many of them it seems prefer to stay indoors rather than run around in the fields even if given the opportunity as the publicity and marketing department would have their customers believe.

michael adams

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I got arrested the last time I did that :-)

I generally avoid chicken due to animal welfare concerns. At least cows and sheep are (generally) kept outside.

or import them, but label clearly as such.

That's because you did it from the high diving board. ;->

I don't. Sure their life is pretty obscene, bit they wouldn't even have any life at all if we didn't eat them.

Sure, but the conditions in the big feed lots for cattle are pretty bad too.

You could always live dangerously:-

Ammonium bicarbonate. A leavening agent, and the forerunner of today's baking powder and baking soda. Originally made from the ground antlers of reindeer, this is an ancestor of modern baking powder. Northern Europeans still use it because it makes their springerle and gingerbread cookies very light and crisp.

Other bicarbonates are available.

Brian

Yes; what's better? A short but well cared for existence or no existence at all? What would it be like not to exist? (Applies to humans as much as animals. I think Bertrand Russell said something about this.)

So basically Rod, you'd rather spend the whole of your life living cramped up in a crate sitting in your own s*it along with thousands of other squawking fellow chickens, in semi darkness, pecking at corn provided for you in a bowl, than not existing at all.

All I can suggest Rod, is that possibly says rather more about the conditions you're currently prepared to live under, than you maybe intended.

michael adams

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