Food News: Obama, Chicken, Crap Part II: The Shadowy East

Two weeks ago, I noted changes to the USDA rules regarding poultry that include as a solution to hygiene issues the spraying of chemical baths in lieu of washing all the shit off your dinner.

An article on the site Nation of Change reminded me of something my man Reece, of Cluckin’ Awesome Coops, made me aware of last September: American chickens are going to China!

On one hand, I find this exciting.  All Americans should travel to the far abroad to expand

Yum yum.  I found this photo with a related article at The Gaia Health Blog.

Yum yum. I found this photo with a related article at The Gaia Health Blog.

their horizons and see how their fellow creatures live.  But in this case, the chickens will already be dead, so they will have no functioning eyes to take in fellow creatures or horizons.

The gist:

  1. New rules at Obama’s USDA will allow chickens raised and slaughtered in the U.S. to be shipped to China for processing before being shipped back to your neighborhood grocery.
  2. These birds will not be labeled.  You will not be able to tell which bird was prepared according to Washington’s hygienic standards and which according to Beijing’s.
  3. The USDA will inspect birds as they come in—perhaps according to the same rules soon to govern States-side poultry plants—but will not be present in the Chinese facilities.

The specifics: Continue reading

Food News: Obama, Chicken, Crap

Do you like your chicken?  Bad news, dude.  And it’s news involving chlorine, Obama, and poop.

The gist: In September, the Obama White House will

  1. reduce the number of USDA food inspectors working each poultry plant to one,
  2. allow poultry producers to monitor and ensure the safety of their products themselves,
  3. increase the allowable processing speed of the kill line by 25%,
  4. and spray every chicken on that line with a chlorine soup in lieu of washing off feces.

    This is the less gross, poop-free version of chicken-nuggets chicken. I found it on a site named The Stir.

    This is the less gross, poop-free version of chicken-nuggets chicken. I found it on a site named The Stir.

This has been branded an effort to increase food safety.  Good times.

The specifics: At the moment, four USDA inspectors monitor individual kill lines that process 140 chickens a minute.  Let’s close our eyes and visualize that for a minute…

These monitors are in charge of singling out birds visibly tainted by feces, bruises, blood, etc.  The new rules will increase the fpm (fowl per minute) to 175 and put company employees in charge of weeding out defective birds.  The single USDA inspector will be tasked with randomly selecting for testing 20 to 80 birds per shift. All bird carcasses, “whether they are contaminated or not,” will be showered with chlorine and other antimicrobials. Continue reading