European spite?

[Karol]

Ok that’s not really the case there’s study’s showing free range organic chickens having as much or even more bacteria than the cheaper end of the market, if preventing the infirm from becoming ill was your goal you should probably be championing the call for poultry to be chlorine washed. It would reduce people getting poisoned even when buying the most expensive free range massaged by virgins chicken that’s runs wild in the woods. The headline chlorine washed chicken is not great and none want crap shovelled down our throat’s, but am sure we’ve all seen the adds saying not to wash chicken before cooking as your liable to spread bacteria as much as remove it. So there is a reason and a sensible discussion to be had. For the record I spend a great deal of time finding great food and love cooking, people sometimes need to look beyond the headlines!!!

Tosh. The salmonella poisoning fatality rate in the US is somewhere in the region of 400 persons per annum. Not one person died of salmonella in the UK over something like a decade.

High intensity poultry farming in the US allows new batches of chickens to go into pens that have not been cleaned from the previous batch so that chickens are raised on mountains of chicken scat. Such practices have been banned in Europe for the past 20 years or so.

Prevention through best farming practice beats ineffective cure every time.

 

[Ian123]

No it’s not tosh, I don’t think I mentioned salmonella or even the US that’s clearly your hobby horse. I was thinking more along the lines of campylobacter. As for chickens raised on piles in sh1t I tend to agree with you. But then there’s a fair bit of crap in most chicken sheds as it’s kinda what they do. Like I said there’s a sensible discussion to be had, would I buy something stuffed in a cage on its shite eating it’s neighbour..No. And I didn’t say anything about importing lower standard food from any country. People have a choice with food be informed and take your pick pay the price, or as some do turn a blind eye and don’t think how you can get a chicken for a couple of £

 

[Karol]

As a member of the Chartered Institute for Environmental Health I can tell you that deregulating food standards is the path to tragedies.

Chlorine washes are used to mitigate for poor animal husbandry and for allowing diseased animals into the food chain. They are not guaranteed to work.

You disputed this by saying that this is not the case - your post #166.

I say again, that's Tosh. I cite the US not because it's a hobby horse but because it exemplifies poor animal husbandry manifesting itself in high fatality rates from food poisoning. The figures I quoted were only for salmonella. I haven't quoted the circa 3,000 deaths per annum from other food born pathogens. Perhaps Chinese chickens from their wet markets might be more attractive?

How morally inclusive of you to think only of those that have the attorney and the resources to make healthy choices about where they buy their food. In the real world - the one where health care professionals and the NHS have to pick up the pieces - how many OAPs in care get to determine where the food they consume is purchased? Ever had to treat food poisoning in an elderly patient on a ward where they're losing fluids and electrolytes faster than you can get them into the patient via a drip? I very much doubt it. And before you ask, yes I have. And countless thousands are hospitalized for each food poisoning fatality so this is a big health care issue that the UK is potentially facing post Brexit.

 

[CaptainCymru]

Unless you pick the veg and rear the piggies yourself ,how do you actually ever know what your eating? Inspectors dont live on farms. If you want a real giggle , when I was sailing round China we used to take on dadant brood box size boxes of meat with "suitable for consumption by convicts and seafarers only " . I used to call it the miscellaneous meat port , would sit with the 4th engineer at dinner trying to work out what it was we were eating , good times!

 

[Ian123]

Unless you pick the veg and rear the piggies yourself ,how do you actually ever know what your eating? Inspectors dont live on farms. If you want a real giggle , when I was sailing round China we used to take on dadant brood box size boxes of meat with "suitable for consumption by convicts and seafarers only " . I used to call it the miscellaneous meat port , would sit with the 4th engineer at dinner trying to work out what it was we were eating , good times!

Having walked in some Chinese street markets trying to identify what’s been consumed/cooked is a game you can easily have.

 

[Apple]

Some many decades ago when I was training at St Hellier Hospital in Carshalton in Pathology... the consultant Bacteriologists war cry was ... if we got rid of babies dummies, dipped in dogshit, we could prevent infantile dysentery in one fell swoop!

Let the Yanks keep their chlorinated chickens........

 

[Amari]

Reading the above posts and many other threads, I marvel at the vast array of professional/trade/artisnal qualifications we forumites share. A great strength of this forum.
Just thinking.....

 

[madasafish]

As one of the largest domestic queen rearers (ok...Jolanta is queen boss...I just pay her) so with a foot in both camps.......replacing the spring demand for queens (even small scalers and beginners want them early) with home produced is only a pipe dream.

Nature abhors a vacuum, and where there is a business opportunity someone fills it. That after 150 years of queens being traded there are still no LARGE queen producers in the UK tells you everything about the viability and security of doing so.

Large...as in sufficiently large to dent demand for imported queens.....means 10000 or more. No UK rearer comes close or has ever come close. Even less so to supply the 20000 plus queens that are wanted for the market by mid May (ignore the bee base figures...thats only the officially recorded shipments).

Please do not confuse those who want imports banned with facts and harsh reality .

 

[madasafish]

Jesus H Christ. Is the chlorine in washing water bogeyman still being shouted about? I'm actually quite glad most uk tap water is chlorinated.

UK lettuce is washed in chlorinated water before used in sandwiches or sold in supermarkets.

Ask the experts: Lettuce and chlorine - Healthy Food Guide

Q: "I have heard that the bagged salad leaves you buy in supermarkets are washed with chlorine to clean them, and then have the bag filled with ...

www.healthyfood.com

Strange no-one mentions it.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

lettuce isn't food

 

[Ian123]

I have a good number of Argentine friends as far as there concerned chickens are vegetarian.

 

[Into the lions den]

Even before this more queens moved without papers than with..................and the UK in their Europhobic state have made everything so bloody complicated that the percentage just shipped on the quiet will only rise. Might be that the queen will just turn up.

 

[Ian123]

As a member of the Chartered Institute for Environmental Health I can tell you that deregulating food standards is the path to tragedies.

Chlorine washes are used to mitigate for poor animal husbandry and for allowing diseased animals into the food chain. They are not guaranteed to work.

You disputed this by saying that this is not the case - your post #166.

I say again, that's Tosh. I cite the US not because it's a hobby horse but because it exemplifies poor animal husbandry manifesting itself in high fatality rates from food poisoning. The figures I quoted were only for salmonella. I haven't quoted the circa 3,000 deaths per annum from other food born pathogens. Perhaps Chinese chickens from their wet markets might be more attractive?

How morally inclusive of you to think only of those that have the attorney and the resources to make healthy choices about where they buy their food. In the real world - the one where health care professionals and the NHS have to pick up the pieces - how many OAPs in care get to determine where the food they consume is purchased? Ever had to treat food poisoning in an elderly patient on a ward where they're losing fluids and electrolytes faster than you can get them into the patient via a drip? I very much doubt it. And before you ask, yes I have. And countless thousands are hospitalized for each food poisoning fatality so this is a big health care issue that the UK is potentially facing post Brexit.

This is what I mean about a sensible conversation I’ve never said lower husbandry standards. Could you not maintain standards and include a chlorine wash. You say it’s not perfect but in the real world little is, even the current vaccines we are pinning our hopes on are not perfect! Surely this would reduce the instances of infection you’ve seen. So if that was the case are you for it? As for being not inclusive and in some kind of ivory tower because i said I care about what I consume, that’s total balls. You’ve just suggested that caring is only open to those who can afford it. How very inclusive of you, how’s your tower! It matters not a jot your income you can still care and take pride in what you consume and many do. Food standards have a cost the sensible thing is to find a balance that is good for the product/animals and is affordable to all. Much the same as beekeepers complain about those under valuing honey and selling for a few £ but then not sure you keep bees so you may not understand that. Ian

 

[Polymorph]

Interesting, on his website he posts
Jonathan Getty on January 13, 2021 at 4:14 pm

Hi Shaun. As far as I know there should be no problem posting from NI to GB. The problems all seem to be with stuff going the other direction.
I have a lot of orders in already so hopefully there will not be any issues re posting the queens. Obviously I am keeping a close eye on the situation.
Jonathan

 

[oxnatbees]

This is the Brexit you voted for.

 

[E&MBees]

This is the Brexit you voted for.

Not everyone

 

[Murox]

I think most of the befuddlement stems from the confused messages given out by Johnson, certainly nobody understands the confused statements and “cummings and goveings” of the present cabinet, although DEFRA might think they do. Who knows?

 

[oxnatbees]

Sorry, that was rather snide. Look... what immediately struck me about Brexit was that it was going to be a huge, sudden change. I've seen this in other areas of life where, for example, employers merged 2 companies (never ended well except for the directors getting bonuses), sudden changes in tax laws causing economic shocks etc.

Without going into endless justifications and told-you-so's, it was pretty obvious that this was a step change on a scale I'd never experienced before, and it was going to have huge unintended consequences. There were other reasons to vote Remain, but the unplanned mega-step change, to me, was the stand-out red flag.

There were reasons to vote Leave, but no credible plan or timescale. And now for once people must directly experience the consequences of their vote.

 

[Murox]

Sorry, that was rather snide. Look... what immediately struck me about Brexit was that it was going to be a huge, sudden change. I've seen this in other areas of life where, for example, employers merged 2 companies (never ended well except for the directors getting bonuses), sudden changes in tax laws causing economic shocks etc.

Without going into endless justifications and told-you-so's, it was pretty obvious that this was a step change on a scale I'd never experienced before, and it was going to have huge unintended consequences. There were other reasons to vote Remain, but the unplanned mega-step change, to me, was the stand-out red flag.

There were reasons to vote Leave, but no credible plan or timescale. And now for once people must directly experience the consequences of their vote.

That reminds me of something I heard a while ago..................Two or three people started to queque. Then began to complain loudly, others joined them and soon a bus came along. They all jumped on, not knowing where they were going and bought a one way ticket; it seemed like a good idea at the time. When they arrived at their destination they were confused as the bus drove off and left them where they thought they wanted to be, but they didnt. They complain again.....................

 

[Apple]

That reminds me of something I heard a while ago..................Two or three people started to queque. Then began to complain loudly, others joined them and soon a bus came along. They all jumped on, not knowing where they were going and bought a one way ticket; it seemed like a good idea at the time. When they arrived at their destination they were confused as the bus drove off and left them where they thought they wanted to be, but they didnt. They complain again.....................

Then of course there were the fare dodgers... most of them Cornish Fishermen and blue six packers probably!