Forgive me, but I simply don't see this. If we Brexit (which is in doubt) we will be in charge of our own food labelling regulations. Why should we not simply require beef from hormone cattle, GM foods and Chlorine washed products to be clearly labelled as such and allow consumers to make the choice?
No-one has produced any evidence that these American foodstuffs are dangerous - and as the US is one of the most litigious nations on Earth, one would have expected any actionable dangers to have been exposed long ago. Surely in an age of food banks we cannot quibble at allowing British citizens ($40k per capita GDP at PPP) to buy the same food as American citizens ($60k per capita GDP at PPP)?
I wouldn't choose to buy hormone beef or GM soya for myself. But then again I'm a food quality snob who wouldn't drink the flouridated ex human urine that Londoners call tap water ("It's very pure - it's been filtered through seven pairs of kidneys by the time it gets here") for twenty years. It's a matter of personal preference, surely?
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| Chlorine washed lettuce |
38 comments:
God's no
You're free to do as the Guardianistas deem acceptable
Everything permitted is mandatory
Why should we not simply require beef from hormone cattle, GM foods and Chlorine washed products to be clearly labelled as such and allow consumers to make the choice?
Unfortunately that rather adult , and perfectly sensible, suggestion would have the US Food Producers up in arms screaming 'Not Fair!' -they know, or would soon realise, that products with a big red 'GM' on them would be at a disadvantage.
The chlorine kills bacteria but does not destroy the toxins that they produce in meat.
Most London tap water is from chalk aquifers.
Why do people come on here to post bollocks?
(1) If people were harmed by residual toxins the FDA would have taken action to test / ban and chicken vendors would have lost billions in legal actions
(2) You must be a Remainer, for 'most' clearly means 30% to you:-
"The tap water in London is mainly supplied by Thames Water. Out of this, 70% comes from reservoirs collected upstream from the River Thames. The other 30% comes from boreholes which bring up groundwater."
The EU Parliament wisely threw out TTIP, mainly because of its implicit hobbling of democracy, but they had over a hundred other objections.
The desperate UK will have no choice but to take it up the 'arris, and probably far worse than was proposed to the mighty EU.
But to US supremacists, as the main drivers behind EU exit appear to be, that's a good thing.
There's not a patriot amongst them.
London tap water also contains high levels of benzoylecgonine, the by-product of cocaine excreted in human urine and almost impossible to filter.
Its all those cokeheads strung out along the Thames Valley all the way to Oxford. Coke cycle goes - 'Nose - piss - sewage works - river - reservoir - tap'
London tap water also contains high levels of benzoylecgonine-Raed
*heads off to Amazon Prime for bottles of GENUINE London tapwater...and none of yer Pennine's muck.
Oh, so you are capable of fact-checking then, Raedwald? How about doing some on your own rot, or on that of the other EU-phobics here?
'Informed choice' is key but far too often it's a case of 'we'll decide for you' as the usual suspect we-know-betters get their noses stuck in.
This interference would appear to be encouraged by .gov (whenever it suits them) with the most taxable ideas being readily supported - greeen energy springs immediately to mind but any specious reference to chemicals, particles, animal husbandry, processing or whatever seems to be enough to get a protest group going, .gov funding and legislation/taxes invented to compensate.
More and more we find our lives being decided for us and the idea that common sense kept us alive and progressing has been forgotten - or discarded as not being profitable/controlling enough.
It's in all aspects of our lives - not just foodstuffs. I am happy in the knowledge that I can do all my own electrical, plumbing and even gas installation work as I own my own property and have the ability to read and understand instructions and the law only specifies that you should be competent at what you do. I could suggest that my competence extends to knowing what's good to eat and what to avoid.....
At what level of IQ do the controlling authorities consider people to be incapable of making such decisions? 100?, 90? 80?, lower? and what percentage of the population fall into that category?
Is this some form of tacit admission that intelligence is on the decline? Is it because we're importing people that aren't capable of making these decisions? I doubt that as most foreigners would have an even greater consideration for dodgy foodstuffs that we have.
The inevitablity of all this is that we will be controlled - and more than likely made to pay for the regulations, inspections and instructions on how to 'live'.
My comment to those that wish to do this is 'leave me the fcuk alone'.
Dave, neither you nor I have the resources to decide what are safe levels of say, glyphosate, acetaldehyde, or benzene in our food. That is why we need the scientific resources of countries or of international bodies to measure these, and to test the substances for harmful effects. There are thousands of rules, relating to the same number of these compounds, unavoidably. That is the modern world. That on chlorine washing chicken is just one among the many, a drop in the ocean. It may not be the most needed, but boy, the rest are. So let's keep them.
Personal choice and market forces are just sooooo last century dontcha know? we have much smarter people to think for us now.
It's purely accidental of course that all this supranational regulation just benefits the global corporates so much, and disbenefits national and local SMEs and microbusinesses I guess
Of course much of the research that these supranational organisations rely on to make the regulations is funded, directly or indirectly, by those same global corporates that benefit so greatly.
Take Glyphosate. Used safely for decades with no evidence that the chemical itself rather than the surfectants and other additives it was usually sold with was harmful.
Then Monsanto's patent ran out - and everyone could manufacture it. Cue chemical businesses in Poland and elsewhere putting good, cheap Glyphosate on the market that undercut the price of Monsanto's 'Roundup'
Cue the emergence of new research showing that Glyphosate *may* be harmful in certain circumstances (feeding a litre of concentrate to a four year old child, something of that scale) and cue the Supranational authorities moving to ban it
We're just lucky that Monsanto have a newly-formulated replacement for Glyphosate ready to go on the market, with a long patent, and at double the old cost of Roundup.
We're just so fortunate.
"Cue the emergence of new research showing that Glyphosate *may* be harmful in certain circumstances (feeding a litre of concentrate to a four year old child, something of that scale) and cue the Supranational authorities moving to ban it"
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Stop being ridiculous. The research is nothing like that. The problem was that the original done on Roundup by the EU was far too lax, yes that weakly supports your globalist conspiracy theory too.
Those that get to set the 'safe level' criteria are the problem. Do they do this in the interest of the customer (unlikely) or the client (highly likely)?
The cAGW BS is now being superceded by the new scare - PM2.5 levels. When the tax income from PM2.5 prevention starts to dry up do we move to PM1.0? Anything to keep the money flowing.
Life is risky. We can't remove risk 100% and are efforts to remove 0.1% of potential risk actually worth the inconvenience/expense we invariably suffer?
I have to say that this sociopath Anon troll is making the blog very unpleasant. So I suggest they/he/she/LGBT person be removed, please.
So typical of leftard dogma. My way or no way shite. The charisma of the turds floating in the Thames.
Anon - reserve your insults for me, please.
As I understand things TTIP is a globalists wet dream and whether the EP had some objections or not, it was a work in progress...
Until the best US president since Reagan, namely Donald Trump knocked it on the head. He will not negotiate multinational trade deals, he is into bilateralism. And he is also a master of the bluff and double bluff. He threatened extortionate tariff on the EC and Juncker was despatched to Washington by Mutti tout suite to accept new terms.
The day that the Democrats regain office in Washington... TTIP will be back.
Why do you even bother looking before you cross the road then Dave?
@Anon- I look before crossing the road because it's common sense. I am in control of my own destiny/life so have a vested interest.
As Raed states, it's about informed consent. I abhor the interference of vested interests making decisions on my behalf. I have no particular issue with chlorine-washed chicken but the decision has been taken out of my hands by minority interests.
Using your own analogy, even though .gov machinery tells me it's safe to cross (Pelican Crossing) I STILL look both ways.
You'd be an idiot to place your trust entirely in .gov (or EU) advice.
Good analogy Dave - and one that has real evidence behind it.
The 'State Command and Control' road crossings - Pelican and the like in the UK, with steel cattle-pen barriers along both sides of the road to prevent citizens from deciding themselves where to cross and to restrict them to the permitted aperture governed by State commands are actually less safe than Zebra crossings.
Yes, the DfT's own figures show more pedestrians are killed and injured at light controlled crossings than at Zebra crossings where car drivers and pedestrians 'negotiate' a crossing solution. You put a foot onto the crossing and most of the time the vehicle just beyond the zig-zag marking will stop, eye contact is made, and two responsible parties (or three if there another stopped vehicle in the other lane) agree a wordless transaction, with no interference from the State.
Yes, Zebra crossings - the small State, no intervention solution, are safer, quicker and more efficient than the expensive, inefficient and incredibly ugly State-controlled crossing with all their lights, noises and cattle-pen barriers.
Anonymous said 12.02:The problem was that the original done on Roundup by the EU was far too lax, -
So who should oversee the overseer then?
.gov machinery tells me it's safe to cross (Pelican Crossing) I STILL look both ways. -Dave G
HAH! You wouldn't survive a day in Norfolk! Hereabouts we bring our kids up to STOP LOOK LISTEN LOOK AGAIN -and if there is anything, be it a car, lorry or bicycle, coming in under a week aways DON'T RISK IT!
Too many 80 year olds with failing eyesight and 18 year olds with failing insight.
Yes Dave, it's common sense, not to want to eat a thousand-and-one chemicals, which are proven to be highly dangerous too.
So what on Earth is wrong with qualified staff measuring contamination levels for us, and deciding whether food should be sold or not?
The chlorine-washing froth is relatively trivial by comparison.
Ah, rule by benign technocrats! The wet dream of anti-democrats the world over; forget all that inconvenient democracy stuff, forget national boundaries and self-determination - let's all surrender our freedom to the sort of people who faked the hockey stick, lied about diesel emissions testing, told us Thalidomide was safe ...
... let's all surrender our freedom to the sort of people who faked the hockey stick, lied about diesel emissions testing, told us Thalidomide was safe …
Exactly! And lots more 'Scientists' LIED, just to get their research money. There's a book... look it up!
Yeah, since Michael Fish got that forecast wrong in 1987 you've never believed the weather forecasters, have you, Raed?
Facile. We're not talking about excusable errors but the deliberate distortion of scientific findings for political ends - I geuss you simply don't understand the difference.
Why don't you go bother a blog more suited to your intellectual limitations?
Now let me get this right. Are you seriously claiming that substances such as benzene, PCBs and aflatoxins are safe as food contaminants at any level, and that attempts to limit them are "the deliberate distortion of scientific findings for political ends"?
Without more, it seems that you are.
The distortions are all on your side, apparently.
No I'm not - you are.
For the benefit of your challenged imagination, my point is that it would be foolish in the extreme to leave legislation to unelected technocrats, as unelected technocrats have a long history of falsification, distortion, omission and misrepresentation for the sake of promoting their own interests and agendas.
What is it that you can't understand?
my point is that it would be foolish in the extreme to leave legislation to unelected technocrats, as unelected technocrats have a long history of falsification, distortion, omission and misrepresentation for the sake of promoting their own interests and agendas. -Raed
So unlike our own democratically elected politicians then who never falsify, distort, omit nor misrepresent for the sake of promoting their own or party's interest and agendas? Hmmmmm....
Jack...at least ours can be called to account even if never quickly or efficiently enough at least there can be some sort of consequences.
Jack...at least ours can be called to account even if never quickly or efficiently enough at least there can be some sort of consequences.
Unfortunately history shows that as soon as one of the buggers is removed , we the people, have nothing better to do than democratically elect yet another politician to take their place.
Who leaves legislation to "unelected technocrats"? Not the EU, all EU law has to get past the MEPs (who refused to "rubber stamp" TTIP and plenty else) and past the Council of Ministers - appointed by us, the member states.
Plenty of UK Acts have the proviso "ministers may make rules". The electorate do not elect our ministers. The PM - also unelected - appoints them.
Your point, apart from insults, is?
If you bothered to read the post to which the above are responses, you would find
So what on Earth is wrong with qualified staff measuring contamination levels for us, and deciding whether food should be sold or not?
If you have studied mathematics, and the branch known as probability, then you would properly understand the Precautionary Principle, which informs every material course of action taken by the EU.
That is, unless it can be reasonably conclusively shown to be safe, then there remains the possibility that it is dangerous. So it is not done.
If you persist nonetheless, then eventually there will be a disaster. That is absolutely inescapable.
The EU-haters, science-opposers and the rest work on the opposite, fallacious rule. That is, unless a thing be proven beyond all doubt to be dangerous, then let's push blithely on with it.
We really shouldn't have to point out idiocy as staggering as that. But we do, and it is systematically ignored.
PLEASE carry on with what you call the precautionary principle - it is condemning EU economic growth to sclerotic levels, killing EU innovation, discouraging investors, pauperising Europe's middle classes, trashing the EU's prospects of leading the world in anything at all and will reduce Europe to a sort of huge Disneyworld for prosperous Chinese tourists by 2035.
Your precautionary principle will condemn you to life in the world's slow lane, whilst the UK, free from your malign influence, applies sensible and cogent systems of risk management and gallops away like a greyhound!
Oh yes. Please don't abandon your 'precautionary principle'. In fact, make it even stronger - you can protect more people better, can't you?
No, if you run blindfold across the M25, then no one can prove that you will be killed.
You'd have to be Leave-voting weak-minded, to be persuaded to do it though.
Oh boy. You've never managed real risk in your entire life, have you? I think you live in a pretend playtime world and you just don't understand how we do things in the real world
Your example is simply too childish and too dumb even to consider.
We manage risk. We don't colour it in with our crayon set.
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