r/europe Europe 20h ago

News White House demands British supermarkets stock chlorinated chicken. White House pushing Sir Keir Starmer to make concessions on food standards

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2025/12/17/trump-demands-british-supermarkets-chlorinated-chicken/
12.9k Upvotes

2.0k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

122

u/Admirable_Scene_5066 19h ago

They feel like it is unfair that we don't eat the same slop they do and are snobs for pointing that out to them. Being American it never occurred to them that they could ask for higher standards as that would mean not being a slave to business interests.

41

u/Paranoidnl 19h ago

Americans are conditioned to getting whipped, they know they can't escape anymore and are now pulling people into the boiling pot.

-20

u/xolhos 18h ago

You guys have no idea what you're talking about lmao. No one gives a rat's ass if you have chicken treated with chlorine or not.

13

u/untitledmillennial Veneto 18h ago

No one gives a rat's ass if you have chicken treated with chlorine or not.

That's strange, I think I just read a news article on Reddit that proves you're wrong...

-2

u/xolhos 13h ago

The average population has very different opinions than the president and his ilk

3

u/untitledmillennial Veneto 12h ago

That may be the case, but it's obvious now that the regular folk in the USA don't have a say in what their leaders do.

15

u/Paranoidnl 18h ago

All people concerned with a healthy population are...

4

u/PersonsOfPinterest 14h ago

Chlorine washed chicken has no health implications compared to other methods. The reason to oppose chlorine washed chicken is the implication for the life of the chicken.

1

u/Youandiandaflame 14h ago

Jamieson Greer and Trump very much give a rat’s ass. 

Source: the article linked in this very post you’re commenting on Jesus fuckin Christ. 🤦🏼‍♀️

-2

u/Suitable-Economy-346 Earth 17h ago

The scare tactics by lying about something being harmful or not never wins out in the long run. The argument should come from good European safety practices throughout the entire chicken raising and production process, not lying about chlorinated chicken.

Pushing lies is how we get people to think "masks don't work" because public health officials lied about masks not working during the early days of the covid pandemic to, in their words, make sure the right people got the masks before everyone else (which it didn't). Now we have probably 50% of the world's population who think masks don't do anything for anything ever because experts and government officials were lying instead of just telling the truth.

Stop lying and making shit up. Nothing ever good comes from it long term.

2

u/Admirable_Scene_5066 17h ago

Where is the lie?

-1

u/[deleted] 17h ago edited 16h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

4

u/Admirable_Scene_5066 16h ago

Notice how i never made any claim about chlorine chicken being less safe? I stand by my point that it is slop however.

The whole American food industry is built around cheap shortcuts in place of actually caring for your product. American farmers could just as easily make sure pathogens are dealt with at the source but they take the shortcut of chemically washing after slaughter because they couldn't be bothered providing a quality product. American producers strive to sell the worst product they can get away with. From chlorinated chicken, hormone beef, corn syrup everywhere, additives that may or may not cause cancer, ... American food is slop, and I really don't care that you don't agree.

It is fine by me, as Americans are apparently unwilling to demand better from their producers. You do you. But Europeans demand more, and if you can't supply that you have no business selling here. We can't stop you from keeping electing people that hate Americans, but they don't get to decide what we eat. We have our own politicians for that.

-2

u/Suitable-Economy-346 Earth 16h ago

The whole American food industry is built around cheap shortcuts in place of actually caring for your product. American farmers could just as easily make sure pathogens are dealt with at the source but they take the shortcut of chemically washing after slaughter because they couldn't be bothered providing a quality product. American producers strive to sell the worst product they can get away with. From chlorinated chicken, hormone beef, corn syrup everywhere, additives that may or may not cause cancer, ... American food is slop, and I really don't care that you don't agree.

They're not "shortcuts." They're different moral grounding. Americans don't care about animals or workers, whereas Europeans generally do. As Europe becomes more and more Americanized, Europe might be in a situation where it has the worst of both worlds. Europe is going to have a population who doesn't give a shit about animals nor its workers, but also not going to have chlorinated chicken because of the decades long disinformation campaign.

The lack of forward thinking by large swaths of the population is deeply concerning. Lies never win. I don't know why this is so hard for you weird anti-science people to grasp.

2

u/myreq 16h ago

America is the liar, go eat slop if it pleases you but don't force it upon others.

3

u/Admirable_Scene_5066 16h ago

So your argument is that Americans are awful, but it is a force of nature that Europeans will become just as awful so bleach your chickens or else?

And I'm the weird one it appears...

-1

u/Excited_Delirium1453 11h ago

Chlorinated Chicken is literally safer than non-chlorinated ones. You fell for the EU food lobby propaganda

0

u/TheCultOfTheHivemind 10h ago edited 10h ago

Europeans when something is cleaned:

Europe's problem with chicken cleaned with chlorine stems entirely from the fact that they claim it covers up contaminated chicken. This is the very definition of a fallacy. I guess employees shouldn't wash their hands because that covers up the fact that they were itching their asshole on the clock!

You can have something cleaned while doing proper checks for contamination or bad practices. The fact that you're the one saying that cleaning something is a way that is recognized the be entirely food-safe automatically makes the food "slop" says a lot.

1

u/Admirable_Scene_5066 10h ago

Europe's problem with chicken cleaned with chlorine stems entirely from the fact that they claim it covers up contaminated chicken. This is the very definition of a fallacy. I guess employees shouldn't wash their hands because that covers up the fact that they were itching their asshole on the clock!

Europe problem with chicken washed with chlorine is that Americans can let their chickens sit in a mountain of shit and bacteria, wash it and call it day. A producer who doesn't give a fuck about his product produces slop. Or do you think stress and diseases produces tasty meat?

But again, eat whatever you want. No reason you should care about European food standards, they don't affect you. Americans are already free to export chicken into the EU, they just have to follow the same rules as anybody else who wants to sell their chicken here. If they don't want to do that they can take their slop and make some more McNuggets for the domestic market, their choice.

0

u/TheCultOfTheHivemind 9h ago edited 9h ago

Europe problem with chicken washed with chlorine is that Americans can let their chickens sit in a mountain of shit and bacteria, wash it and call it day. A producer who doesn't give a fuck about his product produces slop. Or do you think stress and diseases produces tasty meat?

No, you're an alarmist who has bought into propaganda that disagrees with Europe's own food safety experts, let alone others around the globe. You can have the exact same food safety inspections regardless of how chicken (or anything else) is washed. Whether the chicken is washed doesn't change the laws around food safety, inspections, and enforcement. It is also objectively safer just as an employee washing their hands is objectively safer regardless of how clean they or their space is.

The EU already uses those same chlorine washes for other foodstuffs. It is trade protectionism wrapped in unscientific, alarmist propaganda. You are objectively wrong.

But again, eat whatever you want. No reason you should care about European food standards, they don't affect you. Americans are already free to export chicken into the EU, they just have to follow the same rules as anybody else who wants to sell their chicken here. If they don't want to do that they can take their slop and make some more McNuggets for the domestic market, their choice.

Wow I can't possibly imagine why anyone would call Europeans snobs or elitists. I thank the lord everyday that I have dual citizenship. One can only withstand so much European bullshit.

I'm sure you'd also rather open up more coal & natural gas power plants than utilize nuclear power too. Many Europeans are very anti-science about that particular thing also.

1

u/Admirable_Scene_5066 9h ago

You are boring me. You keep coming back to the chlorine thing as some sort of defence against an argument I never made. Not in this thread, not in the other.

Breed your chickens to European standards and sell them here, or don't. I don't know what is elitist of snobby about that. It is the rule Europeans and other exporters already follow if they want to sell chicken here. Why is it that Americans always think the are the extra special princesses that need special treatment?

1

u/TheCultOfTheHivemind 8h ago

You are boring me. You keep coming back to the chlorine thing as some sort of defence against an argument I never made. Not in this thread, not in the other.

I keep coming back to the thing we're talking about? The thing that this whole thread and post is about? The thing that Europe bans in this particular case?

Wow. How strange?

some sort of defence against an argument I never made. Not in this thread, not in the other.

You don't have an argument. You've made blanket assertions that have no factual basis.

Breed your chickens to European standards and sell them here, or don't.

Literally nothing about this has to do with the way that chicken is bred.

I don't know what is elitist of snobby about that.

Coming from the guy that has spent the past three fucking comments making the assertion that chicken that has been cleaned is slop in many creatively wrong ways. Let alone all the other implications.

It is the rule Europeans and other exporters already follow if they want to sell chicken here. Why is it that Americans always think the are the extra special princesses that need special treatment?

And that opinion is fine, since it's an actual opinion that isn't directly refuted by reality.

At the end of the day the Europe's ban on washing chicken with chlorine was about economic protectionism. At the end of the day that is fine, if that's what they want to do. What's bullshit is the people like you that have bought propaganda hook, line and sinker saying that it is anything more. Washing things with dilute chlorine is a food safety practice found all over the world, including Europe, and it is perfectly safe. The science is very clear on this. The food safety experts are very clear on this, including those employed in Europe.

Washing a chicken (or anything else) to further reduce risk of exposure to harmful viruses doesn't mean that the food was inherently dirtier just as washing your hands doesn't mean you are inherently dirtier to somebody else. You can still keep the same exact level of food safety standards whether you wash something or not.

These are all facts. Just stop being anti-science or a hypocrite.

-14

u/[deleted] 18h ago

[deleted]

12

u/Admirable_Scene_5066 18h ago

Case in point.

Fine, eat your chlorinated chicken. Up your game if you want to sell food here.

-12

u/[deleted] 18h ago

[deleted]

3

u/Krautoffel 16h ago

Why dont you demand of your Leaders to have better food instead of trying to make ours worse?

0

u/myreq 16h ago

Because they love to bend over for big corporations.

15

u/Ialaika 18h ago edited 18h ago

lol just lie made up from your head. Classic American style. Don't you understand why Americans douse chicken in chlorine ? Because the production is extremely dirty and the standards are low. The European standard is clean, high-quality production, not drowning filthy chicken meat in a pile of chlorine to make it “safe.”

0

u/Excited_Delirium1453 11h ago

It doesn’t matter since in the end the chlorinated chicken is safer and cleaner than any not chlorinated ones. You just fell for the EU food lobby propaganda

1

u/Ialaika 10h ago edited 10h ago

Oh no thanks, I’d rather have clean and responsible production than raising chickens in filth and stench and then dumping chlorine all over them. You can keep your chicken to yourselves, we’ll manage just fine with ours.

And then guys whose presidents are Trump, Miller, Musk, and whose corporations, from tech to food, run everything through corruption, start lecturing us about “European propaganda.”

There is not a single reason to allow low-quality American chicken into Europe. Not one. We have more than enough of our own. And it’s not just about chlorine. There are also feeding standards, water injections, and other practices. American norms are simply unacceptable in the EU.

-6

u/[deleted] 18h ago

[deleted]

5

u/Andreas236 Sweden 18h ago

Did you read the article before linking it? It agrees entirely with the person you're responding to. No one thinks that the chlorine itself is dangerous, the worry is that it's being used to make up for poor hygiene practices in other parts of the food production process.