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Monday, September 09, 2013

Was Your Chicken Nugget Made In China?

Here's a bit of news that might make you drop that chicken nugget midbite.

Just before the start of the long holiday weekend last Friday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture quietly announced that it was ending a ban on processed chicken imports from China. The kicker: These products can now be sold in the U.S. without a country-of-origin label.

For starters, just four Chinese processing plants will be allowed to export cooked chicken products to the U.S., as first reported by Politico. The plants in question passed USDA inspection in March. Initially, these processors will only be allowed to export chicken products made from birds that were raised in the U.S. and Canada. Because of that, the poultry processors won't be required to have a USDA inspector on site, as The New York Times notes, adding:

"And because the poultry will be processed, it will not require country-of-origin labeling. Nor will consumers eating chicken noodle soup from a can or chicken nuggets in a fast-food restaurant know if the chicken came from Chinese processing plants."

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6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Just my General Shoas. I richt Cheeekin

Anonymous said...

damn. Im eating chicken nuggets as I read this. Sigh. Appetite gone.

Anonymous said...

no just another way to have disease and virus spread... easier and quicker... and no where to blame anyone...

Anonymous said...

Yet another plus for our family butcher! Love Hastings Butcher Shop and don't plan on spending my hard earned money on "mystery meat".

-countrygirl@heart

Anonymous said...

Okay, so let me get this straight. We raise chickens here in the US, kill them and process to whole bird state, ship to China on a slow boat where China further processes them into soup to nugs, then freezes them and ships them back to US. All that because it's cheaper than doing this right here at home? And the risk of salmonella with this method is how many times greater?

REALLY?

Anonymous said...

I think it's because China doesn't allow the chickens to consume arsenic in any form. They are cracking down on pollutions and don't want their land any more contaminated than it already is.