Chlorine-washed chicken panic? Choose your battles...

Whenever the possibility of a trade deal between the UK and the US crops up, 'chlorinated' chicken comes back to menace us, much like Frankenstein's monster. But really it's a paper tiger. (This must surely be a mixed metaphor?)

There is no doubt that there are potential dangers to such a deal for the UK, notably around food and medical supplies and services. However, when the press gets over-excited about chlorinated (or more properly chlorine-washed) chicken, it dilutes the whole argument, because this is absolutely fine.

If you buy a bag of ready-to-eat salad in the UK it will have been chlorine-washed. This kills off the dodgy bacteria such as E. coli, Salmonella and Listeria that can easily be carried by salad leaves - the treatment makes it safer to eat. No one seems to panic about this. Now let's consider chicken. In the old days we used to be told to wash chicken before cooking it. We don't anymore because there is a real danger that doing so will splash the dodgy bacteria that chicken carcasses are likely to have on them, such as Campylobacter and Salmonella, into the air, making them easier to breathe in and cause an infection. All chlorine washing does is to kill off those bacteria before packaging. The case against using chlorine-washed chicken is that makes lower welfare standards easier to maintain - but bear in mind that despite our standards, the majority of chicken sold in the UK does carry such bacteria.

So, please, stop moaning about debugged chickens. By all means dig into the less salubrious aspects of US food and medical deals, but don't get distracted by the less than foul fowl.

Image from Unsplash by J K Sloan.

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