There is no implication in the article that this stuff is unsafe to consume by humans.
A more likely reason is that domestic pork producers have a powerful lobby.
However, bologna is not a vector for african swine fever or foot-and-mouth disease or (as far as I can tell) any other threat to US livestock.
Thus "bullshit". Re-read the thread.
Why would you say that instead of "bologna is not a vector for african swine fever or foot-and-mouth disease"? What does how heavily processed the bologna have to do with your point, and why did you bring it up if it has nothing to do with it? That's literally the only thing I argued against.
what does bologna being heavily processed have to do with "bullshit" though?
The article touched upon other illegal imports due to invasive species, such as wood products. I doubt that there is a wood carver's lobby that is trying to have the work of foreign craftsmen banned. They don't need such a lobby since once an alien species (or disease) gets a foothold it is near impossible to stop and very difficult to slow.
Import of plants into the US is completely unregulated, which is why fruit trees and interesting plants from all over the world are available in the US.
It's because inbound international mail isn't inspected, which isn't the case in most other countries.
Further, of course inbound international parcels are inspected [1]. As with any sort of border inspection, USPS and CBP rely on random samples and targeted efforts of limited scope.
[1]https://www.uspsoig.gov/document/prohibited-inbound-internat...
By comparison, I have to open every single package I import in front of a customs agent, and I live in a third world country. This is after they've been x-rayed by customs.
I mean, just recently Americans all over the country were receiving seeds in the mail from overseas and your govt had to issue warnings. Such warnings would be unnecessary in my country because every package is inspected.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/aug/03/mystery-seed...
Millions upon millions of packages arrive into your country every week from Aliexpress and other foreign online marketplaces. None of these are inspected.
As implemented currently, US import inspections are designed to maximize throughput while catching the most flagrant violators. Extremely easy-to-smuggle items in low risk categories like seeds are obviously more often than not going to make their way past enforcement checkpoints under this arrangement.
I can pretty much guarantee that nobody in this HN discussion has ever had a parcel opened, nor knows anyone who has ever had that happen to them.
I mean, there's an entire industry of buying prescription medicine online from India and other places, which simply wouldn't fly in any other country.
Quite different safety traditions on both sides of the Atlantic.
Never heard of European chickens being "pumped full of antibacterials" - would you mind explaining what you mean?
https://www.worldanimalprotection.org/european-union-bans-an...
We do that here in the US too. Chlorination was on top of that.
Maybe, but this article isn't about that. It doesn't say anything about whether food is safe to eat, nor does it mention the FDA.
It does mention diseases (avian influenza, mad cow disease, African swine fever) and pests (wood-boring), and it talks about the economic damage they could cause / have caused to agriculture.
And seeing as we're talking about candy, I don't think fixing this is high on many people's list of priorities.
Considering billions of people outside of the US have very few problems surviving Kinder Egg, I'd like to think a sensible compromise could be reached to allow them here, but I'd agree that there are larger problems with US food safety going unaddressed which would have a bigger impact.
https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2018/12/17/tips-eating-canni...
https://www.wpr.org/cannibal-sandwiches-polarizing-and-misun...
I think what you're pointing out may just come down to a differing view as to what are acceptable losses for eating raw pork.
And, in fact, Germany has regulations for handling mett(which I assume you're talking about), indicating it can only be served on the day it is made, and you can't make it out of previously frozen pork.
Don’t be the small player.
It's the other way around - these prohibitions are to prevent the unsanitary conditions at slaughterhouses from causing outbreaks. It's these conditions that cause the US to be the only country in the world that dunks slaughtered chickens in bleach before selling them.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/food-and-drink/features/us-trade...
The FDA/USDA is just trying to stop giant companies from distributing only shit products with no alternatives like it was (supposedly) in the 20s. If you buy a cow and drink it's milk straight from the udder, the FDA does not care.
The regulators sure are. The people want to buy raw milk, and are told we're not grown up enough to handle the consequences.
Lumping those two categories together is a disservice to truth, and possibly health. If everyone died to whom you're referring when you talk about how "apparently we're not," then perhaps we're not good at dealing with the consequences. However, if most recovered, I'd say we are. Furthermore, the consequences of what? I'd say factory farming as opposed to drinking milk in the way it was drunk for thousands of years prior. If you're going to throw the baby out with the bathwater, it's best to make sure you know that the baby is indeed the problem.
You can tell young people - they have no notion where this all came from. Living in a world where almost everybody grows up, it's easy to forget that wasn't always the case.
What's-his-face- the guy who wrote about reform and the 'gate in the road', had some good things to say about all this.
{edit: Chesterson's Fence}
With the laws in place; if you live close enough to a farm to get raw milk, it’s probably safe for you to consume.
The rest of use have to stick to milk that has been treated to survive the lengthy distribution process
Germophobes I don't think so, but there's definitely something to be said about the way the regulations are setup to be protectionist of rural voter groups. And food production is a major chunk of those rural economies.
And a lot of cheese is made from excess milk, not the best milk because the best milk goes into the cold chain fresh. So it is politically convenient to make long lasting cheeses to keep the milk prices stable through the year and cut competition from outside importers (even Canada?).
The germs thing is a win-win on that respect. But if it had political negatives, the FDA would "find a way".
PS: "Food that Built America" season 2 is a great collection of anecdotes about all this
Over-producing (and maintaining the capability to over-produce) is one means of protecting against such calamity. I'm not sure if there are better ways to go about it. True rural voters make up a relatively small percentage of the country's population- 20% or so, depending on where you draw the line. It's not hard to out-vote them, but it is very hard to live without them.
So no, what you buy as brie, if it went through official US import channels, is not real Brie. Now how much is the real difference in taste is another topic, but we take protecting traditional methods of making these things very seriously here in Europe. Very anti-race-to-the-bottom approach.
A fair amount of differences in food safety practices has to do with where cleanliness is done. For example, I'm told European eggs are usually not industrially washed, so you can leave them on the counter, but you can only do that when laying is clean. In the US, laying is dirty, so eggs are industrially washed and must be refrigerated. Both systems work, but you have to be careful about comparing steps in the middle.
With the friends and families I've stayed with down there, pretty much all fresh produce and meat is disinfected before cooking, as surface contamination is definitely typical.
Your speculation does not even remotely match reality in the US, nor are you factually correct. The FDA recommends 145* for beef, it does not mandate it. And I've never been to a restaurant anywhere in the US that refused to serve a steak at 125 if so ordered.
Maybe I'm wrong, but there is a mandated temperature and I'm pretty sure it's well over what would be rare.
The FDA has charts that simplify and explain how heat and time will kill pathogens and result in safe food. This is information meant for consumers, not restaurants, which have way different requirements that are meant to produce safe operating and serving environments, so that you don't have to rely on overcooking your meat to ensure food safety. Bringing unground beef to 145 is ONE of those values, but the temp changes based on type of food and the FDA is also open that there are other ways to make sure your food is safe and that lower temps for longer are plenty sufficient.
Restaurants then have a bit of fine print on their menu or somewhere that says "Eating raw or undercooked meat/eggs/shellfish can cause illness" and you can then order an undercooked food item.
And it wouldn't surprise me to see this requirement widely ignored. A cook could easily know to cook to the required temperature when the health inspector is watching and it's very difficult to do a surprise inspection even if they wanted to.
I fully admit I was wrong to say the FDA mandated this, but my larger point is still broadly true.
>Cook rare beef to at least 130°F
https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/business/food-operators/food-s...
I realize it says temporary, but you can check the full guidelines where it says that 130°F is only permitted if you cook it for 112 minutes.
One factor that further complicates the medium-rare burger issue is the fact that serving undercooked meat contaminated with E. coli is technically illegal under federal law. Even if a consumer orders their burger medium-rare, the restaurant is breaking the law if that burger happens to have E. coli in it. -- https://www.foodsafetynews.com/2014/06/rare-burgers/#:~:text....
"The federal food code allows restaurants to serve undercooked burgers as long as they have a clear written warning, such as a statement on the menu, regarding the dangers of eating raw or undercooked meat. "
That's as plain as day that there is no mandate to serve steak/burger at the 145 (for steak) or 165 (for ground beef) recommended internal temps. I wish that article cited its sources for the claims it makes. It's possible that the actual law prohibits knowingly serving contaminated beef, instead of it just happening due to supplier contamination.
For reference, consider https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_Jack_in_the_Box_E._coli_o...
That was in 1993, so maybe the "illegal to serve beef with e. coli" is from newer legislation but notice Jack in the Box was not put on trial for any federal crimes.
Culturally older folks in the US are likely to prefer meat with little to no pink, so you will find a bias that direction in some restaurants. A proper fine dining establishment however will have zero problem giving you exactly what you ask for with a steak, including blue/pittsburg rare. I wouldn't say tartar is popular but it's not an uncommon site on an upscale menu.
Health inspections aren't national, so maybe someplace does allow steak tartar, but many have some kind of mandated temperature.
Not just in the US. I’m from Ireland and my grandmother was horrified at LIDL advert showing a should of beef cooked medium rare, going so far as to call it raw.
1) Lawsuits
- The US court system is often used as some sort of "i won the lotto" system where people do dumb things, and somehow win substantial sums of money. It is often easier to preemptively prevent anything that could trigger a lawsuit
2) Powerful lobby groups.
- Many things that are legal elsewhere are not in the US, and often there is a government lobby group behind it.
Think things like this : https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/the-anti-consumer-25-chicken-...