https://www.businessinsider.com/boris-johnson-…020-2?r=US&IR=T
Boris Johnson has given a clear indication that he plans to ditch the current standards of food hygiene and safety in order to further his chances of getting a trade deal with the USA.
I rather like the fact that, at present, I can put good, safe and hygienic food on the table for my family. I'm grateful that we as a country can afford to be choosy about what we eat.
I was warning, almost from the very first day of the post Brexit vote that we will fall into the hands of the USA with its much lower food standards that have been the reason why washing food in Chlorine Dioxide is necessary. The Chlorine itself isn't lethal (although it's certainly undesirable), it is the fact that using it has encouraged American food producers to flout safety procedures for the sake of increased production.
Example, in UK the maximum amount of time live birds can be transported is 12 hours. In the US its's 28 hours and if maltreating animals in this way isn't repugnant enough, it makes the chickens more susceptible to infection that the Chlorine can't wash away.
University of Southampton produced a report in 2018 that proved chlorine wash was not totally effective in destroying pathogens and worse still, might make some pathogens undetectable.
American food suppliers deny that their methods are ineffective and some even claim that they are more effective than in Europe. But it is a fact that in the USA there are around 37 million cases of foodborne illness every year which is about an 11.4 in 100 chance of getting food poisoning. In Europe the rate is around 1.5 in 100.
Kath Delmeny of the Food and Farming Alliance "Sustain" says that food standards in UK will suffer if trade deals with USA are floated.
In the No Deal arrangement that I believe is Boris Johnson's real aim in negotiations with the EU we will certainly have to pay more for food imported from Europe, this will drive people on low incomes to buy poor quality, chlorine washed and very possibly contaminated food imported from USA. He has staked everything on trading with America since day one.
As much as I would wish nobody to suffer as a result of this, there is a part of me that says people who voted for Brexit deserve all they get, but those who wanted nothing to do with it are going to suffer for one man's vanity project (and one that will probably make him personally a lot richer).
I will pay whatever it costs to make sure I put decent food on the table for my family. We are one family that won't be joining the rush to the stomach pump.