I was asked a few questions by Farming Today on Radio 4. The responses can be heard here.
I start at about 7.17.
Worstall: “Now this idea of chlorine washed chicken, and hormone fed beef and so on, is a different question. If we decide, or people are saying, you know, we must ban chlorine washed chicken from ever touching British lips and the thing is if no one ever wanted it then no one would buy it therefore no one would import it. The fact that people are arguing there must be a ban means that the people making that argument – if you call for a ban you must be arguing that the British people want it. Otherwise, why would you have a ban?”
Interviewer: “Well, isn’t there a concern that they might not know what it is because it might not be labelled?”
Worstall: “Well, OK, now the argument has shifted over to the fact that British people are too stupid to read a packet. All packets have labels, you can’t sell unlabelled stuff, we have laws about labelling. What’s the problem?”
etc, etc
Enjoyed her squirming at the end 🙂
It’s true, but the shit food will just end up in food service, where even if you can get labelling information you aren’t going to pore over it in the canteen checkout queue, and don’t usually have many alternatives. Of course, this is what already happens with shit food.
Do people want it? Sure, it wouldn’t even occur to most consumers to ask how the hell a crap supermarket chicken manages to reach 2 kg at 6 weeks, and sells for about 20 minutes pay at minimum wage.
Presumably those that oppose chlorine washed chickens being offered to the UK public will soon die of dehydration, not being keen on this life saving chemical they won’t be drinking water from a tap (let alone eating a supermarket salad or going to a swimming pool).
Chlorination is probably the biggest advance in human health in all of human history.
I never knowingly buy halal fiood. No Warburtons or Kingsmill products for instance. AFAIK Morrisons own meat products are non halal but they do sell stuff from outside providers which is and is clearly labelled as such.
As Tim suggests, read the label, it’s easy to check
Adolff must be one of those people who has read every clause of every software licensing agreement that he has ever been presented with.
After all, if he hasn’t, he only has himself to blame.
Not at all, BiG.
The halal thing is important to me so I check. Likewise, my mate has a gluten intolerance so he makes a point of checking for that, but I don’t check if my salad has pine nuts in it because I don’t have a nut allergy.
I guess you are the type to sue if your cup of Mcafe doesn’t have ‘caution – contents hot’ on the cup.
The whole point of that is if I didn’t read the label, that’s my problem!
And we had recently, didn’t we, an issue where all meat served in hospitals is halal. To make it easier for the caterers.
Silly patients, not reading their labels! Tsk tsk, only have themselves to blame.
Our food is produced to the high EU standards you seek to retain, so where does all the “shit food” you speak of come from?
And people have a tongue in their heads. No label – ask, and if they don’t ask they don’t care.
And that’s your problem – you know, deep down, people wouldn’t do what you want if they had a choice.
Yeah, thank goodness the EU’s minimum standards, in fact everywhere’s minimum standards, are lower than those that I generally impose on meat I buy. If not we would be telling hoi polloi they can’t eat any meat. I’m happy with those minimum standards in those situations where I don’t have a realistic choice, even if I can hypothetically, at a motorway greasy spoon, make a bunch of hairy bikers and truckers wait behind me at the cash desk while I insist on scrutinising the label for the gherkings in the burger on my tray. As you don’t with your software… Read more »
” in fact everywhere’s minimum standards, are lower than those that I generally impose on meat I buy. If not we would be telling hoi polloi they can’t eat any meat”.
We? Who is this ‘we’? You mean you and again, that’s your problem, those damned polloi just won’t do what you want them to do.
As being halal is the unique selling point, you’d be pretty bloody stupid not to label it as such.
Well done Tim. Keep the buggers on the run!