Stand firm against US lower food standards

ALTHOUGH the UK government says it is committed to high environmental and animal welfare standards, these aspirations could be undermined (“Charity urges MPs to back animal welfare”, October 3).

US negotiators are pushing for a weakening of our food and farming standards.

Their alternatives have been described as “tasteless, toxic and cruel which have no place here”.

The best way to help animals and the environment is to reduce or give up animal products.

However, those who continue to use them should insist via their MPs that inferior imports from the US are not allowed.

US food production is industrialised and doused in chemicals.

US poultry is not only treated with chemicals to speed growth, but washed in chlorine to compensate for their overcrowded, squalid living conditions.

It is reported that 60 million US pigs are treated with the antibiotic Carbadox and US cattle are fed steroid hormones. Both are used as growth promotors and banned in the EU and UK.

Genetically modified US crops have become resistant to Roundup weed killer. It is reported that substitutes for Roundup have caused environmental damage and human health problems.

A deal without safeguards would be disastrous to UK farmers and undo all the work achieved here for animal welfare.

It is worth noting that food poisoning in the US is reported to be 10 times greater than in the UK and a Food and Pandemics report says “there is a fundamental connection between pandemics and our animal-based food system”.

Cheap, inferior food from the US is not good for farmers, consumers, animals nor the environment.

Elizabeth Allison, Aylestone