Don’t eat the chicken

SIR – If, as Michael Gove, the Environment Secretary, has insisted, we are not to import chlorine-washed chicken from America (Letters, July 26), will the Foreign and Commonwealth Office add to its advice to travellers there to avoid eating chicken?

I spent three years living in America with my family, and three years in Mexico, eating plenty of chicken in a wide variety of dishes. None of us suffered any ill effects. Malcolm Watson

Welford, Berkshire

SIR – Washing chicken in chlorine helps stop the spread of infections such as salmonella.

I wonder how many of those who object to the practice still wash chicken under the tap, which allows water-borne infections to be spread in thousands of droplets. Ted Shorter

Hildenborough, Kent

SIR – Olives: what could be more reassuringly European? However, a key stage in the commercial production of many olives is curing in lye – otherwise known as caustic soda and probably in most people’s homes in the form of drain cleaner.

I am, of course, guilty of deliberately misrepresenting the implied risk to the consumer, in the same way as in much of the current chicken hysteria. It would be interesting to know how many commonly consumed foods are processed using chemicals which are, in isolation, unpleasant or toxic. Richard Coleman

St Albans, Hertfordshire