The beef over US chickens
‘Chlorinated’ birds emerge as symbol of all the UK fears about a looming trade deal
LONDON — In this post-Brexit, mid-pandemic moment in the United Kingdom, with its economy battered by recession and the royal family in mourning and turmoil, it is hard to find a topic that unites this fractious nation.
But U.S. chickens — yes, the lowly, clucking farm animal, consumed daily by the millions in all 50 states — have done it. Everybody hates them.
The odd thing is that U.S. chicken is not sold anywhere in Britain, and if people here get their way, it never will be.
What precisely have U.S. chickens done to so thoroughly appall the British, even though few of the latter have ever sampled the former?
The short answer is that some U.S. chicken carcasses are washed in chlorine to eliminate potentially harmful pathogens. Americans for years have been devouring these birds without any fuss, but in Britain,
U.S. chickens are now attached to the word “chlorinated” the way that warning labels are attached to cigarettes — which is to say, always.
U.S. chickens have been denounced by editorialists, academics, politicians, farmers and activists.
U.S. poultry has long been derided in the United Kingdom but did not become an object of public vitriol until it became clear, several years ago, that the two countries would sign a new free-trade agreement once Britain left the European Union. Arguably the largest anticipated sticking point in any such deal centers on U.S. food standards, which are widely regarded here as subpar and tolerant of filth and shabby conditions in the quest for profits.
It is all a big smear, says the U.S. poultry industry, and an excuse to keep a British industry from competing with far larger U.S. rivals. But dig a little, and it is clear that chlorine chicken phobia is about more than edible birds. Somehow, the U.S.’ handling of Gallus gallus domesticus, as it is known to scientists, has become a symbol of British fears that a trade deal with the United States will change Britain for the worse.
“This is a classic example of how belief has overtaken evidence and become embedded in a complex sociopolitical discourse which is almost certainly motivated by something very different from that actual issue,” said Ian Boyd, a professor of biology at the University of St. Andrews. “Chlorine-washed chicken is almost certainly a proxy for much deeper issues concerning trust.”
The specifics of this mistrust are hard to pin down. Most involve a free-floating sense that the United States is a heedless juggernaut and if trade between the two countries — now worth roughly $230 billion a year — is unfettered, there is no telling what Americans will peddle and ruin.
A similar dread was evident in the case articulated by some Brexiteers. The United Kingdom is singular, and wrapping it into a union of 27 other states undermined its uniqueness, went the argument. The word “sovereignty” came up a lot, along with the suggestion that much of it had been lost to the rest of Europe and had to be reclaimed.
In a way, “chlorinated chicken” is the new sovereignty, and that is reflected in some of the language used by vocal critics — like Tim Lang, an emeritus professor of food policy, who said in an interview, “The issue is whether the United Kingdom will become the 51st state of America.”