EU-US Trade Negotiations: European Activists Say They Don't Want Any U.S. 'Chlorine Chicken' :by Susanna Capelouto

Mute Schimpf doesn't want to eat American chicken. That's because most U.S. poultry is chilled in antimicrobial baths that can include chlorine to keep salmonella and other bacteria in check. In Europe, chlorine treatment was banned in the 1990s out of fear that it could cause cancer.


"In Europe there is definitely a disgust about chlorinated chicken," says Schimpf, a food activist with Friends of the Earth Europe, an environmental group.

The chlorine vs. no chlorine debate has come up a lot recently in the context of a massive trans-Atlantic trade agreement. This week, negotiators from Europe and the U.S. are meeting in Washington for a seventh round of talks aimed at creating the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, or TTIP.

 Read more: European Activists Say They Don't Want Any U.S. 'Chlorine Chicken' : The Salt : NPR

CSM: A victory for cheese eaters? US-EU trade spat defused - by James Hagengruber

For the complete report from csmonitor.com click on this link

A victory for cheese eaters? US-EU trade spat defused - by James Hagengruber

A trade war that pitted hormone-treated beef from the United States against gourmet food items from the European Union (EU) appears to have been averted. In the US, this means wedges of Roquefort cheese won't be tripling in price. Proposed punitive duties against 34 other "luxury" food products from the EU – from Irish oatmeal to Italian mineral water – also will not take effect. In Europe, the tentative trade dispute settlement means consumers won't have to worry about hormones lurking in the beefsteaks and burgers that come from the US. The US dropped the tariff increases after the EU agreed to quadruple the allowed quotas of duty-free beef from the US. The beef, however, must be free from hormone treatments.

Chicago Trubune: U.S.-Europe trade war heats up -- by Mike Hughlett

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U.S.-Europe trade war heats up -- by Mike Hughlett

Like to sip a classic Italian mineral water with a pleasant bruschetta appetizer? Get ready to pay double for your drink. Big fan of the French cheese Roquefort? Its price increase will raise more of a stink than the famously pungent cheese. Both items are caught in a long-running trade war between the United States and the European Union. The battle will intensify this month when a new round of U.S. tariffs land on a bevy of European gourmet foods, from truffles to certain kinds of chocolate bars. The tariffs are payback for the European Union's ban on imports of U.S. beef containing hormones, which Europeans say pose a potential health hazard. The World Trade Organization says the EU is free to make that claim, even though it hasn't been scientifically proven.

Note EU-Digest: The list of diseases known to be associated with meat, which are commoner among meat eaters, looks like the index of a medical textbook. Anaemia, appendicitis, arthritis, breast cancer, cancer of the colon, cancer of the prostate, constipation, diabetes, gall stones, gout, high blood pressure, indigestion, obesity, piles, strokes and varicose veins are just some of the well known disorders which are more likely to affect meat eaters than vegetarians. The fact that if you eat meat you may be consuming hormones, drugs and other chemicals that have been fed to the animals before they were killed and you can see the extent of the danger. No one knows precisely what effect eating the hormones in meat is likely to have on your health. But the risk is there and it's a big one. Some farmers use tranquillisers to keep animals calm. Others routinely use antibiotics so that their animals do not develop infections. When you eat meat you are, inevitably, eating those drugs. In America, over half of all antibiotics are fed to animals and it is probably no coincidence that the percentage of staphylococci infections resistant to penicillin went up from 13% in 1960 to 91% in 1988.