As the farm-communications-personnel-person, I get LOTS of emails. One of those I received recently was introducing a business that offers the service of processing raw chicken into value-added, fully-cooked, ready-for-use products. Things like shredded or diced chicken; fried chicken legs or wings; filleted chicken breast; popcorn chicken and chicken nuggets.

OK, so what’s wrong with that?

Well, the business is based in China. And it reveals a very dirty secret that most Americans don’t know about. Six years ago, the USDA cleared the way for American-grown poultry products to be shipped all the way to China to be cooked and processed, and then shipped back to be sold in the US market.

How on earth they do it at a profit—that I cannot tell you. I guess some magic tricks are real!

But perhaps the most frightening thing about this whole ordeal is that you cannot know if this is the chicken you’re eating… unless you buy it directly from the source.

There’s a loophole, you see. Actually, it’s not really even a loophole. It’s a word game. Who could argue that this wasn’t a Product of USA, after all? It originated in the USA. No matter where it stopped and was processed in between, it did start as a USA poultry product. And so it can still be labeled as such when it’s ready to sell, even though the vast majority of American consumers would NOT agree that this is equivalent to chicken raised AND processed here in the USA.

(I know it’s hard to imagine anything worse than Chinese-processed chicken, but things are actually worse than that for beef, particularly grass-fed beef, which can be grown and slaughtered overseas, but as long as a little bit of packaging happens in a USDA plant, it can then be relabeled as “Product of USA.” It is estimated that as much as 80% of the grass-fed beef available through commercial outlets is imported, but a lot of it has a “Product of USA” stamp anyway. But that’s for another article…)

Yep. The USDA “affirms the equivalence” of processing plants in the People’s Republic. No further labeling is needed. It’s “the same” as USA-processed poultry. Hmph.

Sure, there are standards. There’s even some “periodic” pathogen testing, thank goodness! But we all know, deep down, no matter how much cheaper it is to have American chicken processed in China… something is seriously wrong with our food system if that’s what we’re doing.

The cure?

Find a good farmer. Just like you need a good mechanic, a good lawyer, a good CPA, a good doctor. Why would you willingly pay into a system that routinely cheats and deceives you? Would you keep going back to the mechanic who fills your car with crummy, tainted fluids instead of the stuff that is going to make your car last year after year? You’d be out of your mind if you let your mechanic treat you that way, no matter how little he charged you for his “services!” Or any other professional that is providing you with a life-giving service. So should it go with your food. You need a farmer you can trust and ask questions to!

Next time I want to tell you about Chinese pork… My, oh, my is it interesting!