Great Britain Chicken Friction

Summary

The Gist: "Great Britain Chicken Friction" – Episode Summary

Released on April 19, 2025, by Peach Fish Productions

In the April 19, 2025 episode of "The Gist," host Pesca delves into the contentious issue of chlorinated chicken and its role in US-UK trade relations. This comprehensive discussion examines the cultural, political, and economic tensions surrounding the importation of American poultry into the United Kingdom, highlighting public perceptions, industry practices, and governmental strategies.

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1. Introduction and Background

Pesca opens the episode by reflecting on previous discussions about chicken-related topics, including a 2017 segment titled "The Shia LaBeouf of Islam," where he explored the prevalence of UK chicken shops named after US states. This nostalgic recall sets the stage for the current exploration of US-UK chicken friction.

Pesca (01:04): "I shall play that spielish feel I was put on this earth to do... You might find the segment delightful because I forgot it existed and I found it kind of delightful."

2. The 'Game of Chicken' Metaphor in US Tariff Negotiations

Transitioning to the broader economic landscape, Pesca discusses the metaphorical "game of chicken" used to describe the tariff negotiations between the US and other nations. He critiques the prolonged and unproductive nature of these negotiations.

Pesca (09:25): "They nearly scuppered the US economy. So if you've heard anything, you may have come across a particular idiom used to describe the types of negotiations. They are said to be a massive game of chicken. He's playing a game of chicken with no end."

3. UK Concerns Over US Chlorinated Chicken

The core of the episode focuses on the UK's apprehension regarding the import of American chlorinated chicken. Pesca introduces Phil Morehouse, an English YouTuber, who has analyzed the prevalence of US state-named chicken shops in the UK and the public's backlash against chlorinated poultry.

Phil Morehouse (09:56): "Trump seems to be misjudging a few things about his tariffs plan. He is suggesting that we will need to accept chlorinated chicken for lower tariffs, seemingly unaware of the massive political and public opposition to this."

4. Public Opinion and Radio Callers’ Perspectives

Pesca highlights sentiments from UK citizens through radio interactions, showcasing the public's distrust and repulsion toward chlorinated chicken. Callers express concerns not just about health implications but also about national pride and food standards.

Caller Jay (10:56): "Why the cold chlorinated chicken is because their standards are low. They've got lots of like germs on the chicken... they wash it with the chlorinated chicken to kill the germs."

5. US Poultry Industry’s Position and Practices

Addressing the industry's side, Pesca examines US poultry processing practices. He acknowledges that chlorine use is relatively rare, employed in less than 5% of processing plants, and discusses alternative antimicrobial methods approved by the FDA. This segment underscores the disconnect between public perception and actual industry standards.

Poultry Industry Narrator (13:15): "Other strategies may include the use of food grade antimicrobial rinses, which are recognized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as a safe and effective way to inhibit the growth of foodborne pathogens on raw product."

6. Expert Analysis on Trust and Sociopolitical Dynamics

Introducing academic insight, Pesca references Professor Ian Boyd from the University of St. Andrews. Boyd argues that the chlorinated chicken debate serves as a proxy for deeper issues of trust and national identity rather than genuine health concerns.

Professor Ian Boyd (13:41): "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 the actual issue."

7. The Role of British Tabloids

Pesca discusses the influential role of British tabloids in amplifying fears and misconceptions about chlorinated chicken. He humorously notes the abundance of chicken puns in media coverage, suggesting that sensationalism exacerbates public anxiety.

Pesca (12:42): "The UK tabloids are going crazy with chicken stories, crying foul, beating their breasts, clucking their disapproval, running around like chickens with their heads cut off."

8. UK Government’s Stance and Future Trade Negotiations

Concluding the analysis, Pesca explains UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s strategic avoidance of the chlorinated chicken issue in trade talks. This avoidance signifies a pragmatic approach to negotiations, prioritizing economic agreements over controversial food standards.

Pesca (13:41): "UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is smart enough to avoid this issue. Overall, chlorinated chicken won't be on the table in trade negotiations or in London."

9. Conclusion and Implications

Pesca wraps up the episode by emphasizing that while chlorinated chicken remains a symbolic flashpoint, practical trade solutions continue to evolve. He suggests that the likely compromise will involve the majority of American poultry being accepted without the contentious chlorine treatment, thus easing trade tensions without fully capitulating to public fears.

Pesca (13:41): "The US will almost definitely accept a deal that allows for 95% of the chicken, the percent that isn't chlorinated, to go over to the UK. It's kind of an obvious solution."

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Pesca (01:04): "You might find the segment delightful because I forgot it existed and I found it kind of delightful."
• Phil Morehouse (09:56): "He is suggesting that we will need to accept chlorinated chicken for lower tariffs..."
• Caller Jay (10:56): "...they wash it with the chlorinated chicken to kill the germs."
• Poultry Industry Narrator (13:15): "Food grade antimicrobial rinses, which are recognized by the U.S. FDA..."
• Professor Ian Boyd (13:41): "Belief has overtaken evidence and become embedded in a complex sociopolitical discourse..."
• Pesca (12:42): "...tabloids are in fair abattoirs on this question."
• Pesca (13:41): "Chlorinated chicken won't be on the table in trade negotiations or in London."

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Final Thoughts

"The Gist" episode on "Great Britain Chicken Friction" offers a nuanced exploration of how food standards intersect with international trade, national identity, and public opinion. Pesca adeptly balances industry insights, expert opinions, and cultural critiques to provide listeners with a comprehensive understanding of the complexities surrounding chlorinated chicken in US-UK relations.

Transcript

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[Podcast Host]

Hey, it's Saturday. It's the Saturday show and we've got chicken. We usually do one from the vault and one from the week. And this week I talked about the UK concern about chlorinated chicken in the us I shall play that spielish feel I was put on this earth to do. I was thinking about what else have I done about chicken in the past? And this was one of those I totally forgot. I did until I started looking through the records. But it turns out surprise to me. In October of 2017, in an episode titled the Shia LaBeouf of Islam. Don't know what that title refers to. I did a segment on a UK data scientist who put together a study and a graph of all the UK chicken shops named after US states. You know, not just Kentucky Fried Chicken, he actually excluded those, but Tennessee Fried Chicken and California Fried Chicken. And you'll be shocked at how many UK chicken shops are named after US states even though the UK is supposedly clamoring up in arms. Oh, let me have a good chicken pun. Here we go, acting like the sky is falling over the prospect of US chlorinated chicken. So I will tell you, you might find the segment delightful because I forgot it existed and I found it kind of delightful. Or at least interesting. And certainly in keeping with my recent trend of covering UK US chicken contra tam. Enjoy. Foreign is sponsored by Green Light. Think about who taught you about money if you're lucky. Like me. My dad was pretty good at it. He used to listen to a lot of financial talk shows on the radio. So I guess that helped. But you know, the schools don't do it. Not everyone's parents are adept or have the time or even have the knowledge. So most of us just learn about savings and budgeting way later than we should, you know, or we pick it up on the street or we get some bad ideas. But what you can do is give your kids a head start with Greenlight. Greenlight's a debit card and a money app made for families that lets kids learn how to save, invest and spend wisely. You could send money to your kids and keep an eye on your kids spendings and savings and they'll learn to build confidence and skills. They'll find their way around money pretty easily. And the app also features this chores feature so you can set up up a one time reoccurring chore and customize it to your household and then reward the kids with their allowance tied to actually doing a chore. It's easy. It's convenient. Millions of parents and kids are learning about money the green light way. Start your risk free Greenlight trial today at greenlight.com/the gist. That's greenlight.com/the gist to get started greenlight.com/the.

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[Podcast Host]

I came across a tweet which led me to a question which answered a conundrum I had never considered. Now the tweet is from a guy, a data scientist, let's say, who's not. I can't disprove that. His name is Gwillim Lockwood and he tweets I walked past the Tennessee Fried Chicken the other day. This guy's from London and I wonder how many UK chicken shops are called parentheses US State Fried Chicken. And so he did the research. He found every fried chicken place in the United Kingdom that was named after a US state. And he said I'm not gonna count Kentucky. Here were the states he found. He found an Alaska fried chicken and Arizona fried chicken. California, Florida, Georgia A Kansas Fried Chicken, Michigan Fried Chicken, Mississippi Fried Chicken 1 Montana Fried Chicken and Ohio fried Chicken Tennessee a few Texas is. And a Virginia that has a number of amazing graphs to show the distribution geographically of these fried chicken places. I did the same thing for New York. I could find the New York stats and in New York there, in addition to Kentucky Fried Chicken, which isn't actually. Doesn't actually exist as such kfc, there is a New York Fried Chicken, a Texas Fried Chicken. Are you ready for this one? An Arkansas fried chicken. But not nearly as many chickens named after states as they have in a country other than our own theory. I think it is harder to sell a New Yorker than someone from Stoke on Kent about the prospects of biting into fried chicken from Kansas. Now I have long wondered about the question what is the worst state to name a food after to associate your foodstuff brand wise with a state or commonwealth. Now when I asked this question to people, and maybe you are such a person, you said New Jersey because it always gets a laugh. But that is totally untrue. There are Jersey tomatoes. There's Jersey Mike's subs. There's a Jersey fried chicken. Well, I googled it. It said it was a Jersey fried chicken, but it really was a jersey, a baseball jersey of fried chicken. I'm not kidding. For $70 you could wear a fried chicken jersey. So here are some of the runners up. It's not Jersey. Arkansas. I don't think Arkansas goes well with a lot of things you want to put in your mouth. Fresh, clear Arkansas spring water. Maybe New Hampshire doesn't go well. It doesn't seem like a disgusting place or anything. It's nice, it's clean. It's just the length of the name. New Hampshire. Hey, you want a New Hampshire burger? You know, also it lacks a lot of distinguishing characteristics. Right? It's next to Vermont. The man in the mountain that fell down votes first. Doesn't lead you to want to bite into New Hampshire broil. Let's say now South Dakota. That has a little bit of the New Hampshire problem. It's a mouthful. South Dakota pears aren't that inviting. South Dakota strudel, I'd rather pass. Doesn't roll off the tongue. But you know what, if you take the south away and just call things Dakota, Dakota something. That's a, that's a delicious food. Right? I've got your answer though. I've gone through some of the runners up. Your answer is West Virginia. Hey, you want a sip of that West Virginia wine? A healthy swig of West Virgin sparkling water. You do not. Such are the associations with West Virginia. Sorry, West Virginia lost on that one. You did win the war on coal, though, so take that as far as you can.

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[Podcast Host]

And now the spiel if you've heard anything about tariffs, and I'm going to assume you have, they nearly scuppered the US economy. So if you've heard anything, you may have come across a particular idiom used to describe the types of negotiations. They are said to be a massive game of chicken. He's playing a game of chicken with no end.

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[Podcast Host]

But over in the uk, and I did use the word scuppered before, there is a different kind of chicken concern.

[Phil Morehouse]

Hi, my name is Phil. I like talking about politics and in this video I'd like to discuss how Trump seems to be misjudging a few things about his tariffs plan. He is suggesting that we will need to accept chlorinated chicken for lower tariffs, seemingly unaware of the massive political and public opposition to this.

[Podcast Host]

That gentleman was English, I can only assume, picking up on context clues. He is Phil Morehouse, whose YouTube channel covering political news from a socialist perspective has a quarter million viewers. The background was Parliament. Big Ben might as well have been a picture of Shakespeare and David Beckham sharing a warm beer. Britain is all aflutter over the prospect of having to eat American chicken. American chlorinated chicken. It is a demand of impending trade deals, supposedly that the UK lowers its barriers, which some in the UK say means lowers their standards. The callers to the British network LBC had a bone to pick with the policy.

[Caller Jay]

Okay, we go to a swimming pool, we drink chlorine, sometimes once a week or once a month. But why the cold chlorinated chicken is because their standards are low. They've got lots of like a germs on the chicken. They don't look after the chicken as well and then they wash it with the chlorinated chicken to kill the germs.

[Podcast Host]

That was Jay from Saffron Walden talking to host Nick Ferrari. You picked up on the anxiety there. It's not the eating of the chlorinated chicken that is so wrong. It is the question of why do they, meaning we have to chlorinate it in the first place. There's another angle beyond the supposed first and second order health concerns, and that's nationalism, the purity of the nation. Here was the UK labor minister on lbc. Would you be happy to see chlorinated chicken in the United Kingdom?

[Phil Morehouse]

No, because the UK food standards are clear that they are not up for negotiation in any deal with other countries. And so chlorinated chicken hormone treated beef, both illegal in the UK and will remain so.

[Podcast Host]

James Murray there talking to once more, Nick Ferrari, a man who really couldn't look less like a Nick Ferrari. What's going on in the UK is very much like what's going on over here. Using all manner of appeal to sanctity, to purity, to patriotism to pursue essentially what is a trade policy. That second reference that you heard the minister talking about, hormones and meat or beef, that's a credible concern, scientists will tell you that. But including chicken in that danger is a really unfair conflation. And it's not just the chicken industry saying this, though, it is the chicken industry saying this. I have been watching a lot of chicken industry videos narrated by a fellow put on this earth to narrate industrial films.

[Poultry Industry Narrator]

Like many of our favorite foods, we often don't think about all the hard work that takes place before it reaches our plate. The US Poultry and Egg association invites you to join us for a behind the scenes look at today's high tech, highly efficient poultry processing plants.

[Podcast Host]

Those are good pipes. Now, I have to say I was slightly impressed with the fact in the middle of all these chicken videos that they didn't totally skip over the part about killing a lot of chickens.

[Poultry Industry Narrator]

They pass by a sharp blade that severs arteries in the neck and then.

[Podcast Host]

After a cold, plunge and gutting sometimes, sometimes. The National Chicken Council estimates that chlorine is used in less than 5% of processing plants, but sometimes this happens.

[Poultry Industry Narrator]

Other strategies may include the use of food grade antimicrobial rinses, which are recognized by the U.S. food and Drug Administration as a safe and effective way to inhibit the growth of foodborne pathogens on raw product.

[Podcast Host]

Ian Boyd, a professor of biology at the University of St. Andrews, told the New York Times, quote, 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 the actual issue. Yes, that is exactly what I was picking up the caller from Saffron Walden as saying. But the professor from St. Andrews went on, say chlorine washed chicken is almost certainly a proxy for much deeper issues concerning trust. So you might be thinking, oh yeah, they don't trust Donald Trump. No. That quote was taken from a New York Times article in 2021. The Biden administration then was forced to negotiate with the UK after Brexit. A fractious Britain united in hatred, not particularly scientifically sound hatred of US chicken. It was apparently one of the few things bringing the country together. The same phenomenon is being seen now. You would not believe how big an issue this is in the uk. Their tabloids are going crazy with chicken stories, crying foul, beating their breasts, clucking their disapproval, running around like chickens with their heads cut off. The fact that there are a lot of chicken puns available does not hurt tabloid coverage. But perhaps the tabloids, like the chicken plants they criticize, are in fair abattoirs on this question. Maybe they are. I just wanted to give you a pun slightly elevated from British tabloid level. No page three girls here, though the Europeans themselves have studied the issue and the European Food Safety Authority could find no evidence that chlorinated chicken is unsafe. As far as the Ah, but it doesn't cover up for the sins of the chicken creation process. Well, that is a claim, when you break it down, that the chicken chlorine wash is ineffective. But there's no evidence for that either. And plenty of US chicken makers have, as noted, moved away from chlorine and towards parasitic acid, which probably doesn't have the cultural cache of chlorine in that parasitic acid isn't used as a chemical weapon sometimes. Tabloids and gizzards aside, it seems as though UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is smart enough to avoid this issue. Overall, chlorinated chicken won't be on the table in trade negotiations or in London. Sidestepping the chicken talk doesn't make him cowardly it makes him smart. He'll insist on avoiding this issue, and the US will almost definitely accept a deal that allows for 95% of the chicken, the percent that isn't chlorinated, to go over to the UK. It's kind of an obvious solution. It might not fit in with the interest of tabloids or the anxieties of Englishmen, but unlike a chlorinated chicken, it is sure to take flight. Foreign. That's it for today's show, just as produced by Cory Wara and CBSO Michelle Pasca, Oompa G Peru du Peru. And thanks for listening. The gist is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible financial geniuses. Monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situations.