2138 Chinese Nugget

I have a story to tell about what some fast food places call chicken nuggets and what some places call chicken littles. I think this time the sky really is falling.

There's a line in a Barenaked Ladies song that goes "Chickety China the Chinese chicken, have a drumstick and your brain stops tickin'". Which may explain my sense of dread about the story I read.

Seems the U.S. Department of Agriculture, normally our friends when it comes to protecting our food supply, are going to allow poultry that has been raised and slaughtered in the U.S. to be shipped to China, where they will "process" it and then ship it back to American consumers.

What could go wrong?

Just because there is virtually no food chain oversight in China--- where bribes and corruption enrich officials looking the other way, where in 2008, they were found to have laced baby formula with melamine, sickening thousands of babies and killing six, where lead paint-encrusted toys have been shipped countless times in unlabeled containers--- I'm sure there's a good reason to now place our trust in them.

Well, yeah. Money. It turns out this is a bid to open up Chinese markets to imports of our beef. A tit-for-tat as it were. Or a nit-for-nugget. And we're the nitwits doing it.

Another make-your-brain-stop-tickin' from an anger-engendered stroke fact: No U.S. chicken folk have rushed forward to take up the offer yet, but if they do you'll never know about it. Since the chickens will be slaughtered here and cooked before its return, companies won't be compelled to reveal its Asian vacation.

I've always been suspicious of chicken nuggets healthwise anyway. Lips, feet, sphincters, and non-free range chicken litter. Who knows, maybe melamine will be an improvement.

America, ya gotta love it.