@Jetts said:
@Nandurius said:@tchize said:
For this you get some bonus point if you comes from outside of US. It's strictly fobidden to bring even an apple, crisps or whatever food from you homeland to us country. Everything gets destroyed at the entry of country. I'll never understand why.... I can't bring typical food from Europe to US friends, not that i actually have us friends :)
This is mostly an issue with open foods, fresh fruits/vegetable and other perishables. There is a concern about bacterial/virus contamination.. think chicken sandwich from Asia (bird flu) or mutton/beef from the UK (BSE). This is also the reason why you have to declare on the entry form if you've been around livestock or farmland. Many countries also require pets/animals to go into quarantine for a certain time to avoid introducing foreign strains of diseases.
That said, I've never had a problem with packaged foods and anything that's shrink wrapped. I'm pretty sure there are no restrictions on those -- if they are, I've never been stopped because of it.
Unless you are bringing a whole cow from the UK, you should be safe from BSE. As far as I know, the disease can only be spread through ingestion of infected neurons. Cattle feed gets infected when the head or spinal column of an infected cow is processed into food. The roast beef sandwich you bought at Tesco should (hopefully) be all meat and safe from contamination.
You are probably safer (with respect to BSE) with British
beef and cattle than almost any other nation. We had it, it was a big
issue, so we acted, culling 4.4 million people, and banning the feeding
of ground up cows to living ones. We'd now know almost instantly if it
showed up again.
BSE turned up in the USA in 2003. The FDA's response has been distinctly lacking.
If the stuff is in your meat (which can occur readily through careless processing, even if you're not meant to be eating nervous tissue), normal cooking won't destroy it, and vCJD (the human form) can be caught be eating contaminated meat.