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Like chicken? I do. But here’s a bit of news that woke me up this morning: that chicken nugget may actually now be from China and there’s no need for anyone to disclose that.

Just before the start of the long holiday weekend last Friday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture quietly announced that it was ending a ban on processed chicken imports from China. The kicker: These products can now be sold in the U.S. without a country-of-origin label.

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That’s a pretty disturbing thought for anyone who’s followed the slew of stories regarding food safety failures in China in recent years. As we’ve previously reported on The Salt, this year alone, thousands of dead pigs turned up in the waters of Shanghai, rat meat was passed off as mutton and — perhaps most disconcerting for U.S. consumers — there was an outbreak of the H7N9 bird flu virus among live fowl in fresh meat markets.

Now that the horse has left the barn say critics, watch out for other chicken products that may be from China and not from the US.

Underneath all this chicken stuff is a trade dispute over meats.

In a nutshell: China banned U.S. beef exports in 2003 after a case of mad cow disease turned up in a Washington state cow. Then, when the bird flu virus broke out widely among Asian bird flocks in 2004, the U.S. blocked imports of Chinese poultry. China challenged that decision in front of the World Trade Organization, which ruled in China’s favor in 2010.

Still don’t want to give up chicken? Then how about this:

And, chicken lovers, brace yourselves: There’s more. A report suggests chicken inspections here in the U.S. might be poised to take a turn for the worse. The Government Accountability Office said this week it has serious “questions about the validity” of the new procedures for inspecting poultry across the country.

Basically, these changes would replace many USDA inspectors on chicken processing lines with employees from the poultry companies themselves. The USDA has been piloting the new procedures, which will save money and significantly speed up processing lines, in 29 chicken plants. As The Washington Post reports, the plan is to roll out the new procedures eventually to “most of the country’s 239 chicken and 96 turkey plants.”

For more on this story, take a look at the original article here: NPR.

More stories about food.

Photo credit: Mara Zemgaliete – Fotolia.com