What would the Czech Republic (the dustbin of Europe) look like without EU regulations?

When people want the EU to do something about our traders and manufacturers, they say it does nothing. On the other hand, when the EU banned spreading butter from being called butter, because it contains little butter, the Czechs rebelled, so that the EU wouldn’t mess with us.

The same with Domestic Rum, which was not rum and so the EU banned it from being called rum. So we have Tuzemák since joining the EU. The problem was that our dozemák is made from potatoes and not from sugar cane. Spirit is made and then rum flavoring is just added to it. In 2008, the EU noticed that there were 3 cancer-causing substances in the aroma and wanted to ban the given aroma. The government arranged a 10-year exemption for manufacturers, and when it ended, it negotiated another 5-year exemption.

Personally, I haven’t seen any storms on social networks calling for a boycott of Tuzemák, because of the worse quality than they have in the West. The storm was about the creation of another EU regulation and interference in our sovereignty.

One of the cases of worse quality is Fanta. In the West, more fruit juice from concentrate is added to it than ours. It will be written in the composition, but who can tell a private company about the composition of the product? Just the invisible hand of the market. Is it for sale or not? Are boycott petitions being written? As long as it is sold, the manufacturer does not need to change it. I haven’t drunk fanta for several years, but others do, even though it has 1% less fruit than in Belgium and 2% more than in Albania.

The USA, as the “most western West”, is much worse off than the Czech Republic or anyone from Europe. It is because the Czechs don’t have the hated army of Brussels officials there that Tuzemák regulates for us. If someone doesn’t mind paying officials, he would eat and drink a chemical mix and risk his health just to save on taxes, his fight is in the elections because he has to convince the majority of the voters. This is called democracy.

When I looked at the composition of Fanta in the USA, it is like a chemical laboratory. It doesn’t match with us sugarbut cheaper glucose-fructose syrup. In the US, people enjoy again high fructose corn syrup. Right next to it is “poor” Mexico, where they normally use sugar. The regulation of sugar production is to blame. In the US, there are quotas for sugar production, and when demand is higher than the quotas, it makes sugar more expensive. It is too expensive for lemonade, so a cheaper and less healthy substitute is used. The effort to do something for the health of Americans through regulations has backfired. In the USA, original Fanta has 12% carbohydrates, in the Czech Republic 6.9%, Albania 9.5%, Cyprus 8%. Sugar-free Fanta is also sold in the US.

Furthermore, Fanta in the USA has a color from the dye Yellow 6 (E110 – yellow SY = yellow of the setting sun). This dye is banned completely in the Scandinavian countries, and in the EU the acceptable daily intake is 4 mg/kg person. It is not present in Česká Fanta at all, because it is colored with carotenes, which in nature give color to, for example, carrots. Another dye is Red 40 (E140 – red allura AC) and has a similar story to the previous yellow. Banned somewhere and regulated elsewhere in the EU. Both dyes have harmful effects on health, which is not addressed so much in the US, unlike the EU, where they deal with it repeatedly, every time someone does some research with a different result of harmfulness.

I will come back to of Fanta fruit content in the US. How old is she there? This is not known, because its label is in the category “less than 2% content” and is called natural flavors. Maybe it doesn’t even have orange juice from concentrate. You would be surprised that they have it in Cyprus 20% composition orange juice.

Fanta was more like digging in the numbers. Now I’ll move on to the real chemistry. Pork from the US is banned in 160 countries because of ractopamine. The EU has never allowed the use of ractopamine, so you can’t even buy meat from the USA in the Czech Republic. It is used extensively in the US to speed up the growth of pigs. It is advantageous for businesses if a pig gains more weight from the same feed dose. The chemicals then reach consumers, and this is bad, according to EU officials and the EU parliament.

BVO – brominated vegetable oil is allowed to be used in citrus sodas in the US and was used in their famous sports drink, Gatorade, until 2023. An American drank 2-4 liters of it a day until he developed Bromism and became paralyzed. They only cured him by connecting him to an “artificial kidney”. A petition was created in the US against the use of BVO in this drink and customers succeeded. Instead of regulation, it was public pressure.

Maraschino cherries are an aesthetic invention. Unnaturally dyed with the aforementioned Red 40 dye. Why does anyone dye cherries? They are first preserved in a salt solution, where they are bleached and then colored again. Color is the main thing, so that they are decorative on a cake or in a drink.

GMO corn is more than 90% widespread in the US. GMOs are more of a scaremonger than a bad thing for people. Many opponents do not even know why some GMO crops are harmful and others beneficial. A genetically modified organism has improved genes that suit growers and breeders. The problem is that corn’s resistance to herbicides comes in handy for US farmers. Thanks to GMO enhancement, corn can be sprayed with glyphosate, which would kill normal corn. If there is ever a GMO potato that will grow in dry areas, I have no problem buying it, but in the US, GMOs have gone in the wrong direction. There is also a fight over glyphosate in the EU. He was banned, then exempted, and again in 10 years. Paradoxically, in the USA they have already reached compensation for people affected by glyphosate, but its use remains permitted.

BGH – Bovine somatotropin has been banned in the entire EU and a large part of the world since the nineties. It was used in up to 30 million dairy cows and beef calves in the US. Its harmful effects on cows were treated with antibiotics, which are a nightmare for many consumers even in the Czech Republic. According to research from Oxford, this is said to be impossible, but the ban in the EU also remains due to the protection of animal suffering. It also remains the duty of breeders to test milk for antibiotics and, if anything is found, publish it. The last case was detected by the breeder, reported to the authorities and marked by the breeder as competition sabotage. If someone tried to make a dairy product out of it, dead milk cannot be used because of the antibiotics and it would come to nothing. So you don’t have to worry in the EU.

I’m not a fanatical welcomer of every idea from the EU, but I can’t say that the EU is doing everything wrong. The created regulations are not usually directed against citizens, but against companies that seek profit even at the cost of people’s health.

The EU is a giant juggernaut, and if a Czech were to go there to lobby, he would have to go through a lot of doors before changing the regulation that restricts his business. Without the EU, we would only have regulations from “Prague”. It is enough to corrupt the ruling elites, a few officials and businessmen can do almost anything. After all, the biggest agrarian was prime minister here for 4 years. In the Czech Republic, this is a very big conflict of interests, which was ignored by the voters, but in the EU he did not get away with it that easily. The Czech agrarian-prime minister also had to submit to EU regulations. The glyphosate ban would also apply to his holding company.

I think that because of politicians, social networks and misleading headlines, the EU is often unfairly vilified. We are the dustbin of Europe because we like it. Sometimes we even go against it. When the bird flu came, the sale of chicken increased because it became cheaper. You can also buy better quality food in the Czech Republic, but they are not the cheapest. It is more expensive to buy in smaller shops, but I think the quality is higher than in a supermarket.

The discount frenzy that is blamed every election term on every government is purely a matter of the market and politicians can’t do much about it. When someone says, go after the discounts, he is immediately enemy number one for the Czechs. Cocoa that I bought for 90 a week ago, I saw today for 200. It will easily last a year in my pantry. Swallow your pride and buy your head on sale or you’ll be the sheep the salesman likes to shave. No politician with a fair in the election campaign can change the prices in the store. This is a merchant’s matter, which EU/CZ regulation will NEVER change.

Without EU regulations, our dustbin of Europe would be much worse. The situation in the USA shows that we still eat better than in the richest country in the world, which does not have the protection from EU regulations…

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