This is not good news. In fact, this is demented:

“Chinese chicken” will soon have a whole new meaning, as the U.S. Department of Agriculture recently gave the green-light to four chicken processing plants in China, allowing chicken raised and slaughtered in the U.S. to be exported to China for processing, and then shipped back to the U.S. and sold on grocery shelves here.

The actual arrangement will take some time to set in, however. “All this means is that we’ve deemed China’s poultry processing equivalent to the process in the United States,” says Arianne Perkins, USDA public affairs specialist. Individual companies will still have to be certified, something Perkins says has not happened yet.

Anybody have a recipe for that traditional Chinese dish, Chicken Melamine?

This is going to create a market for chicken certified as 100% American. I’m serious. No way in hell I would knowingly eat chicken that might have gone through a Chinese factory.