prado67 wrote: ↑Wed Jun 05, 2019 9:19 am
Thanks for the reply. I think this is idiotic because canned products, at least in Russia, are fully sterilized. How can they be infected? I've been eating military rations for 19 years and nothing ever happened to me !
I thought so too, and I thought there was an exception for sealed sterilized products. However some diseases like Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), commonly known as mad cow disease, is a stable protein and must literally be burned to ashes to destroy, canning process will not work. Also, they confiscated the sweetened condensed milk in my Russian ration that had already been rooted through by CBP and had the meat components removed. USDA said the sterilizing process must be a higher temperature to prevent contamination from diseased cows so domestically it would be fine but not when importing from restricted countries. They did let my powdered milk drink through.
It really stung when I had to turn over my last two imported rations as they were Russian and I ordered them specifically because they pack a lot of meat in the rations so not much was left over beyond crackers, tea, and apple jam. When Customs finds the products, they turn it over to USDA to determine if they are restricted, and if so USDA destroys them and the rest of the package is sent through. If USDA tells Customs a product is allowed, like say pork or fish or something, then they let it through or send it to you. If you are in possession of restricted imported items, you can't sell them, give them away, consume them, or even destroy them yourself. They actually send an agent over to record and seize them.
We all know dang well that ration products are sterilized and no 1st world country is going to give uninspected contaminated rations to their military. There should be an exception. I am really going to miss Russian rations. They are my favorites because of all the meat in them but since I've been caught I can't risk importing them anymore. So many Russian ration versions out there and available, this really sucks!