Originally Posted by
der_saeufer
Fish/seafood isn't prohibited unless you're trying to bring meat from an endangered species or marine mammal (so no Canadian seal steaks or Norwegian hvalbiff even though neither source is endangered).
For meat, it's about livestock diseases like foot and mouth disease, African swine fever, etc. The risk is very low, but it's not zero, and the potential cost of an outbreak is huge. The African Swine Fever outbreak on Hispaniola in the 70s almost certainly came from smuggled European meat.
But everything I've ready about FMD and swine fever state it cannot be contracted by people eating infected meat or meat products - so is the risk the transmission to living livestock, and not people? I still find it hard to believe that someone bringing in link sausage, or in my case, packaged Japanese curry with cooked meat, is going to feed those products to living livestock - it would almost be a deliberate act of sabotage, yet the human risk for Joe and Joan Smith serving it at a dinner party is non-existent.
Not arguing, I am genuinely curious. For example, I wanted to import Japanese shell eggs because of their unique yolk color, texture and flavor, but found out that only shell eggs from the Netherlands of all places, are admissible.
I remember encountering one inspector at SFO who had memorized every single snack and food dish from virtually every country in the world - he stood at the final inspection point before the exit, and would figure out where someone had arrived from, then read through his memorized list asking if they were carrying any of those items - it was rather entertaining until my other half had their bag dumped.