A little Ranting: Food Safety

I have recently moved back home to Wyoming where my Aunt and Uncle have chickens and goats, thus we have milk and eggs. I have been making some cheeses, when I got called away to another matter and I am temporarily in Arizona.

I have been trying to find out what it takes to get an egg selling license and a cheesemaking/ selling license in Wyoming and finding almost no information on the web. Terribly disappointing.

So Wyoming House of Representative (Area 52) Susan Wallis is trying to pass the Wyoming Food Safety Act, which would allow small producers to sell their products directly to consumers without a license/ inspection. The bill has been met with opposition mainly from people who think their inspections keep our food safe... yeah right. Also some jackass lawyer (you can google it if you care) who thinks people will get sick and he will make a lot of money from suing people, typical lawyer behavior.... Below are my thoughts about about home producers and this act.


Go SUE GO!

No one is forcing anyone to buy home-made things. People are welcome to buy processed foods and nasty antibiotic feedlot fed beef.

I don't think you can have worthwhile opinion about so called "food safety" unless you have been to a feedlot, large commercial slaughterhouse, a commercial pig farm, large industrial dairy farm, or a caged chicken farm. If you can go to ALL of those places and look at that and say I am comfortable with how these animals are being treated and fed and either killed or collected, then by all means sound off.

However, I think if you were to personally inspect he places where "home butchered" or "small facility butchered" meat (or dairy or farm raised eggs WHATEVER) comes from you would find yourself choosing home made stuff no matter how institutionalized you have become. Most small farmers and cottage industry type people will let you view or visit their prep areas and the place their products are made. Good luck doing that with your favorite slaughter house.

In addition, these people often eat their own products, and feed them to their families,thus they are EXTRA careful not to make themselves and their families sick. They will throw out anything questionable and start over with a fresh batch. Because they work with their animals and product daily they know what to look for to see if something is off. Rather then some guy paid $8.50 an hour going down some mandatory checklist waiting to get off his shift. I mean what kind of psycho enjoys killing cattle all day-- day in and day out. I would rather have my meat slaughtered seasonally by someone who raised the cattle and is less worried about their quarterly statement to their investors and more worried about the health and well being to their animals and families.

Only here in the US do we have such strange neuroses about "food safety." Why don't you become more of a world traveler and see that in most places around the world, the food sanitation is much less government controlled and they are less sick...In fact start with France, which in my not-so-humble-opinion is one of the food capitals of the world. Many of the milks for the cheeses are not pasteurized and most food purchases come from farmer's markets.

If you are still confused on this matter, please research, a good place to start is the book Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan.