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Why we do what we do….
….because we love it, of course. But also because we’re appalled by the quality of food Americans consume and want to do a little bit to resist the tide. The people we know raising everything from organic lettuce to grass fed beef have pretty much the same quixotic attitude. We know we’re a “drop in the bucket”….we know there are easier, more profitable ways to do what we’re doing….but taking a stand is worth it. Sometimes we become bores on the subject. I manage to contain myself on that score better than Wooz. There she was at a party the other night showing pictures of our cows and lecturing on the…
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Beating “The Man”….
….we’ve written here before of the police-state tactics your government uses to go after small farmers….everything from court actions intended to bankrupt anyone who defies a regulator to swat team invasions in the middle of the night. This business of selling healthy food direct off the farm has got to be stopped! The other day there was an important victory (see “Victory for a farmer…” below) against these strong-arm tactics though we wondered if winning on three of four charges would be enough for Wisconsin farmer Vernon Hershberger. They did get him on a minor charge but still it could mean a year in jail. This article discusses what a charade that…
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Move along…nothing to see here, folks….
….it’s just those fun folks at Monsanto messing with our food, again. The USDA reports Genetically Modified wheat has been found on an Oregon pasture. That’s against the law, but the USDA and the FDA tell us not to worry….GM produce is perfectly safe. However, the Japanese apparently are not buying it….literally. http://cnsnews.com/news/article/protests-grow-amid-discovery-genetically-modified-us-wheat
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It’s what’s happening….
….Smithfield, the big pork producer based in Virginia, has just negotiated a 7-billion-dollar sale to the Chinese. Smithfield assures us that this is good news not only for its employees and shareholders, but for the consumer….assures us that the new Chinese owners share a commitment for high quality and safety in its products. Sure, if anything is true of the Chinese it is that they’ve always sold us high quality, safe food products. Sarcasm, of course. http://www.meatingplace.com/Industry/News/Details/42331?allowguest=true One other note, and it’s a point we’ve made in the past: despite all the focus on oil, and more recently water, the real crisis looming is food. The Chinese have already cornered much of…
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We’re in the best of hands….2 & 3…
….two more articles from our old friend Dr. Joseph Mercola (well, I don’t know him but he’s never complained about all the stuff I steal from him so he must be a friend). Starting again: to follow up two current threads: can we trust Big Government and the people who supply our food and can we work with Europe to help protect us. First, when it comes to Europe, guess who’s gotten there before us? Oh, you must have been paying attention. There’s now an international do-gooder association that is going to protect us. Hard to find just who’s behind this group but Dr. Mercola did the digging and they include (surprise!)…
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We’re in the best of hands….
….a friend opined the other day that I was going a little far in my rants about Big Government. He conceded the abuses but he said he’d rather have the safety of federal inspections than the alternative. Turns out he…and we…have neither. http://washingtonexaminer.com/article/2530619#.UaTHlkWFi0w.twitter Not to belabor the point: know your farmer and know his processor. Yes, all our meat is USDA-inspected but what really counts is the Thistle Hill label. Incidentally, we don’t ship our meat but if you contact us we’ll put you in touch with a reputable supplier near you. We also have been impressed with the meat offered on the internet by US Wellness.
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Victory for a farmer….
….if you don’t count the fact that he could still go to jail for a year. The Wisconsin farmer, who produces raw milk and sells to about 200 nearby families, has become something of a cause in natural farming circles. For several years, he’s stood off the Food Safety police who want to close him down. Now, he’s been acquitted on the two charges of selling the raw milk without a license but found guilty of the one charge of violating an order prohibiting him from doing business while the whole thing was adjudicated. So he won the principle but could go to jail on the technicality. They’ll get you…
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Can we learn from the Europeans….
….one of our readers thinks so, though he asks to remain anonymous because he works for you-know-who. Here’s the link: http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Regulation/US-review-gleans-ideas-from-European-food-safety-reforms My own jaded view is that this becomes one more weapon to beat up on the little guy. If Europeans experience fewer food-related illnesses, I suspect it’s not because of bureaucratic efficiency. Everything there, from farms to processing, operates on a much smaller scale. It’s the huge packing houses and the factory farms in the United States that cause our problems. And a corrupt system that keeps us looking the “other” way. Further, one-size agricultural rules are too often written in the bowels of Big Ag and Big…
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Now she tells us….
….Kathleen Merrigan, who recently resigned as Deputy Secretary of Agriculture, created a bit of a stir this week when she said the latest law the government passed to “protect” us…..has the potential to transform and even destroy small and medium sized farms. Of course, the law has a high-sounding name, (see George Orwell), the Food Safety Modernization Act. But any bill that’s put together by Big Ag and Big Government is bound to be not only bad for small farms, but consumers. The basic idea is to make the requirements so stringent and so expensive that only mass producers with their chemical warehouses can afford them. Apparently there’s a lot of…
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Some myth busting…
….from Chris Kresser, a popular Paleo blogger. Chris takes on the recent spate of articles and studies purporting to show (once again) how bad cows are for the environment. It’s a subject we’ve gone over so many times, I’m frankly tired of defending us. In brief, if you look at the “evidence”, it’s been “cooked”. I remember reading a big 50 years ago, required reading in J-school when they used to teach critical thinking. As I recall, the title was: “How to Lie with Statistics”. There’s also: “Figures Lie and Liars Figure”. But if you want to wade through the arguments again, Chris has just started a series on his…