Senator Feinstein (D-California) has proposed S.2819 which proposed to make food “pathogen free” but sounds more like she’s trying to outlaw all food. What exactly does she expect us to eat?
“Food producers must be obligated to produce food that is free of pathogens.” Senator Feinstein said.
So Feinstein is planning to outlaw food. And we shall eat… irradiated cake?
I’m all for safe food, HACCP/PR, SSOPs and all that but it is impossible to have raw foods that are completely free of ‘pathogens’. Processing includes harvesting, washing, cleaning off outer leaves, shucking corn, slaughter, butchering, canning and all sorts of levels of production from the farm onward. Feinstein’s ill thoughtout proposal will ban food as we know it, increase the consumption of highly processed foods (bad for your health), lead to higher food prices for consumers (bad for your wallet) and destroy the small farmers and processors who can’t afford to do all the fancy testing she’s proposing (bad for national food security). In the end the only real winner are testing labs and mega-processors who can afford this and already focus on fake food.
I am reminded of this old poem from my childhood that came from my grandmother’s era when microbes were first becoming widely known:
The Antiseptic Baby and the Prophylactic Pup
Were playing in the garden when the Bunny gamboled up;
They looked upon the Creature with a loathing undisguised;
It wasn’t Disinfected and it wasn’t Sterilized.
They said it was a Microbe and a Hotbed of Disease;
They steamed it in a vapor of a thousand-odd degrees;
They froze it in a freezer that was cold as Banished Hope
And washed it in permanganate with carbolated soap.
In sulphurated hydrogen they steeped its wiggly ears;
They trimmed its frisky whiskers with a pair of hard-boiled shears;
They donned their rubber mittens and they took it by the hand
And elected it a member of the Fumigated Band.
There’s not a Micrococcus in the garden where they play;
They bathe in pure iodoform a dozen times a day;
And each imbibes his rations from a Hygienic Cup—
The Bunny and the Baby and the Prophylactic Pup.
-Arthur Guiterman. 1871
One can only hope that wiser heads prevail and that Feinstein, and her silly bill, are defeated. Otherwise this is the end of small family farms, home kitchens and small processors since all handling of the foods is processing and would be covered by her absurdities. If her bill does go through it will increase the price of food due to all the unnecessary testing and bureaucratic paperwork.
On the upside: This should help somewhat with unemployment at government offices and testing labs until the producers go out of business.
A significant and growing body of scientific research is showing that eating some dirt and exercising your immune system is good for you as well as the fact that country kids are healthier than their urban cousins and the healthiest of all are those on the farm. Yes, E. coli O157:H7 is nasty but lets not throw out the baby with the bath water.
Just one more really stupid bill coming down the pike. Don’t these people have anything better to do than come up with these outrageous schemes? And to think, we actually voted them into office! Let us vote them out of office!!
Comment arlene aquino — December 31, 2009 @ 4:05 pm
Why aren’t consumers required to learn how to cook?
Comment Pat Stewart — December 31, 2009 @ 4:50 pm
So then it will become against the law to eat something you grew in your own garden? And someone eating a fresh carrot will be an outlaw? I bet meth makers will be laughing all the way to their meth-lab barns as the brews they are making certainly line up with all those new laws that dictate how to prepare things to be ingested!
Comment Esbee — January 1, 2010 @ 7:37 am
Not sure if this comment belongs here (so if Walter sees fit he can delete it) but my brother is from Calif visiting us for the holidays in TX so I guess there is a connection. He told me he noticed as he was driving here that there were stockpiles of those cement road barriers along the major roads -hwy 10, 20, 30 and then he traveled up into OK for the day and saw more stockpiled along Hwy 70. He told me the army would do this when he was deployed during the Gulf War getting ready for major road blocks. He says that is what it looked like to him. Has anyone else noticed this anywhere else in the country? My husband said it is just the hwy dept getting ready to do major road work, but after 3 yrs of NAIS lies and deception and seeing bills like Finkensteins, I am just a little gunshy of what our gooferment has planned for the citizens.
Comment Esbee — January 1, 2010 @ 9:08 pm
I must say to the comment left by esbee, I live in texas closer to the coast and I have seen some of these things piled up……curious indeed. MY husband has a friend who was in the military and that is what it is for…
I just want to say that our government has no interest in what the people want. We are feeble peasants who cannot take care of ourselves, we just need to sit down and shutup, and take it all without complaint. The elitist know what is best for us. I was unaware of this legistalation that passed in 2006 in my state, otherwise I would of raised all kinds of well……ya know, against it. I don’t care, if it comes to liberty or death, I will take death. Feinstein has lost her mind….and with this type of legislation it kills small farms and business, but they want the independent sector destroyed. They want us to rely on them, to look to them when we are starving with flies crawling in and out of our mouths like those poor little ethiopian children we see on the infomercials. Fighting is all we can do, and despite hope we may hold out, it doesn’t matter, OUR GOVERNMENT will do what they want regardless of what the people want.
They want Drugged Sheeple (to coin a phrase from Michael Savage)to lead to slaughter.
Sad day for the American People.
Comment K Mazac — January 3, 2010 @ 3:07 pm