Photos of recipes from the new book Tender Grassfed Barbecue
Photos of recipes from the cookbook Tender Grassfed Meat
Diversity Matters — Especially in Food
By Stanley A. Fishman, author of Tender Grassfed Meat and Tender Grassfed Barbecue
Farmers’ markets are great places to find heirloom fruits and vegetables.
We are taught to think of our modern, high-tech civilization as being much more advanced, wiser, and richer than anything that existed in the past.
When it come to machines, weapons, travel, and other mechanical areas, this is true (at least to the extent of our culture’s knowledge). We are much richer in these things than our ancestors were.
But when it comes to food—the real food that our bodies need to thrive—we are paupers. Our ancestors were the rich ones. They regularly ate hundreds of varieties of meats, vegetables, nuts, fruits, grains, milk products, and other foods, but we have far fewer to choose from. And where our ancestors’ food was chosen for taste and nutrition, our food is usually chosen for profit, cheapness, appearance, and shelf life.
Traditional Food
I have studied the traditional cooking of our ancestors from all over the world. I have read hundreds of books and many articles, and I am still learning.
And one of the most important things I learned was how much our ancestors valued diversity in the foods they ate, whenever they had a choice. People did not limit themselves to factory beef and chicken breasts, but ate many different kinds of meat, heritage varieties of pigs, chickens, duck, geese, squab, cattle, sheep, lambs, calves, water buffalo, bison, rabbits, a vast variety of fish and seafood, and a huge variety of wild game. Produce was only eaten in season. There were dozens if not hundreds of varieties of almost every fruit and vegetable, that were regularly eaten. During the winter, people relied on certain root vegetables, such as cabbage.
Traditional meals included a huge variety of ingredients. For example, the traditional English breakfast included a number of different kinds of meat and fish, often fermented (such as sausage) or salted, along with eggs, breads, and a variety of condiments. The Russian custom of serving appetizers before a meal could include dozens of different items, all kinds of meat and fish and vegetables and small dishes, as did the Scandinavian Smorgasbord. And this was not just the custom of the rich, but also the practice of middle class families and prosperous farmers. Even ordinary working folks enjoyed a great variety of seasonal foods.
The different varieties of food were prized for their taste and nutritional qualities. Food that looked good tasted good, and tasty food was widely believed to be healthier.
Modern Food
Modern food was developed for profit. This meant focusing on the foods that had a long shelf life, and foods that looked good so people could buy them. The replacement of small farmers by huge factory farms meant concentrating on only the most profitable foods, that had the longest shelf life.
The chemical industry became a crucial part of this change, as chemicals could preserve the appearance of food, and chemicals could make even mediocre quality food taste good. The number of varieties of food available to us is now but a tiny fraction of the bounty available to our ancestors. These factory varieties are available all year long, but their taste and nutrition leave much to be desired.
My father grew up in Canada, before its food system was industrialized. He enjoyed a huge variety of the wonderful natural foods raised on the Canadian Prairie—wonderful meats, an endless variety of berries, fish, and vegetables—all grown and served in season.
After he immigrated to the U.S., he was delighted to see beautiful tomatoes available all year round in the supermarkets. Until he tasted them. He could never understand how something that looked so good could be so tasteless and have such a horrible texture—like soggy cardboard.
I could go on for a thousand pages, or more, but I will simply say that our ancestors were much richer in real, life-sustaining food than we are, in endless varieties that we no longer have.
What we can do is support small farmers raising traditional foods like grassfed beef, heirloom vegetables, real milk, and by buying as much as we can from them. As much as possible, avoid purchasing factory food.
This may be more trouble, but the taste of heirloom vegetables and fruits and pastured meat is superior. And the wonderful benefits I and my family have enjoyed in improved health and nutrition—are more than worth it.
This post is part of Fat Tuesday, Real Food Wednesday and Fight Back Friday blog carnivals.
Eating Healthy Is a Mental Disorder? Nonsense!
By Stanley A. Fishman, author of Tender Grassfed Meat and Tender Grassfed Barbecue
photo credit: cliff1066™  Is it a “mental disorder” to make a pleasant trip to a Farmers’ Market to buy healthy organic produce?
The real food movement is a real problem for the food industry and the medical industry. More and more people are refusing to eat foods containing artificial ingredients. More and more people are refusing to let doctors tell them how to eat. More and more people are avoiding foods containing toxins, chemicals, and preservatives. More and more people are thinking for themselves. Can’t have that. People should do as they are told, by those who know better. So the powers that be are turning to a tried and true method of controlling the masses.
The methods used to keep people ignorant and compliant are many, and the tyrants and exploiters who live off the fear and suffering of others have used a huge variety. One of the most despicable methods is to label people who dare to disagree with conventional belief as crazy. Nowadays, the term of choice is “disorder,†which can be used to condemn any dissenting opinion and dismiss those who hold it as having a mental illness. That way, the truth of the dissenting opinion is never addressed, and the people who have it are condemned, made fun of, often institutionalized, and sometimes killed. Most people become afraid to even consider the dissenting opinion, for fear they will be labeled as mentally ill. A very effective way of killing free thought and preserving the status quo.
The latest use of this freedom killing method is the creation of a “mental illness†called “Healthy Eating Disorder,†which is usually called by the scientific-sounding name they picked for it, Orthorexia. Rhymes with Anorexia, which helps invoke the fear of a known disease. If it sounds like a mental disease, it must be a mental disease, right? If you avoid foods that contain chemicals, preservatives, GMOs, or any toxins, you are mentally ill with this so-called disorder. I kid you not. Psychiatrists have actually been quoted saying that this is a “serious mental disorder,†which can lead to “malnutrition,†social isolation, obsessive behavior, and many other horrible consequences, including death.
In other words, if you try to avoid eating toxins, if you try to only eat the healthy, unmodified foods of our ancestors—you are mentally ill and should be treated with psychotropic drugs. I suppose the only way you can avoid being labeled mentally ill is to eat the worthless factory foods industry promotes without hesitation or complaint.
This is nonsense. But it can and will be used to control our behavior. Unless we reject this evil and cynical fiction for the nonsense it is.
Some Examples of How Accusations of Mental Illness Were Used To Maintain The Status Quo:
Most people have never heard of Dr. Ignaz Semmelweiss. Yet Dr. Semmelweiss has saved the lives of more women than anyone who has ever lived. During his time, and before, in Europe and the U.S., many women died from a horrible, painful disease. It was called childbirth fever. Fatality rates ranged from fifteen to eighty percent. A woman was at great risk of getting this horrible disease every time she gave birth. Many millions of women died from this illness.
The medical profession of the day could do nothing to cure childbirth fever, and treated it as a normal risk of giving birth.
In the mid-nineteenth century, Dr. Ignaz Semmelweiss, a Hungarian obstetrician, began doing something remarkable. He began washing his hands before assisting in childbirth. Semmelweiss noticed that his patients did not get childbirth fever. He assisted a number of women, from the rich to the poor, and they did not get this horrible disease that was so common. Semmelweiss decided that all who assist with childbirth should thoroughly wash their hands. He vigorously advocated his theory, and was astounded and dismayed when most doctors refused to wash their hands, despite his findings. He wrote letters to newspapers, letters that offended the medical profession. The doctors denounced Semmelweiss as insane. Semmelweiss was lured into visiting a mental institution. When he realized that the real purpose of the visit was to commit him, he tried to leave. He was savagely beaten by the brutal thugs used to control the inmates, and committed. His wounds became infected, and he died within two weeks. An autopsy revealed severe internal injuries from the beating.
Yet Semmelweiss had managed to publicize his findings enough that more doctors began to experiment with them. Eventually it was realized that childbirth fever was caused by the filthy hands of doctors and some midwives. And it became standard practice to wash and clean the hands before assisting in childbirth. Childbirth fever almost completely disappeared.
The old Soviet Union had a problem. Many of its citizens were complaining about the harsh conditions and constant shortages, and were expressing their opinion that the system did not work. The government decided that, since Soviet Communism was the best governmental system on earth, anyone who questioned or criticized it must be mentally ill. Tens of thousands of Soviet citizens were drugged or sent to mental institutions for questioning the system. The very fact that they complained was taken as proof they were mentally ill and needed “treatment.†This so-called mental disorder disappeared when the Soviet Union was overthrown.
Both Dr. Semmelweiss and the Soviet citizens were perfectly sane. Yet they were labeled as mentally ill and forcibly committed and/or drugged. Their real crime was to find a better way of doing things that threatened the established powers of their societies.
Now Comes Orthorexia
When I first read an article treating Orthorexia as a serious mental disorder, I thought it was a joke. Unfortunately, it was not.
The basic theory of this non-existent “disorder†is the idiotic claim that being concerned about the content and quality of your food is a mental disorder that requires treatment.
If you avoid foods containing toxins, pesticides, or particular ingredients such as soy, sugar, corn, or GMOs, you are considered mentally ill. That is nonsense! If a “disorder†claims that not wanting to eat poison is abnormal and crazy, then the disorder is nonsense. Most people in history, over the entire globe, were deeply concerned about the safety and quality of their food, and paid a lot of attention to it. It is only in modern times that people have blindly eaten whatever the food industry places before them. I consider it vital to consider the quality and content of my food, and my health has improved greatly as a result.
Some of the “symptoms†of this phony “disorder†are so ridiculous that I cannot understand how anyone can take them seriously. Here are some of the most idiotic:
Planning the Next Day’s Meals in Advance
Really? I plan the next day’s meals in advance all the time. In fact, I have a general idea of what will be eaten during the week, which enables me to know what foods to purchase. Is there anyone on the planet who sincerely believes that this is a sign of insanity?
Feelings of Happiness, Satisfaction, Esteem, or Spiritual Fulfillment from “Eating Healthyâ€
This is a problem? Eating real food does create feelings of happiness and satisfaction. What is wrong with that? Do I feel good about the fact that I carefully select and prepare the best real food I can get for myself and my family? You bet I do. Do I feel fulfilled when I eat a great meal of real food free of toxins and chemicals? Of course I do.
And I am certain that all of my many friends in the real food movement have the same experience, and most of humanity has had and cherished this experience throughout history. This is a “symptom†that everyone should be blessed with.
Noticeable Increase in the Use of Supplements, Herbal Remedies, and Probiotics
Well, this must be the ultimate proof of insanity. Anyone who does not use Big Pharma’s drugs is crazy. Anyone who finds a cheaper, safer way to health is crazy. Anyone who tries to make up for our nutrient-depleted soils by taking supplements is crazy. Anyone who uses probiotics instead of drugs is crazy. Certainly this has nothing to do with corporate profits. Actually, this “symptom†has everything to do with profit.
I could give further examples, but I have made my point.
Orthorexia is not a mental disorder. In fact, if the entire human race had the “symptoms†of this “disorder,†and insisted on clean food free of toxins and chemicals, we would all be much better off.
In closing, the very fact that the real food movement has a phony mental disorder being used to try to control us is an admission that we are being heard, and that there are more of us every day. We should not give any credibility or consent to this cynical attempt to control us and should always call it what it is—nonsense.
This post is part of Monday Mania, Fat Tuesday, Real Food Wednesday, Fight Back Friday, and Freaky Friday blog carnivals.
Debunking the “Healthiest Meal Everâ€
By Stanley A. Fishman, author of Tender Grassfed Meat and Tender Grassfed Barbecue
English Style Prime Rib, recipe on page 86, Tender Grassfed Meat
A group of British scientists, who specialize in food research, have designed a menu that they call “the healthiest meal ever.†Their list of dishes and ingredients does not even address the idea of where the food comes from, treating organic and chemical-free as being the same as factory and chemical-processed. While this is a common practice for food scientists, it totally destroys the validity of their argument. Just as bad, the “healthiest meal ever” boasts of avoiding saturated fats, being low-fat, and avoiding the ultimate demon, cholesterol. Never mind that the entire “low-fat is good—cholesterol is death†scam has long been exposed as invalid. This meal also leaves out the healthiest food ever—grassfed meat. Healthiest meal ever? Allow me to disagree, from a real food perspective.
Bear in mind that I have been unable to find the actual recipes, so this debunking is based on the information that has been reported.
The courses in the “healthiest meal ever” will be looked at individually. These are the courses:
Fresh and Smoked Salmon Terrine
Wild salmon is actually a very healthy food. But farmed salmon, the most common kind, is very different in flavor and composition. Farmed salmon is not allowed to roam the ocean as nature intended, and is usually fed food pellets, which is not their natural diet. In fact, many food pellets contain GMO soy, which is something salmon have never eaten before the twentieth century. Farmed salmon are so different from wild salmon that their flesh is colored white, not orange. A dye is added before the fish hit the market to fake the natural orange color of real wild salmon. The scientists fail to specify whether the salmon are wild or farmed, treating them as the same, which is a mistake. Since almost all Atlantic salmon are farmed, this dish would almost certainly be made of farmed salmon. And the other ingredients in the terrine are not even mentioned. Healthy? Not in my book.
Mixed Leaf Salad with Extra Virgin Olive Oil
This also sounds good at first glance. But no specification is made as to whether the vegetables should be grown without chemicals. If they are grown with chemicals, they contain pesticides, which are not healthy. No specification is made as to whether the vegetables are grown with artificial fertilizer or in rich natural soil. This makes all the difference when it comes to nutrient content, as vegetables grown with artificial fertilizer have far less. Even the types of leaf vegetables are not specified. This is an important omission because some raw leafy greens, such as spinach, contain large amounts of oxalic acid, a substance that prevents the body from absorbing vital minerals, such as calcium. To imply that any leaf salad, no matter what the vegetable is, is healthy is simply not true. This might not be so healthy, after all.
High-Fibre Multigrain Bread Roll
This does not sound even remotely healthy. Adding additional grain fiber to bread is a modern practice, not done by our ancestors. We can get all the fiber we need from fruits and vegetables, just like our ancestors did, for uncounted thousands of years. Many people cannot digest modern grains, and many are gluten-intolerant. Since high-fiber is specified, the grains are almost certainly whole grains, which contain large amounts of phytic acid. Phytic acid blocks the absorption of nutrients such as vitamins and minerals. Phytic acid can be neutralized through traditional soaking and sprouting techniques, but those methods are not even mentioned. The grains contained in the “multigrain bread roll†are not specified. Chances are overwhelming that it contains unfermented GMO soy, a substance full of toxins and mock female hormones, both as a “grain†and in the form of soy lecithin. It quite likely contains other GMOs, especially if it contains corn. Once again, the ingredients almost certainly come from grains grown with chemicals and pesticides. Chemicals and pesticides are not healthy. Processed grains like this are high in refined carbohydrates, which have an effect on the body similar to processed sugar. Healthy? Not in my opinion.
Chicken Casserole with Lentils and Mixed Vegetables
When I first read the title of this item, I let out a loud and heartfelt “Yuck!†My wife came over to investigate, and her face twisted in revulsion as she read the title. This dish sounds so horrible, both in title and content, that it could be an entrée in an American school cafeteria. Once again, no attention is paid to where the ingredients come from, treating organic the same as conventional. This dish is touted as “low-fat†and “low-sodium.†This can only mean that the chicken consists of the most boring meat on earth, skinless, boneless, tasteless, flavorless, chicken breast, most likely from a factory farm where the chickens never see the sun, are fed GMO corn and GMO soy, and are confined in crates. Of course, no specifications as to where the chickens should come from are made. The difference between true free-range chickens and factory chickens is huge. The lentils are almost certainly conventionally grown with chemicals. The “mixed vegetables†are not specified, are almost certainly grown with chemicals and pesticides, and could even come out of a can. It is quite likely that some of them are GMO. This is one dish that probably tastes just as bad as it sounds, like it came from an American school cafeteria. Not healthy to me.
Live Yogurt-Based Blancmange Topped with Walnuts and Sugar-Free Caramel-Flavored Sauce
While the yogurt sounds good, A blancmange always contains plenty of processed sugar. Walnuts can be healthy, but no distinction is made between walnuts grown with chemicals and walnuts grown without chemicals. The sugar-free caramel-flavored sauce almost certainly contains a number of artificial ingredients, especially artificial sweeteners, and does not even qualify as food, let alone as something healthy. I would not even taste this.
Now, it has been said that the British cannot cook, and this menu would seem to support that rumor, started by the French, I believe. However, I have had enough traditional English food to know that English food can be delicious. In fact, a traditional English dish was featured in the meal I am about to describe, and it was wonderful, both in taste and nutrition.
My Idea of a Much Healthier and Infinitely Tastier Meal
Since I feel I have an obligation not just to complain, but to come up with a better alternative, I will do so. Every ingredient in this meal was free of chemicals, raised on grass or on good soil.
The meal my lovely wife prepared for Father’s Day will do, as it was absolutely delicious and loaded with valuable nutrients. The menu contained:
Homemade Salmon Broth
This was made from wild salmon heads, stomachs, and collars, simmered for twelve hours. Loaded with the nutritional bounty of the sea, and delicious and invigorating.
Grassfed English Style Prime Rib (from Tender Grassfed Meat)
The king of roasts, a magnificent cut from U.S. Wellness Meats, full of grassfed goodness and nutrition, restoring, rejuvenating, delicious and satisfying beyond dreams.
Pan-Roasted Organic Yukon Gold Potatoes
These magnificent potatoes were cooked in the same pan as the prime rib, roasting in the delicious beef fat as the roast cooked, crisp on the outside, hot and tender on the inside, rich with the nutrients that come from good soil and grassfed fat.
Organic Carrots Cooked with Butter and Garlic
These deep orange carrots were naturally sweet, and savory, redolent with the wonderful combination of pastured butter and garlic, which are very healthy foods in their own right.
Crimini Mushrooms Sautéed in Butter
Butter and mushrooms are magic together, and the wonderful flavor of the deeply colored mushrooms combined perfectly with the pastured butter to make a simple, yet delicious masterpiece.
Roasted Organic Onions
These onions, rich with special nutrients, were roasted right along with the prime rib, and came out with a wonderful, caramelized, sweet and rich flavor.
Homemade Fermented Cilantro Salsa
This homemade condiment, made with cilantro, green onions, tomatoes and garlic fresh from the Farmers’ Market, provided the special nutrients of fermented raw vegetables, while perfectly complimenting the rich, deep taste of the prime rib.
Apricots in Season
These apricots, fresh from the Farmers’ Market, in season, smelled wonderful, tasted better than they smelled, contributed valuable nutrients, and were the perfect dessert for this magnificent meal.
Now, would you rather have my meal, or the one created by the English scientists?
This post is part of Monday Mania, Fat Tuesday, Real Food Wednesday, and Fight Back Friday blog carnivals.
Protect Family Farms! Save Food Freedom!
By Stanley Fishman, Author of Tender Grassfed Meat
This is the raw milk cheese that I eat every day. I'm not dead.
The FDA has gone to war. It has marshaled all its resources, and obtained the support and help of the FBI, sheriff’s departments, attorney generals, police departments, courts, and dozens of other state agencies. Agents with drawn guns, laboratories, warrants, lawsuits, injunctions, embargoes, press releases, internet postings, armed raids, the seizure and destruction of huge amounts of property, breaking into private buildings, are just some of the methods the FDA has used in this war.
What horrible crime justifies all this vast effort and expense?
There must be a serious threat to public health, at the very least?
Is the FDA taking action against the drug companies who have killed hundreds of thousands of Americans with dangerous prescription drugs?
No.
Is the FDA closing down the Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) that pollute our land and water with actual lagoons of manure and waste, that spread dangerous bacteria into the soil, that create great suffering for animals who are crowded together so tightly that they cannot even turn around?
No.
Is the FDA raiding the large industrial food facilities that cause illness and death from their profit-over-everything practices, and have been the cause of every recent food safety outbreak?
No.
The FDA is targeting single family farms that produce raw cheese.
The FDA is trying to drive them out of business, with the enthusiastic support of various state agricultural agencies.
How many people have died from raw cheese from the targeted farms?
None.
How many people have become ill from raw cheese from the targeted farms?
None.
How many people have complained about being ill from raw cheese from the targeted farms?
None.
Why has the FDA gone to war against family farms making raw cheese?
Raw Cheese Is Legal, when Properly Made and Stored
You might think it is illegal to make and sell raw cheese. It is not. The FDA’s own regulations, in place since 1949, allow the selling of raw cheese in interstate commerce. The cheese must be aged at least sixty days, which results in beneficial bacteria destroying the harmful bacteria, if the aging is done properly.
In the 61 years that have passed, there have been no deaths and very few, if any, illnesses caused by properly aged raw cheese. This excellent record makes properly aged and stored raw cheese one of the safest foods, as well as one of the most nutrient-dense. Raw cheese is widely used all over Europe, with little or no reported illness. In fact, the great legacy cheeses of Europe are all made from raw milk, and have been enjoyed safely for hundreds of years.
Tyranny at Work
When the government uses its awful, overwhelming power to crush and destroy a person or a business that has harmed no one, and broken no law, it is tyranny, plain and simple. The kind of tyranny that freedom-loving people have resisted throughout history. The United States of America is supposed to be a free country, with our fundamental rights protected from government abuse and tyranny.
The FDA is focusing on tests that show the presence of a very common bacteria called listeria monocytogenes, which is sometimes considered dangerous. However, nobody has had a reported illness traced to this bacteria for at least 38 years. FDA’s Ace in the Hole
The system is not working here. There are many examples, but I will pick three.
The Rawsome Raid
On June 30, 2010, armed agents from the FBI, the FDA, the California Department of Agriculture, and the local police department entered a warehouse owned by the Rawsome Co-op. Rawsome is a buying club that provides raw and organic foods to its members. You can see the video of agents brandishing guns in the co-op here. You would think they were looking for armed drug dealers, or terrorists, instead of people selling food. Fortunately they did not shoot anyone.
The government agencies had a warrant that allowed them to take samples of the foods contained in the warehouse. If they had simply knocked on the door, and politely gone about their business of taking samples, nobody would have resisted them. The use of large numbers of armed agents, the brandishing of guns by agents obviously ready to shoot, belongs in the old Soviet Union, not the United States.
Instead of just taking the samples authorized by the warrant, the agents seized all the raw dairy products, placing them in unrefrigerated containers. This took place during the sweltering heat of a Los Angeles summer. Some of the cheese seized had come from Morningland Dairy.
Morningland Dairy
Morningland Dairy is a family owned farm in Missouri. They have been making high quality raw cheese for thirty years. In all those thirty years, nobody has ever claimed that they got sick from this fine cheese.
More than seven weeks after the Rawsome Raid, Morningland Dairy was visited by agents of the FDA and the Missouri Milk Board. The agents embargoed all the cheese in the dairy, preventing its sale, without a hearing, without trial, without testing the cheese that was there. Morningland Dairy was informed that the California Department of Agriculture had tested Morningland cheese seized in the Rawsome raid and found it to be contaminated with listeria monocytogenes. The testing took place SEVEN WEEKS AFTER the cheese was seized and placed in unrefrigerated containers. The circumstances of the testing were not in compliance with FDA regulations, and there was no indication of whether the cheese was even refrigerated during the seven hot weeks between seizure and testing. Nevertheless, the FDA and the Missouri Milk Board demanded that all the cheese at Morningland be destroyed. The cheese was worth $250,000.
The FDA later reported that Morningland had issued a voluntary recall of its cheese, which Morningland denies. The FDA sent Morningland a letter citing the California tests and claiming that Morningland’s cheese was an “acute, life threatening danger to health.â€
The Attorney General of Missouri has gone to court to try to get all the cheese at the farm destroyed. The family is currently engaged in a desperate legal battle to save their business. Their ability to earn money had been severely reduced by the embargo, and this financial pressure may result in the death of their farm.
You can find a detailed description of what was done to the family farmers at Morningland here.
And there is even more information on Morningland Dairy here.
Estrella Family Creamery
The Estrella Family Creamery is a family farm that makes some of the most delicious raw cheese in the nation. A number of their cheeses have won awards for excellence. They have been in business for many years, and their cheese has been widely distributed. Their cheese has been a very popular item at many farmer’s markets in the Seattle area. Nobody has ever claimed to have gotten sick from their cheese.
Earlier this fall, the FDA and a Washington state agency claimed that some of Estrella’s cheese was contaminated with the bacteria listeria monocytogenes. The problems centered on one cave, and the company voluntarily destroyed the affected cheese and issued a recall for several cheeses. The farm made changes that solved the contamination problem. It must be emphasized that nobody got sick from the contaminated cheese.
The government agencies demanded that ALL the cheese at the creamery be destroyed, which would be a financial disaster for the farm. The FDA demanded that the creamery recall ALL of its cheese, including the types that had never been contaminated. The creamery refused. The creamery had testing done which proved that none of their current cheese was contaminated with listeria, or anything else.
In October, three carloads of FDA agents and Federal Marshals drove onto the farm, and closed it down. The Estrellas are now prevented from selling their cheese, though they are going to court to fight for their business, at great expense.
There is more information on the Estrella Family Creamery here.
S510 Will Give the FDA Almost Unlimited Power over Agriculture
We have seen what the FDA will do to make war on small family farms now. If the FDA gets the almost unlimited power over farms that S510 will give it, the situation could be much worse, with family farmers facing up to ten years in federal prison.
The FDA Is Not Evil, But It Is Misguided
The FDA has done much good in the past, and could do so again. I used to admire the FDA, and it used to do a great job of protecting our food supply.
I think it is important to realize that the average employee of the FDA is not an evil person. The FDA is full of people who really want to protect us, who are devoted to making our food safer. People who really care about what they do. Good people, full of talent and dedication. But they have to follow the directions of their superiors, and they have been trained to believe certain things which are not accurate. It would be terrific if the FDA would stop focusing on small farms that have hurt no one and use its power and ability to take on the real threats to safety, the threats that are actually killing people, like dangerous drugs, filthy food processing facilities, tainted imported food, and factory food filled with dangerous chemicals and pathogens. They could become heroes again.
What We Can Do
First, we can contribute money to Estrella Family Creamery and Morningland Dairy, so they will not be destroyed by the shutting down of their business and can finance their fight in court.
Keep Family Dairying Alive!
Click the Pledgie Buttons for details!
Estrella Family Needs Your Help in Washington State!
Dixon Family Needs your Help in Missouri!
Second, we can contact our Senators and ask them to stop S510, or support the Tester amendment and remove the criminal penalties.
We must ask our congresspeople to stop FDA tyranny against family farms, and turn the FDA against the real threats to food safety. If they do so, we can save Morningland Dairy, and the Estrella Family Creamery, and many other good farms and dairies that have come under attack.
This post is part of Fight Back Friday and Monday Mania blog carnivals.
See more posts about how to save farms at Save Farm Freedom Friday!
Save Our Food Freedom and Right to Privacy! Stop S510
By Stanley Fishman, Author of Tender Grassfed Meat
photo credit: Chuck “Caveman†Coker
I never wanted to blog about politics. I wanted to blog about the cooking and benefits of grassfed meat and real food. I wanted to share the joy of these wonderful foods, the kind of food that saved my life and restored my health. The kind of food that not only tastes delicious, but gives our bodies the fuel we need to enjoy robust good health.
But there is little point to writing about real food if nobody will be able to get it.
Our very ability to raise, buy, and eat real food is seriously threatened.
Senate Bill S510 comes up for a cloture vote this week, quite possibly Wednesday, November 17th. This vote could result in the quick passage of the bill. If that happens, real food as we know it may be gone from our tables—forever.
One of the most basic human rights is the right to privacy. This gives us the right to decide what to do with our own bodies. No decision we can possibly make about our own bodies is more important than what we choose to eat.
If we cannot grow, import, or buy the foods we choose to eat, then we lose all freedom to choose what food to put in our bodies.
S510 gives the FDA the absolute power to control what we eat.
If S510 passes, we will lose our freedom to choose what we eat, one of our most basic human rights.
S510 Will Not Improve Food Safety, but Will Destroy the Small Farmer
There is a food safety crisis in the United States. Many people have died from tainted food. Many millions of people have become ill. We do need effective food safety laws. Just as important, we need those laws to be enforced. The laws that already exist would make our food much safer—if they were enforced. But they are not. Now we have new “food safety†laws proposed like S510.
But a law does not improve food safety just because they say it will. When you actually read the law, all two-hundred-plus pages of it, you realize that it has nothing to do with making food safer, and everything to do with giving total control over the food we eat to the FDA. The very same FDA that is controlled by Big Agriculture and Big Pharma. Rather than inspections, S510 relies on huge amounts of paperwork. Paperwork never made anything safer.
But the paperwork burden can easily be made impossible for small farmers and sustainable farmers, as the FDA has total control over what paperwork to require. The large companies can hire specialists to do the paperwork, but the small farmers cannot afford to do so. If you look at what the bill actually does, it provides a way for Big Ag to use its influence with the FDA to crush small, sustainable farms under a mountain of regulations and paperwork requirements.
This has already happened in the meat processing industry, where the imposition of crushing paperwork burdens caused most small processing plants to go out of business, leaving a handful of companies with more than 90 percent of the market. If only a few large industrial agricultural organizations are left, we will only be able to choose industrial food, and will have lost our freedom.
S510 Gives the FDA Complete Control over the Growing of Food
It is very puzzling that S510 chooses the FDA to have complete control over how crops are grown, stored, and processed. The FDA knows nothing about growing crops. The Department of Agriculture has a lot of farming experience. Why choose the FDA?
The FDA is a strong supporter of chemical-heavy industrial agriculture; genetically modified crops; irradiating food as the preferred method of making it “safeâ€; the heavy use of pesticides; and banning all food that has any life in it, such as raw milk. S510 would give the FDA the power to impose these methods on all farmers, bringing an end to real food.
If the only food allowed is industrial food, we will have lost the basic human freedom to choose our food.
S510 Will Include Heavy Prison Terms and Fines that Can Be Used to Crush All Resistance
It is expected that S510 will have S3767 included as an amendment. S3767 includes prison terms of up to ten years for violating various food safety laws. These laws could be used by the government to imprison people just for selling raw milk, as explained here on Hartke Is Online.
If raising real food is punished with years in prison, nobody will dare to raise real food, and we will have lost our basic human right to choose our food.
What We Can Do to Save Our Freedom
We can call and write and email our senators, demanding that they do not pass this freedom killing bill, or, as a minimum, vote for the Tester Amendment that will protect small farmers from the worst part of the bill.
The time to act is now. We all have an opportunity to fight for the freedom to choose our own food. If we stay silent, we will lose that freedom.
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Food Sately, Not Food Slavery! Stop S510
Stop Senate Bill 510—Save Organic Food
This post is part of Real Food Wednesday Blog Carnival.
Food Safety, Not Food Slavery! Stop S510!
By Stanley A. Fishman, author of Tender Grassfed Meat
Organic vegetables from our local Farmers’ Market
When I addressed S3767 last week, a bill that would jail people for ten years just for selling food the government labeled misbranded or adulterated—I felt like I lived in the Soviet Union, not the United States of America.
I still live in the United States of America. An outpouring of protest convinced the Senate Judiciary Committee to heavily modify the bill so it only applied to those who knowingly acted with a conscious disregard of a risk of death or serious bodily injury. This is a huge change and a significant victory. My heartfelt thanks to all of you who contacted your senators and made the difference.
Now it is likely that Big Agriculture will once again try this week to pass S510, the so called “Food Safety†bill. Actually, S510 will give us food slavery, not food safety.
S510 will force the imposition of an extremely burdensome system THAT HAS ALREADY FAILED on small farmers, farmers’ markets, anybody who sells or distributes food, and may drive most of them out of business, while leaving the real cause of the food safety problem—the huge companies who dominate the food industry—untouched.
Our food will be no safer, but thousands of small farmers and food businesses will be driven out of business, and the big companies will have even more control over our food. Which is exactly why the big food companies support this oppressive bill.
Small Farmers Are Not the Problem
All of the reported food illness outbreaks have come from large processing facilities or factory farms, or from pollution caused by waste created by these farms. These industrial operations value profit above all else, and concentrate on producing their products as cheaply as possible, on an assembly line basis, using a huge number of chemicals and processes to extend the shelf life of their products.
Small farms, farmers’ markets, and ranchers who sell directly to the consumer know that their business depends on the quality of their products and their relationship with their customers, and do a wonderful job of producing safe, high quality food.
But S510 treats the smallest family farm the same as the largest factory farm. If S510 passes, the small farmers will be punished and destroyed for the crimes of the industrial farming system, which will benefit from less competition.
All food safety legislation should target only the cause of the problem—industrial agriculture.
Don’t ruin what works. Leave the small farmers alone!
Paperwork Does Not Make Food Safe—HAACP Has Already Failed
The only real opponents of food safety are those who make money by cutting corners to increase profits. But S510 will not help. Forcing extensive paperwork, reports, and regulations on every food producer or seller will not make food any safer. S510 is built around HARCP, which requires a mountain of plans and paperwork, and has regulators review the paperwork instead of visiting and inspecting the places where the food is actually processed. HARCP is essentially the same as HAACP, a system that has already failed. HARCP is ideal for big companies, who hire specialists to fill out the plans and paperwork in accordance with thousands of pages of regulations. No small farmer has the capacity to do this, but the bill treats them the same as the biggest company.
The HAACP system was introduced in the United States by the Clinton administration, in response to meat safety concerns. Big corporations loved it, because it did away with actual inspections of their huge facilities. HAACP was supposed to make meat safe. The results? Meat food safety is worse than ever!
But huge numbers of the small meat processing plants in the United States have been driven out of business, because it was too difficult and expensive for them to comply with HAACP. Former plant owners have written about how the government harassed them, constantly rejecting their paperwork and plans, forcing them to spend hundreds of hours and huge amounts of money in trying to satisfy the HAACP documentation requirements, until they just went out of business. Now 90% of the meat processing in this country is controlled by four corporations.
There is a terrible shortage of small plants, and many grassfed ranchers find it very difficult to find a processor for their meat.
If S510 passes, HARCP will do to the small farmer what HAACP did to the small processing plants.
We can be almost certain that the government will end raw milk forever—simply by refusing to accept paperwork from anyone who produces raw milk, by always finding flaws with the paperwork.
We can expect to see most small farmers, sustainable farmers, and organic farmers driven out of business, and we may lose all our food choices, soon having nothing but factory food available. Instead of being able to choose our food, we will be slaves to the big companies who will have total control of what food is available. Rather than small farmers working their own land, producing high quality food, and making a decent living, we will have nothing but large factory farms and CAFOs paying slave wages to raise factory food as cheaply as possible.
S510 Will Enable the FDA to Destroy Real Produce
S510 will give the FDA, an organization totally devoted to industrial farming, GMOs, and supporting big agriculture, total and complete control over how crops are raised and stored.
This would allow the FDA to impose its factory food standards on all produce, spraying and radiating everything.
The FDA could force the spraying of all produce, even dictating the pesticides to be used, and how much. The FDA could force all produce to be irradiated. The FDA could force all farmers to use the products sold by large agricultural companies. The FDA could even ban all non-GMO produce. The bill gives practically unlimited power over produce to the FDA, making all farmers slaves to the FDA and its friends in the large corporations.
If you think the FDA would act fairly, think again. The FDA has even filed court documents claiming that we have no right to choose our own food, and can only eat the food the government allows us to eat.
What We Can Do
I ask each of you to contact your senators, and ask them to stop and reject S510.
Ask them to insist that small farmers, small processors, and farmers’ markets be completely exempt from all provisions of S510, as a minimum.
Ask your senators not to allow the agricultural industry to use food safety as an opportunity to destroy the business of the small farmers, small processors, and sustainable farmers.
If enough of us do this, we can have an impact—especially with the election coming up. We changed S3767, and we can do the same with S510.
Related Posts
Stop Senate Bill 510—Save Organic Food
This post is part of Monday Mania and Real Food Wednesday and Fight Back Friday Blog Carnivals.
No Jail for Selling Real Food! Oppose S.3767
By Stanley A. Fishman, author of Tender Grassfed Meat
Sometimes I don’t know if I’m living in the United States or the old Soviet Union.
A new bill has been introduced in the Senate—S.3767. This bill makes it a crime, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, to “introduce misbranded food into interstate commerce.†The bill also appears to provide the same punishment for introducing “adulterated†food into interstate commerce.
These terms are so vague and so broad that they could cover almost anything. Government agencies already consider raw milk to be “adulterated.†Any supplement or food could be labeled as “misbranded.â€
“Interstate Commerce†could cover anything and everything that is sold or even consumed in the United States of America.
I fear that these provisions could be interpreted by government agencies to cover the selling or even the consuming of raw milk or any supplement, for example. The brave and dedicated farmers who produce raw milk could be in danger of being jailed under this bill. Even the members of cowshare programs could be in danger of violating this overbroad law.
This is the United States of America, not the Soviet Union—we have a Constitution and inalienable rights. We have the right to eat good food, even if somebody in the government disagrees with our choices. We have a right to have farmers who can provide us with the real food we need to thrive and be healthy. We have the right to decide for ourselves what we will and will not eat. And we have the right to do so without the fear that we will be thrown into prison for providing, selling, or even consuming real food.
What We Can Do
This bill is scheduled to go before the Senate Judiciary Committee tomorrow, September 23rd. It was introduced only a few days ago. They are trying to rush this bill through before people know what is in it. I ask each and every one of you who believes in the freedom to produce, sell, purchase, and eat real food to contact your Senators immediately and ask them to stop this freedom-killing bill.
The following link provides an easy and quick way to send a letter to your Senators, a letter that has already been written, and only needs your signature and certain address information.
Senate Judiciary Committee: Please Do Not Rush S.3767 to a Vote
We all have a chance to speak out for food freedom and to protect our rights. Please join me and many others in doing so.
Many thanks to Sheri at Moms for Safe Food for letting me know about this threat to our freedom.
The Pleasure of Pastured Pork
By Stanley A. Fishman, author of Tender Grassfed Meat
Scored roast pork.
I have often been asked why Tender Grassfed Meat has no recipes for pork. The answer I always give has been the same—conventional pork, even organic pork, is just too lean, lacks flavor, and is always fed a large amount of soy. Soy feeding, in my opinion, will ruin the taste of any meat. These pigs were specially bred to be lean, and have no real flavor. Nearly all the traditional ways of cooking pork were designed for fatter pigs, with every roast having the skin and a thick layer of fat attached. Traditional ways of cooking pork just did not work with the modern pig, a creation of fear, the fear of the fat we need to be healthy.
I knew there were some creative, intrepid farmers who were actually raising pork in the old way, by letting them roam in the forests, letting them root in harvested fields, giving them the skim milk left over from making cream and butter, and giving them table scraps. But I was unable to get any of this fabled pork—until now.
My local farmers’ market now carries real pastured pork. This pork is so much better than anything I was able to get before that it seems like a different species. The meat has incredible flavor, perfect fat content, and makes me feel good after eating it, something that never happened with any other kind of pork.
Real Pork
These pigs are not penned and stuffed with soy and garbage, but roam the woods, eating their natural diet of mast, which is composed of seeds and fruits fallen from trees, various plants, bugs and the occasional small animal. They are also allowed to root in harvested organic vegetable fields and orchards, and are given the skim milk left over from making cream and butter. Even better, these pigs are from the famous Berkshire heritage breed, a breed developed for fine eating in England, long ago.
Interestingly enough, a number of Berkshire pigs are raised in the United States, but almost all of them are exported to Japan, where their meat is called kurobata. But these Berkshires were raised and available locally.
Still better is the fact that these pigs come with a nice coating of their own life-giving fat. In fact, the pork shoulder roasts come with the skin on, and with all the beautiful fat under the skin. This is something I had read about, but almost never seen. Almost all the traditional recipes for pork roasts called for the skin to be left on. Now I would have a chance to taste why pork was so loved in traditional European cooking.
Roasting Real Pork, or Rediscovering the Lost Art of Scoring
I made the first pork roast. I roasted it carefully in a traditional way. I was surprised to see that there was very little fat in the pan. The meat was very good, with a nice flavor, fairly tender, and tasted nothing like the soy-fed pork that I disliked.
But something was missing. It was very good, but not great. Great is my standard for grassfed meat, not good. Good is just not good enough. It is not that I am a great cook—it is that traditional meat does taste great, when properly cooked, and anyone can learn to properly cook grassfed meat. The greatness is in the natural meat humankind has been eating for thousands of years. In other words, the greatness comes from the meat, not the cook. There is a very old saying—“God gives us good meat, the devil sends us cooks.â€
If I cook grassfed meat and it tastes only good, then I know I have done something wrong.
I did a bit of research, and learned about the lost art of scoring. Several old books stated clearly that scoring was the most important part of cooking a pork roast. Most Americans have never even heard of it. The old books assumed everybody would do it as a matter of course.
Scoring means making long parallel cuts through the skin and fat of the pork roast, stopping short of cutting into the meat. Some books advocated making these cuts every quarter inch. I started to score my next roast, and learned that it was not easy to cut through the tough, slippery skin. I sharpened a sturdy knife, got a glove that would give me a good grip, and set to work, being careful to angle the edge of the knife away from the hand holding the pork. This went much easier, though I decided that making cuts every half inch was sufficient.
I roasted the pork the same way I had the previous roast, with the only difference being the scoring. The smell coming from the oven made me so hungry it was hard to wait for the meat to finish cooking. The taste was fantastic, like no pork I had ever tasted before. Very tender, juicy without being wet, rich without being greasy, with a wonderful deep flavor that makes me hungry just to think of it. I now understood why pork roasts were so loved in the past. I felt good and renewed after eating the roast—again a new experience.
And this was a shoulder roast, one of the cheapest parts of the pig!
It is only necessary to score large cuts of pork that have the skin on. Smaller cuts can be delicious without being scored, but trust me on this, a scored pork roast is more than worth all the extra work.
My next book, which will be on barbecuing grassfed meat, will have some wonderful recipes for pastured pork. My thanks to the heroic farmers who are reintroducing real pork to the American people.
This post is part of Real Food Wednesday and Fight Back Friday Blog Carnivals.
S 510 Threatens Our Freedom
By Stanley A. Fishman, author of Tender Grassfed Meat
Organic vegetables from our local Farmers’ Market
One of the most basic American freedoms is the freedom to choose what we eat. This right to choose our own food is severely threatened by Senate Bill S 510, the “Food Safety†bill, currently pending in the United States Senate. The provisions of this bill would do little or nothing to improve food safety. Instead, the bill would impose crushing and expensive paperwork requirements on all food producers, including small farmers. For the first time in our history, the bill would also give the FDA complete control over how crops are raised. These provisions could drive many small farms and farmers’ markets out of business.
Our Heritage of Food Freedom
One of the earliest rights enjoyed by Americans was the right to choose our own food. Every country in Europe restricted what foods were available to most of their people. It was particularly hard for most people to get meat or fat. Most people were forbidden to hunt by poaching laws. Hunting was reserved for the wealthy and those of noble birth. Most of the meat and fat from farm animals was also reserved for the wealthy and the nobles. Most ordinary people rarely had the opportunity to purchase meat and fat, which was also very expensive. Even the farmers rarely got to eat meat or fat, as they usually had to sell their meat animals in order to pay taxes.
There were little or no restrictions on hunting in the Thirteen Colonies, which later became the United States of America, and game was plentiful. It was also easy to raise animals for food, and there were very few taxes. Meat and animal fat were easily available to just about anybody. Many Europeans immigrated to the United States because they heard that even the poor could eat meat there.
The founders of the United States of America were well aware of the importance of food freedom.
Thomas Jefferson said, “If people let government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny.â€
How S 510 Threatens Our Freedom to Choose
The Senate bill threatens our freedom to choose our food in two major ways:
- Burdensome paperwork requirements: These requirements are a crushing burden on small farmers, who could be fined and severely punished if they don’t fulfill the paperwork requirements perfectly. While big food producers can easily hire people whose only job is to complete the paperwork, small farmers cannot afford to do so. This could drive many small farmers and producers out of business, leaving only the big producers. The big producers almost always produce factory food, because that maximizes their profits. It is the small farmers who produce the best organic food, artisanal quality food—the food that many of us prefer to eat. If small farmers are driven out of business by the paperwork burdens of S 510, we will have nothing to eat but factory food.
- FDA control of farming: The power to regulate is the power to destroy. S 510 would give the FDA the power to control how fruits, vegetables, and grains are grown. It is no secret that the FDA is biased towards the factory food model of large-scale agricultural production. It is very likely that the FDA would impose the same standards on all farms, large or small, conventional or organic. The FDA would have the power, for example, to require the use of pesticides. The FDA could also require that all produce be irradiated in the name of food safety. While the bill tells the FDA to consider the impact of its regulations on small farms and organic farms, it does not require the FDA to give these farms any special consideration. By forcing all food to be grown in exactly the same way, the FDA can take away our supply of the foods we would prefer to eat.
Food Safety Regulations Must Not Deprive Us of Our Freedom to Choose
The supporters of S 510 ask how anybody could be opposed to food safety. I very much want our food to be safer, much safer. But I do not want to lose the right to choose the food that I eat. It must be understood that there always is a tradeoff for freedom. Safety is never absolute. Freedom often involves a degree of risk. As Americans, we are allowed to do many things that are dangerous:
- We are allowed to drink alcoholic beverages, even though drinking causes many thousands of deaths a year.
- We are allowed to drive automobiles, even though tens of thousands of people are killed in automobile accidents every year.
- We are allowed to use over-the-counter and prescription medications, even though hundreds of thousands of people die as a result of taking these drugs.
- We are allowed to take part in dangerous sporting activities such as: skiing, snowboarding, bungee jumping, water skiing, skydiving, etc.
We certainly should have the right to eat the food of our choice.
Inspections Make Food Safer—Not Paperwork
We could make food much safer by having independent, well-trained inspectors inspecting every food processing plant. The inspectors would actually inspect the food, rather than review paperwork. The food should be regularly tested for pathogens in a reasonable manner.
S 510 Must Be Changed to Protect Our Freedom to Choose Our Food
If S 510 destroys small farming and organic farming in the United States, we will have lost our freedom to choose our food. High quality food will become rare and expensive, available only to the rich and powerful.
I urge you to contact your senators and congressperson and ask them to either vote against the bill, or to insist that it be modified to exempt small farms from all its provisions. You can also send an email through the Western Organization of Resource Councils’ automated system.
This post is part of Real Food Wednesday Blog Carnival at Kelly the Kitchen Kop.
Related Post
Stop Senate Bill 510—Save Organic Food
Stop Senate Bill 510 — Save Organic Food
By Stanley A. Fishman, author of Tender Grassfed Meat
We do have serious food safety problems in this country. There have been a number of large food illness outbreaks and recalls. But the bill currently before the Senate, “The FDA Food Safety Modernization Act” (S. 510) would do nothing to stop the real cause of foodborne illness, and would give the Food and Drug Administration the power to destroy the small organic farmer once and for all.
Who could be against food safety? I am all for food safety, but just because they call a bill a food safety act does not mean that it does anything to improve food safety.
Food Safety Problems Have Not Been Caused By Small Farms
All of the food safety problems that have made the papers in the last few years have been caused by the large, industrial food system. The problems have arisen in large food processing plants, or have been caused by the importation of tainted food from China (food products contaminated by the poison melamine) and Mexico (salmonella on imported peppers). Not one of the problems has been caused or contributed to by a small, local food producer. The effect of S. 510 is to ignore the large food processors, while enabling the FDA to target small, local farmers, something the FDA has been very prone to do in the past.
Paperwork Does Not Make Food Safer
But the bill does nothing to effectively address the problems caused by the large industrialized food industry and food imports. S. 510 relies largely on the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point System, commonly known as HACCP. HACCP requires all food producers to develop and maintain extensive and detailed written records and plans, which results in a huge amount of paperwork which is extremely burdensome for a small farmer. If you’re wondering how creating written records and plans improve food safety, they do not. Creating paperwork is not the same as having a food plant actually inspected. Currently, large meat packing plants are not inspected by federal agencies. Instead, the federal agencies review the paperwork submitted by the large meat packing plants. One of the worst food safety outbreaks occurred in a large meat packing plant that was not inspected, but had submitted paperwork. At the same time, federal agencies have punished small meat processors for paperwork violations that have not harmed the health of anybody.
The only effective method we have had to improve food safety at processing plants is to have frequent, unannounced, independent inspections of the plant. Actually inspecting a food processing plant can prevent food safety problems, but reviewing paperwork cannot.
Paperwork Can Crush the Small Farmer
Filling out paperwork is easy for large, industrial operations, as they can employ people whose only job is to fill out the paperwork. Small farmers cannot afford to do this, and to force them to produce the same kind of extensive paperwork as a large industrial operation is extremely burdensome and could drive many small farmers out of business.
The FDA Would Have the Power to Destroy Organic Farming
But perhaps the worst part of S. 510 is giving the FDA the power to completely regulate every detail of how farmers grow and harvest produce. It has been said that the power to regulate is the power to destroy. The FDA could require all farmers to use harmful pesticides, thus destroying organic food forever. It could require farmers to use only certain varieties of seeds. It could even require farmers to use GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms). Since the FDA has in the past been extremely friendly to large industrial agriculture operations and to the companies that make pesticides and GMOs, this is a serious concern. This bill would give the FDA the power to greatly increase the profits of large agriculture corporations by forcing all farmers to use their products. The FDA could even require that all produce be irradiated, supposedly to improve food safety. If you think this is farfetched, consider the fact that federal agencies have already advocated the use of irradiation as the best means of improving food safety. There is no justification for giving the FDA such power.
While the House version of S. 510 orders the FDA to “consider the impact†of its regulations on small-scale and diversified farms, this requirement is so vague that it is meaningless. Nothing prevents the FDA from making any regulations it wants, regardless of the impact on small farmers. The FDA can always say it “considered the impact†of its regulations.
The Bill Could Make Food Less Safe
This bill will do little or nothing to improve the actual safety of food in the United States. It could be used to unfairly burden small farmers and drive them out of business, while giving the FDA the power to destroy organic, sustainable produce. It must be defeated, or at least modified so it does not affect small farmers. It could deprive all consumers of the ability to purchase organic produce in the United States. In fact, it could make food even less safe, by allowing the FDA to force the use of dangerous substances such as pesticides, and dangerous procedures such as irradiation of food.
How You Can Help
I urge you to contact your senators and congressperson and ask them to either vote against the bill, or to insist that it be modified to exempt the small farmer from all its provisions. You can also send an email through the Western Organization of Resource Councils’ automated system.
This post is part of Fight Back Friday Blog Carnival for Friday, March 12th. at Food Renegade.