I think it's neither a conspiracy nor a reasonable precaution.
Food borne illnesses are, in fact, a serious problem but regulations that crush the small farmer aren't the answer. Large scale farming may be incredibly efficient at producing food but they are equally efficient at propagating food borne illnesses.
Promoting small farms when possible is beneficial to society and the planet for a host of reasons, including the reduction of food borne illnesses. Nature abhors monoculture and always fights to restore ecological diversity.
>What you said is nonsensical. How would eliminating the enforcement of cleanliness standards reduce illness?
I didn't say that eliminating the enforcement of cleanliness standards would reduce illness, rather I said crushing the small farmer isn't the answer and suggested that more small farms would reduce illness.
Example (from Michael Pollan's excellent book "The Omnivore's Dilemna"): FDA regulations that require slaughterhouses to have a private restroom reserved for the FDA inspector.
For a large multinational corporation processing tons of meat per day, that is a drop in the bucket. For a small slaughterhouse processing maybe a handful of cattle/week during peak slaughtering season, that's a much more substantial cost.
And when you think about it, you realize that this bizarre rules is a statement that FDA inspectors believe farm operations are so unsanitary across the board that they refuse to use a standard farm restroom. That tells me all I need to know about the quality of USA factory farms.
I'm not sure that is the reason they won't use the restrooms nor that we are actually hearing the specifics of the rule nor the reason for it or if it is anything more than internet rumor (wouldn't be surprised).
People like Michael Pollan are ideologues (a good writer...I have read "Botany of Desire") but you have to take some of their views, particularly on science, with a grain of salt. Something like Micheal Moore. Not that he isn't often right but...... then there is reality.
And (to reply to a parent) I don't understand how insisting on and legislating sanitary food production, record keeping and food tracking has anything to do with mono culture and isn't a reasonable precaution.
I could not find language supporting a "private restroom"
requirement after about 30 minutes of Googling, but it appears that
FDA meat processing regs may require full-time on-site inspectors.
Considering that slaughterhouses process the entire animal, and thus
have to deal with whatever happens to be on the hooves or skin, or
inside the viscera, it may be that a separate restroom is actually
a method of reducing the risk of cross-contamination.
Ha! I just made the same search and my comment was the top google result.
At any rate, this blog post provides the quote in question, from page 229 of "Omnivore's Dilemma" though it turns out it's the USDA, not the FDA that is mentioned.
Here's the quote:
"The problem with current food-safety regulations, in [small farmer Joel Salatin’s view], is that they are one-size-fits-all rules designed to regulate giant slaughterhouses that are mindlessly applied to small farmers in such a way that “before I can sell my neighbor a T-bone steak I’ve got to wrap it up in a million dollars’ worth of quintuple-permitted processing plant.” For example, federal rules stipulate that every processing facility have a bathroom for the exclusive use of the USDA inspector. Such regulations favor the biggest industrial meatpackers, who can spread the costs of compliance over the millions of animals they process every year, at the expense of artisanal enterprises like Polyface [Salatin’s farm]."
What you said is nonsensical. How would eliminating the enforcement of cleanliness standards reduce illness?
It's like advocating that food trucks shouldn't be subject to health inspections and then saying we would all be healthier eating from this food trucks instead of restaurants.
>What you said is nonsensical. How would eliminating the enforcement of cleanliness standards reduce illness?
The idea is that industrial agriculture is far more likely to produce illness. So industrial agriculture + regulations can have a higher likelihood of producing illness than small agriculture without regulation.
And since regulations stifle small farms, lower regulations on small farms can decrease the incidence of food borne illness by decreasing the percentage of food that comes from industrial agriculture.
Food borne illnesses are, in fact, a serious problem but regulations that crush the small farmer aren't the answer. Large scale farming may be incredibly efficient at producing food but they are equally efficient at propagating food borne illnesses.
Promoting small farms when possible is beneficial to society and the planet for a host of reasons, including the reduction of food borne illnesses. Nature abhors monoculture and always fights to restore ecological diversity.