Family Farms
October 6, 2016Saturated Fat Vs Sugar
October 27, 2016Food Chain Radio Show #1077
Michael Olson, Author & Urban Farming Agriculturalist
Food Safety Laws, Regulations and Rules
Guest: Baylen Linnekin Author, Biting The Hands That Feed Us
Consider Michael Olson’s Second Law of the Food Chain: The farther we go from the source of our food, the less control we have over what is in our food.
A few generations ago, most all of us lived very close to the source of our food, and we had a lot of control over what was in our food.
Then we moved into the city, and those we left behind to grow our food moved a thousand miles to where it was easier to grow our food. In making the move into the city, we lost all control over what was in our food, and therefore had to enact laws and establish rules and regulations to regain some control.
We have been passing laws and making rules and regulations for many years, and now have a thousand million billion of them on the books.
While some of our laws make sense, others leave one to stare at the horizon. We have laws that constrain the sale of ugly fruits and vegetables; laws that treat manure as a toxic waste; laws that prevent the sharing of food with the homeless; laws that prohibit people from growing fruits and vegetables in their own yards. And we keep making more laws, rules and regulations every day.
But today we pause to ask…
Leave a comment below: Are the laws we pass to make food safe biting the hands that feed us?