Michigan pig farmer Mark Baker has been under a virtual embargo the last several months because of his state’s prohibition on raising so-called “feral” pigs--essentially any pigs that Big Ag doesn’t want to see produced. The high-end restaurants he formerly supplied with heritage pork don’t want to do business with him for fear local public health authorities will come down on them.
January 2013
It’s always dangerous from a journalistic perspective to write about a particular food safety situation in the midst of the regulatory process, especially when it involves raw milk. But in the case of the tiny Missouri raw milk cheese maker, Homestead Creamery, I’m going to give it a shot, because I started in on it in my previous post, and because the case illustrates a number of important issues in the regulatory process.
Missouri is turning out to not be a great place for raw milk cheese makers to be operating.
There appears to be a little hangup in all the good news about poop helping cure intestinal infections. You see, when you discover that something, anything, acts as a cure for disease, well, that something becomes, in the parlance of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, a “drug.”
I was watching President Obama at his press conference yesterday trying to explain why it is that every time there is talk about measures to reign in firearms, thousands of people rush out and stock up on guns and ammo. He looked serious and perplexed, said it was a trend driven by irrational fear about what he's going to do, fanned by greedy business interests.
By Heather Retberg
Imagine leaving the military after a long career, enthusiastically launching a new business, and then, after much business trauma, concluding that the system you spent years defending with your life is corrupt.
“Take peanuts. To be safe, I want them tested as they leave the fields. I want them processed at temperatures high enough to kill salmonella. I want to store them covered so birds can’t contaminate them with their droppings. I want them tested before they are released to stores. These sorts of things will now be law.”
Dr. Richard Besser, chief health and medical editor, ABC News, on the Friday evening national news describing new rules issued by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to implement the Food Safety Modernization Act, passed in January 2011.
The Minnesota Department of Agriculture continues to push ahead with misdemeanor criminal charges involving the distribution of raw milk, meat, and eggs against farmer Alvin Schlangen in his home county, despite the similarity to three charges he was acquitted on last September.
A year ago I summarized the key themes for 2011 as "rising shock events" and "rising stress levels," thanks to highly public raids on food clubs and farms.
This site's mission is to provide news and analysis about food rights and raw milk. Increasingly, our access to privately available food is under attack by government and industry forces that seek to impose their choices on us. The Complete Patient seeks to provide up-to-date information and encourage the development of community to maintain traditional food acquisition options.