The gummint screwed up again

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Actually, food-borne illnesses are on the increase, including with animals. I read in the last week that over five hundred dogs have been killed by bad dog treats from China. What we-are-the-world liberalism has done is to move food production into countries without American safeguards and protections. Not even produce is safe anymore from salmonella and other pathogens. Back when the country was more conservative, that wasn't the case. I remember lots of people eating raw hamburger when I was a kid. Anybody who did so today would be thought crazy.

It is also the case that many regulations concerning food are solely to the benefit of large corporations. For example, if I wanted to slaughter my own cattle and sell the meat, I would have to pay for a full-time FDA inspector. Since large corporations that slaughter thousands of animals a day can afford this, while small outfits cannot, most regulations are designed to exclude the little guys.

The reason behind the regulations is consumer safety.

As for food borne illness trends (as measured since 1996):
(from the CDC, 2012)

(from the CDC, 2012)

BTW, FDA inspections cost the business nothing at all other than time, and an individual who slaughters his own steer and sells it on Craigslist, at a farmer's market, through an ad in the paper, or to a neighbor is not required to have an FDA inspection. They are answerable to the FDA if they provide an unsafe food product, though.

As for eating raw hamburger, the change between then and now is risk awareness, not the actual safety of the beef.

I was speaking of regulation in this country, not China.
And the increase of air borne illness can't be seriously be attributed to safety measures to protect consumers.

"The incidence of infections caused by Campylobacter, Listeria, STEC O157, Shigella, and Yersinia has declined, mostly in the first years.
The overall incidence of Salmonella was unchanged, but the incidence of some types of Salmonella have increased while others have decreased.
The incidence of Vibrio infection is now 116% higher.
The overall incidence of infection with six key foodborne pathogens (Campylobacter, Listeria, Salmonella, STEC O157, Vibrio, and Yersinia) was 22% lower.
(from the CDC, 2012)"

"Vibrio infections are rare (0.41 cases reported per 100,000 population). Incidence of Vibrio infection was 43% higher in 2012 compared with 2006–2008.
Some types of Vibrio infections are often serious.
Many Vibrio infections are acquired by eating raw oysters. These infections are most common during warmer months when waters naturally contain more Vibrio organisms.
(from the CDC, 2012)"

Bill, did you read this carefully? It is more supportive of my position than yours.

BTW, FDA inspections cost the business nothing at all other than time, and an individual who slaughters his own steer and sells it on Craigslist, at a farmer's market, through an ad in the paper, or to a neighbor is not required to have an FDA inspection. They are answerable to the FDA if they provide an unsafe food product, though.

The fact is that the bill for the FDA inspector is borne by the processor. This is why if you take a live animal to most processors, they will show you the door; they can only take the animal if it is killed and gutted first. There are exceptions, but these are the processing plants with FDA inspectors, and they are much more expensive. I'm not only a rancher, but live in a world-class area for hunting. As such, I am painfully familiar with the rules.

BTW, an excellent book has been written on just this topic:

http://www.amazon.com/Big-Ripoff-Busine ... rds=ripoff

As for eating raw hamburger, the change between then and now is risk awareness, not the actual safety of the beef.

How do you know this? Do you really believe that years ago people got just as sick from meat as they do today, but were just too stupid to figure out what was going on? If so, this is par for liberalism.

Postmodernist, PC liberalism implicitly believes that intelligent life prior to the cultural revolution of the sixties was limited to a handful of luminaries such as Lincoln and FDR; all else was darkness and evil since most people believed in pre-sixties values, which are anathema to PC.

I have found that debating with a big gov person is a waste of time..
Those of us who grew up in the country..on ranches and farms etc. have a very different outlook..
Problem is these people want to push their ideology on everyone..
Now there is proof that dairy homogenizing damages the protein molecules.. now a cancer risk..
I grew up with mostly farm stand and home grown .. fresh eggs from neighbor chickens .. fabulous
Did not even know i was diabetic till i later on lived in a city and drank sodas and stuff...
The sicknesses of the cities will attack country life more and more and the conflict will start soon enough..

I was speaking of regulation in this country, not China.
And the increase of air borne illness can't be seriously be attributed to safety measures to protect consumers.

Bill, only evil "protectionists" and economic nationalists like me have fought against importing tainted food from some of the world's nastiest places. We-are-the-world liberalism is totally responsible.

There have actually been a few exposes on this. If you watched them, you would probably never eat fresh produce again. In Mexico, where much of our fresh produce is now grown, and water is rare, untreated sewage is dumped into canals. That water is then used for irrigation. Thus are the real fruits of liberalism.

I'm all in favor of regulations provided they are fair. And so-called free trade and government for sale to the highest bidder--all part and parcel of liberalism--are not fair. Am I being fair? About the only MSM type to speak out against such outrages is Pat Buchanan. And just look at what has been done to this man's reputation as a result. Again, the real fruits of liberalism.

I have found that debating with a big gov person is a waste of time..
Those of us who grew up in the country..on ranches and farms etc. have a very different outlook..
Problem is these people want to push their ideology on everyone..
Now there is proof that dairy homogenizing damages the protein molecules.. now a cancer risk..
I grew up with mostly farm stand and home grown .. fresh eggs from neighbor chickens .. fabulous
Did not even know i was diabetic till i later on lived in a city and drank sodas and stuff...
The sicknesses of the cities will attack country life more and more and the conflict will start soon enough..

I agree with you completely. The big reason I debate with Comrade Bill is that I like him. It is also the case that most Americans are scared half to death of the post-Americans because of the tyranny Political Correctness. Well, I'm not afraid of the Big Bad Wolf. What I hope to show through example is that if one does his reading, and thinks for himself, liberalism is a paper tiger--a total fraud. But doing so does require deep and heavy reading.

I don't doubt what you say about homogenization at all. While I can't have dairy because of my AS, I have started making natural sauerkraut with all of its probiotic organisms alive, and feel much better. Homogenization kills off the good bacteria that we all consumed before pasteurization. Antibiotics and food chemicals only exacerbate the problems.

I am very familiar with government inspections and government regulations. Government regulators do not charge a penny for the inspection. The only bill payable to the FDA would be the fines assessed for regulatory violations. That is why your processors are so picky, because you are a liability.



Here are some references you can look up if you really want an answer to that one (I just copied and pasted from my final paper for Research Methodology):

Bennion, M. (1980) Science of Food. New York, Macmillan.
Charley, H. (1970) Food Science. New York, Wiley and Sons.
Crutchfield, S. R. and T. Roberts (2000) "Food safety efforts accelerated in the 1990's."
Food Review 23(3): 44-49.
Durant, D. (2004) "Tools for multi-taskers." The Food Safety Educator 9(1): 1.
Freeland-Graves, J. H. and G. C. Peckham (1987) Foundations of Food Preparation. New
York, Macmillan.
Griswold, R. M. (1962) The Experimental Study of Foods. Boston, Houghton Miffllin
Company.
Klontz, K. C., B. Timbo, et al. (1995) "Prevalence of selected food consumption and
prevalence behaviors associated with increased risks of food-borne disease." Journal of
Food Protection 58: 927-930.
Moriarty, P. (1991) "What consumers want to know about red meat." Food News for
Consumers 8(2): 7.
Opinion Research (1990) Trends 1990, consumer attitudes and the supermarket. Trends.
Washington, DC, Food Marketing Institute.
Ralston, K., Y. Starke, et al. (2000) "Awareness of risks changing how hamburgers are
cooked." Food Review 23(2): 44-49.
Redmond, E. C. and C. Griffith, J. (2003) "Consumer food handling in the home: A
review of food safety studies." J. Food Protection 66(1): 130-161.
United States Department of Agriculture (1990) Is Someone You Know At Risk for
Foodborne Illness?
United States Department of Agriculture (1990) Preventing Foodborne Illness.
United States Department of Agriculture (1990) A Quick Consumer Guide to Safe Food
Handling.
United States Department of Agriculture (1996) Making the Connection USDA's Meat
and Poultry Hotline, 1996: 12.
Yang, S., F. J. Angulo, et al. (2000) "Evaluation of safe food-handling instructions on
raw meat and poultry products." Journal of Food Protection 63(10): 1321-1325.



Where exactly did you get this assumption from? I'm guessing from conservatives, who aren't exactly qualified to define the beliefs of liberalism.

I've found that anyone who uses the term big government doesn't know what they're talking about. It's a nation of 313 million people, the government needs to be proportional to that. Small government actually means, "let's remove regulations so corporations can rape the country for wealth and establish a neo-confederate oligarchy where a few elite rich families can rule over the rest with brutality forever more.

Actually, it does not. Other than vibrio ( which is very rare, despite its dramatic rate of increase) most food borne illness is on the decline.

Librarian, a lot of what you say makes sense and I like the fact that you can present your arguments in a way that doiesn't belittle people that disagree with some or all of your points.

Maybe some of the comments in my posts have been a little off topic, but my question is: do you consider Native American, Black and Hispanic culture to be part and parcel of the greater American culture? Just as other multi-cultural countries such as our own have embraced a culture that transcends ethnic background and is contributes to national unity?

I do think the US as well as our own country need to ban this terrible Chinese dog food stuff that has not been tested adequately - the standards of food production in China appear to be appalling! A few years ago, a certain dog food product that had been endorsed by vets and popular here, but using Chinese sourced ingredients was withdrawn from the market. It contained melamine, a type of plastic. Dogs tended to die young and their face went whitish while their livers etc. slowly wasted away. I don't know why the vets endorsed it without ascertaining that the product was truly safe for dogs. In the same way, there have been warnings about food intended for human consumption and available here, so one must always treat such products, produced in places with no standards of food hygiene, with suspicion.

Haaa.. I rest my case..

BTW define "proportional gov"...

Yes i dont know what i am talking about..

Personally, I am against a large government in principle. The problem is that it has become so infused into our economy that reduction would have to be spread out over the course of several generations to avoid some pretty disastrous consequences for the economy.

So I guess in reality I am in favor of the current size of government with a preference for gradual reductions in size and scope.

Librarian -

In regard to the protection of food purchased by consumers - I'm certain you've heard of Sinclair Lewis' The Jungle. That's reason enough why we need consumer protection.
And for what it's worth, I totally agree that homegrown food is considerably safer than the industrialized packaged stuff we buy at stores. But not many of us anymore have that privilege.

It has to be as big as it is or bigger in order to regulate industry which is constantly growing. I might be in favor of reducing the sprawling homeland security apparatus, some of which is nothing more than a boondoggle.

I think an easy way they could reduce the size is to start consolidating agencies that have overlapping and/or similar responsibilities. In fact, I think that all of our safety agencies could easily be combined. It would be massive, but the reduction in overlapping administrative and infrastructure jobs alone would would save billions.