All you can't eat

[nosmokes]

Very good article on the effects of how the USDA rules written for the large corporations are harming small farmers and negatively impacting small businesses in rural and semi rural areas of Country. And w/ the latest news of toy imports and e-coli in commercially tortured beef that seems to turn up every couple of months I'd rather buy my meat un inspected direct from Richard than i would put my trust in a USDA stamp on some meat that was raised in a CAFO pen w/o enough to even turn around, with thousands of other animals and fed and fed an unnatural diet of GMO foodstock laced with growth hormones and antibiotics so it could survive the concentration camp-like suffering until it reached slaughter weight and was cut apart in an abattoir with hundreds of animals where speed matters more than anything and waste is flying all over the place but by jove there's a bureaucrat somewhere w/ a rubber stamp and a blue ink pad and that makes it all safe and neat and tidy? Fuck that noise.
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original-c-ville

All you can't eat

The Double H Farm case highlights how local meat farmers just can't swallow government food regulations

BY JAYSON WHITEHEAD

The immediate years that followed World War II are universally known as the boom years, and as newly reunited couples everywhere became consumers, and spawned millions more, their insatiable appetite was met by an agricultural industry that was altering its practices. Rapidly, farms and farmers were being changed from diverse, multiproduct sources to one-dimensional producers. Americans were hungry, and they needed food—meat most of all.

The war had turned America into an assembly line machine, breathtaking in its output. For four years, it had provided soldiers with bullets, guns, tanks, planes—whatever they needed to beat back the Germans and Japanese. Now, though, we were triumphant and ready to revel in all that technology could bring to our home lives. Into that void leapt a food industry ready to comply and as it developed it became as streamlined. Instead of bullets there would be hamburgers.

Six decades later we are awash in meat. Go to a Wood Grill Buffet, for instance, and marvel at the piles of beef or chicken. Or if you've ever been to Vegas, then you've seen the signs proclaiming $2.99 prime rib. We are a country of carnivores and to keep our bellies full, cows, chickens, pigs, and the rest are funneled into what have come to be known as factory farms. Giant lots are separated into small pens where thousands of cows, for example, are pumped full of grain that is often mixed with their own remains. Turning them into cannibals has had some unforeseen results, one being Mad Cow disease. Then there are the myriad chickens confined in tiny cages, forced to live in their own excrement. The Avian Bird Flu was one byproduct of that.

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complete article here

[Tuesday Afternoon]

1. thanks for the links and the info -- K&R

peace~TA

[riverdeep]

2. Great article.

There has to be a way to have regulations in place that don't place undue burdens on farmers who want to sell directly, while still providing some measure of protection to the public and animals. But I don't think the USDA will be trying too hard to form them, they're too busy licking the boots of the big factory farmers. It's sickening. One of the healthiest food movements, for both people and animals, to come out in a long time is being snuffed out.

[SpiralHawk]

3. Want clean food for your family? Look into CSA

"Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) offers a way for every human being to be directly involved in the care and healing of the earth, while also ensuring a supply of clean, healthy food for their families and their neighbors..."

http://www.chiron-communications.com/farms.html