Blog: Chef Jem
by chef jem

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(Was) "Congress: Chill That Bill ..." Now: "Life Will Prevail!"

Chef Jem comments on "Local food doesn’t mean safe food"
By Caroline Scott-Thomas

Date:   11/25/2010 5:57:01 AM   ( 30 mon ) ... viewed 2017 times

"The reason the Senate took a bill already passed by the House and completely replaced its language with the food safety bill language was to get around the constitutionality issue that had been the bill’s downfall a few weeks ago. So now, technically, the Senate’s bill,with its tax provision, actually did originate in the House, even though it actually was drafted by and inserted by the Senate. An absolute end-run around the rules."

Read all:
http://thebovine.wordpress.com/2010/12/21/both-house-and-senate-vote-yes-on-fake-food-safety-bill/



November 27, 2010 - My most recent revelation on this matter:
According to Mark McAfee: "A whole food energy system is not in our country’s culture. And this is a critical, huge problem. And it cannot be fixed by modern medicine. It can be fixed by good organic farming practices and connecting with the food chain closely. It’s a simple fix, but extremely complex because we have come so far from that with our commercialization of foods and our industrialization of foods and our distribution systems which require long shelf lives."

The pertinent point here is "connecting with the food chain closely". What that means today is there is a real need for we the people to be directly connected with our local food sources and especially to develop lawful relationships with these sources. If government's first task is to protect the Rights of the sovereign states and the sovereign people then the people need to establish these additional contractual relationships with the providers in their local food chain. Then those contractual agreements will have standing in Law being that they are in a form of written law wherein the rights of the parties involved can be most recognizable by government. Unless we have contracts within the food chain then the FDA's assertion that we have no food rights stands with out our refute!

The Mark McAfee quote is from a private transcript of: "Raw Milk: The Whole Truth" DVD, conceived and produced by Chef Jem.

*********

"My gut grunted several affirmative responses to what H. Hansen wrote. Thank You!
Although I'd be interested in knowing her reply I don't expect to hear anything from "miss Scott-Thomas".

It appears to me this thing called "food safety" is in truth a multi-complex issue that really needs to be broken down into basic parts and then responded to accordingly.

I can see at least three or four spheres involved here. Call them what you will but they include the government, the food (and other) industry and we the people. I am in the "people" sphere. I have worked in the food industry and I left it for greener pastures that I have found in the "people" sphere. In one sense I don't care what the food industry does because I have as little as possible to do with that. However I care about the people who are farmers and growers who make the food I live by! I am very careful about getting my food from people sources I trust and from people friendly sources. I have never had a "food safety" problem with the farmers and growers I know and the other "people-friendly" sources.

On the other hand corporations need the "oversight" that supposedly the federal government can give. In any case I can now see that corporations need oversight from the people sphere and that my dear friend is where I believe the roots of this problem are.

I do not expect "government" to provide the kind of oversight that corporations need and that people can be happy with. There is a gap here and I think it can only be filled from the people sphere. I think there is some movement in that direction that is already happening. More and more people are choosing to do food differently than they have before. I could elaborate on that! These people are largely self governing and self-regulating the food system that they are supporting. I believe this is the future of food. In any case it is the future that I am choosing not only for myself but for all else who like what this system has to offer. A really big part of this system is community! There is no community with a corporation! In fact there is a potential anti-community danger to the nature of the corporations and their impact on local communities. Corporations are in truth a soul-less, fictional entity that must be monitored and held accountable to the people.

Any food safety legislation coming out of Washing DC needs to be understood within the limits of Congressional powers. Those powers are over what Congress owns, permits and has lawful jurisdiction over and one of those areas is federally granted businesses. Farmer Joe, (all the farmer Joes I know) are not the property of the federal government. Farmer Joes need to know this and not volunteer themselves into federal regulations when they have no business there! If reporter Caroline or any other reporter has genuine concern about "food safety" with local farmer Joe then these reporters will have to begin their due diligent research in the many alternative people regulating options that are and will be springing up across the country."

http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Legislation/Local-food-doesn-t-mean-safe-food/?c=YWSLDNu2TCiFswletTDWQw%3D%3D

Also commented at Huffington Post:
Congress: chill the bill; wait for the people's will!
Here's a most enormous & complicated matter that directly involves every American & one that can have potential severe impacts on us, on our farms and communities! There is a tremendous need for very long term thinking on the many issues that fall under the heading of "food security". Consequently, It is in our very best interest (from the people perspective) that we slow down the legislative process so that we can begin having a million conversations on this subject across every state in the Union. Therefore, I am personally endorsing Leslie Goldman's appeal that we call the Senators & tell them we want our conversations now!

We want the legislative process to wait long enough for the people to inform Congress about our thinking, feeling and willing on this matter. Many of us realize that there is an urgent need for oversight of the large food corporations and yet we are not confident that Congress will effectively perform that oversight. What are our other options? Congress is mute on this and so the people have to rise to the occasion and consider how we can begin to fill the this gap. Our participation in the conversations that are needed now may possibly suggest our direct involvement in the oversight of the food industry and those potential suggestions need to be carefully and completely thought out. So Congress, chill that bill and wait for the people's will!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com//lesliex/chewing-on-food-safety-a-_b_750967.html


The Difference - Between The Small and The Mega

Facilities and farms can certainly "implement a well-thought-out food safety strategy" and one that the people can literally live with! However, the farms and all don't necessarily need to have the federal government to accomplish that. Especially given that people are not confident that the federal government can actually fulfill all the oversight that is needed by the mega-corporate food industries.

There are plenty of informed people now who realize that "strict food safety standards" will not be a guarantee that makes food safe. We realize that "safety" also relates to the health quality of foods and that is especially so with animal products.

Here is where the "food safety" gets grounded. One example is dairy products: we have two types of dairy operations that are essentially making two different milks. One is intended for the pasteurizer. The other is directly intended for people. It is primarily in the diets of the animals where we find the real source of the food safety issues. The milk intended for pasteurization primarily comes from ruminating animals that are designed to get all their requirements for nourishment fresh from the pasture. Instead they are in confinement on a grain (and worst) feed diet that causes digestive problems, that makes them sick and that requires drug / chemical intervention to suppress the diseases that come from poor diet, stress and the lack of a sun-infused salad-bar pasture. Sick animals make poor quality milk that then needs to be pasteurized to minimize the pathogens that naturally can survive the lowered immunity that is in that milk.

The other milk typically comes from animals that are out on the pastures eating their correct diet which makes them and their milk healthy with strong immunity to the presence of pathogens which are minimal or virtually extinct as they no longer have the environmental conditions that are required for them. That environment begins inside the animals and that makes all the difference in their health and even in the quality of their manure which also makes a difference whether that manure is deposited over the pasture and integrated into nature to nourish the plant-life growing there or whether it is piling up in the stalls that the animals stand in inside confinement operations. Can you begin to see the difference between the two milks? The first milk needs food safety and actually a lot more than "food safety" has in mind. The second milk is so healthy that it has a long history of healing those who have gotten sick form the first milk! Yet S510 (or any other so called "food safety" plan coming out of Washington) with the additional powers for the FDA will be a high risk for the second milk, a real "food as medicine", given that the FDA is anti-raw milk and has a plan to eliminate it within the next 9 years or less.

http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Legislation/Local-food-doesn-t-mean-safe-food/?c=YWSLDNu2TCiFswletTDWQw%3D%3D

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