Problems are for Solving

Health: Better Safe Than Sorry - US News and World Report
Andrew Stout’s farm in Carnation, Wash., is one of the most successful small organic farms in the country. Each week, Full Circle Farm delivers fresh lettuce, green peas, spring garlic, and spinach to 17 farmers’ markets in the Seattle area, as well as to dozens of restaurants and retailers, including Whole Foods Market. Some 2,400 boxes of produce a week go out to families who have bought a share in the farm’s riches. His customers are counting on getting freshness and taste-and also on Stout’s care when it comes to hygiene. “Bacteria exists everywhere,” he says. So he keeps the manure pile away from the packing shed, tests the water used to irrigate and wash vegetables, and keeps an eye on his workers to be sure they wash their hands. “I’m a food provider,” he says. “You want to do the absolute best that you can.”

The rapidly growing passion for locally grown produce from farmers like Stout and his wife, Wendy Munroe, is one sign of just how nervous Americans have become about the state of food on their plate.

Holy Cow! Whole Foods Linked to E. coli Outbreak - The Checkout
Whole Foods initiated the recall after Massachusetts health officials investigating a cluster of E. coli illnesses discovered all seven victims had bought meat at Whole Foods. The chain pulled ground beef from some of its stores on Wednesday. The Nebraska Beef recall was announced late Friday night.

The first article I linked to above is one I read about a year ago while in Arizona visiting my parents, the second is one I saw on my Google homepage this morning.

Food. It’s the stuff we take in that God has designed to give us energy, life, health, and enjoyment. Certainly God could have designed a “more efficient” way for us to get our calories in, but food was given for enjoyment, for feasting. And we miss it when we fast–turning us back to Him.

But food lately has become a knotty issue, as these two articles point out. Food can be dangerous. It can give death almost as easily as it brings life, because it can carry with it many dangerous things that exist in our world since the fall. Most people in our nation look for the FDA and the USDA to guard the quality and safety of the food supply. But can they? I mean, short of inspecting every single food item before it hits your grocery store, is that even possible? And what would that do to the tax cost of food? And is it even their job?

The first article talks about a growing movement of buying food that is local. Food that you know where it came from. Certainly that doesn’t eliminate safety concerns, but doesn’t it make them smaller than a federal agency ever could? In the old days people would buy meat from a butcher that they knew, who bought the meat directly from a farmer that they probably knew as well. The grocer? He carried vegetables and such from local farmers also. And so on.

Do you know where your food comes from? Have you ever asked they guy at the meat counter where those chickens were raised and what they were fed? He probably doesn’t know. (As an aside, I have had conversations with people at both Alwan and Sons and Pottstown Deli locally and I got an answer, and usually it was someplace I could find out more about if I wanted to.)

If you don’t know where your food comes from, you are at risk. Maybe not huge risk, but since the largest organic food vendor (Whole Foods Market) in the United States just had meat issues, I don’t think you can even say that buying organic makes you safer.

But if you grow your own veggies or get them from a friend or neighbor or a local farmer–they’re likely to be safer, and at least you can ask more questions about what they grew near, what fertilizer was used, etc. And if you take responsibility for your consumption purchases, you will always be better off in the long run, and safer. We buy most of our meat directly from local farmers and prefer veggies from the same, when we can get them. (Here’s a link to a video of a chicken plucker that we got to help with, and help a farmer, who gave us a sizeable chicken for our work).

And you just might help a local business thrive instead of a big box.

So if you don’t know where your food came from, think about it, and consider changing that. If you do–good job!

I’m sure I’ll have more to write on this later, but be careful what you eat, especially if you have no idea where it’s been.