Food scandals are so costly to Big Food, it has repeatedly tried to kill the messenger rather than clean up its act. In the 1990s it pushed through “food disparagement” laws under which Oprah Winfrey herself was sued by cattlemen in 1997 (Winfrey said she would never eat a hamburger again upon learning that cows were being fed to cows). Winfrey was acquitted and cow cannibalism was made illegal but the US still lost $3 billion in beef exports when a first mad cow was discovered in 2003. April’s new mad cow will not help foreign trade.

Last year, Big Food introduced Animal Facility Interference laws in several states which make it a crime to “produce, distribute or possess photos and video taken without permission at an agricultural facility.” The bills also criminalize lying on an application to work at an agriculture facility “with an intent to commit an act not authorized by the Owner”–in an effort to stop the flow of grisly undercover videos. The first facility interference offense would be an aggravated misdemeanor but subsequent offenses could be felonies.

Of course, the Ag-Gag bills, as they were quickly dubbed, are anti-free-speech and would chill both whistle-blowers and news media (who couldn’t legally even receive non-approved farm images). The bills were scorified by CNN, the New York Times, Time magazine and First Amendment and food safety activists and, luckily, were defeated in 2011. But they are creeping back.

Many farmers and agricultural professionals are miffed that the days of “it’s-none-of-your-business” farming are over. Once upon a time, consumers cared only about the price and wholesomeness of food and didn’t worry about–or videotape–its origins and “disassembly.” Now consumers increasingly want to know how an animal lived, died, and even what it ate in between. Some of the newly engaged consumers are motivated by health, wanting to avoid hormones in milk, antibiotics in beef, arsenic in chicken, and who knows what in seafood. But many are also motivated by humane concerns.

Here are some shocking facts that Big Food would like to mute with Ag-Gag and food defamation laws:

rBGH in milk

Recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH), injected into dairy cows to increase milk production, was created by crossing cow DNA and E. coli bacteria. Yes, that E. coli. From the start, farmers and veterinarians worried about the udder infections it causes, the resulting need for more antibiotic usage and more. “I surely wouldn’t want to eat from the hypodermic pockmarked section of the cow,” said one farming critic as early as 1994. Banned in many countries and unlabeled here, rBGH-produced milk also contains pus and a protein associated with increased prostate and breast cancer risk called IGF-1. Still, Eli Lilly, who bought rBGH in 2008 from Monsanto insists, it “safely increases productivity of dairy cows” and helps “family farm owners.”

Eggs with a side of salmonella

Two years ago, a salmonella outbreak caused the recall of half a billion eggs and 1,600 illnesses. Thanks to factory farming, with thousands of hens stacked over their own manure, egg operations are festooned with germs. In fact, the government found both Tyson Foods and a hatchery injecting eggs of future laying hens preventively with antibiotics to avert infections. Yum. Austin “Jack” DeCoster, to whose farms the salmonella was linked, had a 30-year history of health and safety violations. In fact, when authorities raided his Turner, Maine operation in 2009, charging him with animal cruelty, four officers required treatment for ammonia-burned lungs just from entering his barns. Yet DeCoster received no penalties for the salmonella outbreak and enjoyed a gracious retirement.

Illustration courtesy of Prometheus Books

The drug store in your meat

You may not have heard of Fort Dodge, Elanco, or Intervet, animal divisions of Big Pharma, but you may well be “taking” their drugs. Government safety inspectors miss residues of penicillin and other antibiotics, parasite and anti-inflammatory drugs and heavy metals in beef, says a 2010 Office of Inspector General report, allowing contaminated beef into food supply. For other toxins like dioxin, lindane and fire retardants, inspectors do not even have “established action levels” to test for. Four plants, with an astounding 211 drug residue violations, were given a pass says the OIG report. Worse, unlike germs like salmonella or E. coli, drug and metal residues aren’t neutralized by cooking and can even turn into more dangerous compounds when heated.

Illustration courtesy of Prometheus Books

“Free antibiotics” in your food and water

One of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy’s last legislative fights was about the overuse of livestock antibiotics. “It seems scarcely believable that these precious medications could be fed by the ton to chickens and pigs,” he wrote in the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act. Over 70 percent of antibiotics go to livestock, not to people, says the bill and 48 percent of national streams are tainted with antibiotics. Other reports say that almost half of Midwest hog farms harbor the antibiotic resistant germ, MRSA, and 64 percent of workers carry it. Are people who don’t eat meat or drink tap water safe? Guess again. Crops themselves can harbor antibiotics, say food researcher, siphoning them right up from the soil.

Illustration courtesy of Prometheus Books

Meat inspection by the “Have a Cup of Coffee and Pray” method

Once upon a time, federal meat inspectors visually examined carcasses for wholesomeness. But under the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP), implemented in 2000, inspectors now simply ratify that companies are following their own self-created systems–as in “Trust us.” Soon after HACCP, 80 percent of inspectors surveyed said that HACCP limited their ability to enforce the law and the public’s right to know about food safety. Almost 20 percent said they’d been told to not document violations. And 62 percent of inspectors said they allowed contamination like feces, vomit, and metal shards in food on a daily or weekly basis since HACCP. No wonder HACCP has been been dubbed “Have a Cup of Coffee and Pray.”

Illustration courtesy of Prometheus Books

A delicacy from hell

Foie gras is a “delicacy” that requires the indelicate force-feeding of geese and ducks to bloat their livers. Video shows birds with bloody throats, barely able to walk and struggling to breathe. Yet Big Food, restaurateurs and even the American Veterinary Medical Association defend the gratuitous cruelty lest veal crates and other extreme “production agriculture” be questioned next. Foie gras is banned in Europe and other countries but a 2007 foie gras ban in Chicago drew ridicule from the Chicago Tribune‘s food critic (“Has City Council finally quacked?” Will “quack-easies” surface?) and a Foie Gras Fest backlash from area chefs who served five-course foie gras meals. P.S. The ban was repealed.

Illustration courtesy of Prometheus Books

Extreme growth promoters

Many of the growth promoters used in US meat production are banned in other countries. Europe boycotts US beef because of hormones like oestradiol-17 and trenbolone acetate which it says are linked to prostate and breast cancer. The EU also disallows farmers to use antibiotics and arsenic as growth promoters, which the US does. (Yes, arsenic.) Still, it is some consolation that most US growth promoters are withdrawn in the weeks before slaughter. Not so with ractopamine, an asthma-like drug given to 60 to 80 percent of US pigs, 30 percent of ration-fed cattle and an undisclosed number of turkeys. Ractopamine, which few are aware of, is given during the last weeks of life and not withdrawn before slaughter.

Illustration courtesy Martha Rosenberg

Mad Cow–it’s baaaack

Does anyone remember the government’s misinformation and ineptitude with the first three mad cows, now that the disease is baaaaacck? With the first cow, a government report said all “potentially-infectious product” had been “disposed of ” in a landfill but the San Francisco Chronicle and Los Angeles Times said it went to California restaurants where it was eaten. That’s very different. With the second cow, authorities did not even realize it had mad cow disease for seven months! The government’s final report says the farmer who sold the cow was “relatively sure” he had not kept any offspring but “there were essentially no records maintained.” Want more reassurances? The ranch was cleared to resume selling meat within one month.

Illustration courtesy Marta Rosenberg

Brave new clones

The FDA says clones and their offspring are no different from other food animals and won’t be labeled. (See: rBGH.) But in its own 2008 report it cites cloned calves with elevated glucose, elevated growth indicators, early mammary development, umbilical abscesses and high white blood cell counts. Even the meat and milk is different in one study, the FDA admits. Are Americans eating unlabeled clones right now? “I can’t say today that I can answer your question in an affirmative or negative way,” replied Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to the question in 2010. (Why should the ag secretary know?) “I don’t know. What I do know is that we know all the research, all of the review of this is suggested that this is safe.”

Illustration courtesy of Prometheus Books

Originally published on Huffington Post

Since the homemade food renaissance has taken root in California, there’s been no shortage of home picklers, jammers, and bakers. But under current state laws, it’s a misdemeanor for those home artisans to sell their goodies in the open marketplace. Case in point: Last June, Department of Public Health officials shut down ForageSF’s popular Underground Market, which featured mostly home producers, because its sellers were not compliant with local and state regulations.

But due to a campaign launched by the Sustainable Economies Law Center (SELC), the laws might change this year. The Oakland-based SELC recently teamed up with Los Angeles Assemblymember Mike Gatto to introduce the California Homemade Food Act (AB 1616), a “cottage food” bill that would legalize the sale of certain foods produced in home kitchens.

“There are a lot of hoops to get a food business started. That’s what prompted the cottage food law campaign,” says SELC research associate and campaign coordinator Christina Oatfield. Founded in 2010 by attorneys Janelle Orsi and Jenny Kassan, the SELC provides legal research and assistance to foster local and sustainable economies and business ventures.

Currently, state law requires that any foods produced for sale be prepared in a certified kitchen or food facility using commercial-grade equipment that is inspected by the health department. For many startups, this means renting a commercial kitchen space, which costs upwards of $25 per hour or $1,500 per month—a large expenditure, particularly for hobby food producers who just want to make a bit of supplemental income. Additionally, shared kitchens are often not a practical option for producers who make specialty items such as gluten-free baked goods.

For entrepreneurs who want to open their own kitchen, the investment and risks are greater. In addition to the costs of buying or renting a brick-and-mortar space and furnishing it with commercial-grade equipment (often several times the cost of home kitchen appliances), there are other fixed expenditures, such as insurance and health department inspections. “It can easily exceed $100,000 with equipment and infrastructure work,” says Oatfield. “That’s a huge barrier to a startup entrepreneur, especially in these tough economic times.”

A Growing Movement

To date, more than 30 states have cottage food laws on the books, many of which have been passed in the last couple of years. Oatfield sees this trend as a response to both the economic downturn of 2008 and the surge of interest in local food over the last few years. “There’s a growing awareness among consumers about food systems issues and enthusiasm for buying local and knowing the person who made your food,” she says.

Cottage food law advocates argue that loosening the regulations for small, home-based businesses fosters growth in the local economy, while giving startups the opportunity to test their products, establish a customer base, and incubate their business before investing in commercial kitchen space. “Very often laws and regulations are written to keep large corporations in check, and they’re not scale-appropriate for small, community-based businesses or other informal activities,” says Oatfield.

For consumers and public health officials, the safety of foods produced in home kitchens has been the greatest concern, so many cottage food laws limit the products that can be sold. Under the California Homemade Food Act, cottage food operations would be allowed to prepare and sell “nonpotentially hazardous” items such as dry-storage baked goods, jams, preserves, nut mixes, dried fruit, roasted coffees, honey, pickles with a pH level of 4.6 or below, and other items with low risk for supporting toxic microorganisms.

The proposed bill also states that home producers must register their business and follow the same sanitation, packaging, and labeling procedures that are expected of commercial kitchens, though it does not require inspections unless complaints are made. While such details may be revised in the legislative process, the SELC is working closely with the state public health department to ensure that health measures are followed while keeping the entrepreneur’s costs as low as possible.

Healthy Competition

In addition to the health concerns, cottage food bills have created a bit of controversy among small-scale food producers. Some argue that home-based producers, who have less overhead, could place extra stress on fledgling business owners who have followed the letter of the law and taken on the costs and risks of starting their own kitchen.

Others welcome the competition, opportunity, and diversity that this proposed legislation could bring to the world of small-scale food production. “I’m delighted by it,” says June Taylor, who started making artisan preserves in her home kitchen before launching her business in 1990. “The more people can vote with their dollars in a smaller-scale system, the more we don’t have to acquiesce to the industrial system, and we can create an alternative way of doing business, feeding ourselves, and challenging that system.”

Santa Cruz-based sauerkraut maker Kathryn Lukas, who launched Farmhouse Culture in 2008, agrees. “I think it’s long overdue. The fewer barriers to entry into farmers markets, the better for the consumer. I would love the diversity it would spawn. You’re going to see a real flourish of creativity and interesting new recipes. It’s a win-win for the consumer who’s brave enough to trust the relationship that he or she develops with the food artisan.”

While enthusiastic about the possibilities, Lukas also emphasizes the need for clear safety regulations. “Not everyone coming into the food business knows the basics about sanitation,” said Lukas. She recommends that food handler certification, such as ServSafe, be a requirement for all home-based food businesses. (The Golden Gate Restaurant Association in collaboration with the Small Business Association offers free training for food safety certification.)

While the current bill language does not place a limit on the volume or income of a cottage food operation, the SELC believes that the logistical constraints of doing business out of a home kitchen will be the self-regulating factor. “The very nature of cottage food operations is that they’re very small-scale and neighborhood-based,” said Oatfield. “With the enthusiasm for local foods and homemade foods, I think consumers really want to be able to access this food.”

If you’re interested in supporting the California Homemade Food Act, contact your state Assemblymember and Senator and ask them to become a co-sponsor. Visit the SELC website to learn more. You can also join the discussion on cartage food law at Kitchen Table Talks on March 27th in San Francisco. More information here, and more to come on Civil Eats. 

Originally published by CUESA

You’ve probably never heard of the Microbiological Data Program (MDP) but if you eat fresh produce, you should, because it’s currently on President Obama’s budgetary chopping block. The MDP is a small ($5 million annually) pathogen monitoring program tucked away in the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It tests fruits and vegetables for deadly bugs like E. coli, salmonella, and listeria.

While the testing program may be inexpensive, it’s critical because no other federal mechanism currently exists to conduct regular testing of fresh produce. (The Food and Drug Administration—which technically has jurisdiction over produce safety—conducts only limited inspections.)

To date, the MDP has tested high-risk produce such as alfalfa sprouts, cilantro, green onions, peppers, tomatoes, spinach, and other leafy greens. Every one of these vegetables has caused a food-borne illness outbreak or recall over the years, some of them lethal thanks in part to an industrialized food system that transports bugs nationwide. You might recall, a shocking 34 people (and counting) died from a listeria outbreak last year in cantaloupe in 26 states (yes, melon–also on USDA’s tested produce list). That tragedy alone should cause the Obama Administration to rethink this thoughtless budget cut.

It’s not like this is some wasteful government program. It’s a relatively cheap way to help save lives, so what’s going on? Here is how food safety attorney Bill Marler explains who just might be behind the idea:

The produce industry hates this program as it has found pathogens in domestic and imported samples and FDA has responded to the information and recalled products. The produce industry—via the fruit and vegetable advisory committee—recommended to USDA and Congress that the program be terminated.

The produce industry hates the program? Now we’re getting somewhere.

According to this AP story, lobbyists with the United Fresh Produce Association and other major trade associations “have repeatedly pushed the government in recent years to get rid of the comprehensive testing program, saying it has cost growers millions in produce recalls.” (Isn’t that the idea—to get tainted food off the market?) Instead, industry suggests more private sector testing.

More private sector testing? Like the third-party “audit” that missed the deadly listeria in the cantaloupe at Jensen’s Farms? According to a Congressional report on the matter released in January, FDA called it “an inherent conflict of interest” for a private auditor to provide safe handling advice in exchange for payment. Moreover, such auditors don’t have to adhere to scientific standards, are not regulated by the FDA, and cannot enforce FDA rules.

This is also the same United Fresh Produce Association that claims to care about food safety but does not want to pay the fees necessary to fully implement the Food Safety Modernization Act, the new law intended to improve inspection and oversight by the Food and Drug Administration.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the United Fresh Produce Association has spent more than a million dollars a year on lobbying in each of the past three years. Of course only some of that money was spent lobbying on food safety but the trade group must expect a good return on its investment.

For its part, USDA claims the program doesn’t belong there but is better suited to FDA, raising once again, the challenges caused by our currently fragmented oversight system and lack of a single, effective food safety agency.

The Food Safety Modernization Act may help fix some of these problems, but we still have to find the funding. Obama’s budget also seeks a 17 percent increase for FDA, but almost all of the new money would come from industry fees, which again, industry is dead set against. Moreover, it’s not at all clear that FDA will pick up the slack from USDA’s testing of fresh produce.

In sum, Obama is proposing to cut a nominal food safety program that’s working fine, while suggesting new funds come from fees that industry will fight. Of course, testing won’t solve all problems either. Not with an industrialized food system that consistently externalizes costs in favor of profits. Maybe if we examined how massive consolidation of produce growers, processors, and distributors contributes to these nasty outbreaks in the first place, and considered better prevention through smaller-scale production models, we wouldn’t have to haggle over this testing program. But meantime, can’t we find somewhere else to cut $5 million that doesn’t make our problems even worse?

Originally published on Center for Food Safety

This growing season there’s a new GMO in town: Monsanto’s GE sweet corn. This Roundup Ready product is the first GE corn for direct human consumption, and it has not been tested by the USDA and will not be labeled. If you’re unhappy about this, you’re not alone. The majority of consumers don’t want to eat genetically modified foods, and 95 percent feel strongly that they should be labeled.  Many retailers, including Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, and General Mills, have already agreed to not use GE Sweet Corn in any of their products—but Walmart, the country’s largest grocer and self-proclaimed sustainability adherent, has yet to make such a promise.

In a campaign reminiscent of the  Starbucks rBGH campaign, (which ultimately culminated not only in a pledge by the java giant not to sell dairy from cows treated with rBGH, but also created a domino effect, causing most large retailers to make the same agreement) , Food and Water Watch has initiated a national campaign to pressure Walmart to do the right thing and to live up to their sustainability claims. Just last week, Walmart launched a brand new website called The Green Room to exhibit their green credentials. Over the past couple of years they’ve run public relations campaigns touting their support of local farming, healthier eating, and providing oases in food deserts.

Walmart sells $129 billion worth of food (taking a whopping 25 percent of grocery sales throughout the US, and much more in some areas) each year, making it the most powerful food retailer in the world. If Walmart agreed to not stock GE sweet corn, it is highly likely that other retailers would follow their lead. It would also relieve farmers of the economic pressure to plant the biotech seeds.

If you’re in the know about GMOs, you know there’s a lot we don’t know—and a lot to be wary of.  We don’t know the long term effects of GMOs on humans and  a new study suggests there is reason to worry. The potential environmental risks are many, including the rise of superweeds and resistant pests, the threat to biodiversity and the inevitability of crop contamination.  There are also the ethical and economic concerns associated with patenting of living organisms and the ownership of our food supply by corporations like Monsanto.

Since last fall, Food and Water Watch and their partners at the Center for Environmental Health, Center for Food Safety, CREDO Action, and Food Democracy Now! have been asking consumers to sign a petition saying that they would refuse to buy GE sweet corn and are asking retailers and food processors not to sell it. As of now, that petition has over a quarter million signatures.  Walmart is powerful, but consumers hold the ultimate power: all great social change starts from the bottom. Join the movement today.

Photo: Jamie Leo

Originally published on Ecocentric

The recalled meat came from a single processing facility in Springdale, Arkansas, but ended up in dozens of different ground turkey products sold nationwide under a variety of brand names including Honeysuckle White, Shady Brook Farms, Riverside, Aldi’s Fit and Active Fresh, Spartan, Giant Eagle, Kroger and Safeway. Cargill is recalling products produced between February 20 through Aug 2, 2011 and halting production of ground turkey products at the facility until the source of contamination is identified and corrected. Products subject to recall bear the establishment number “P-963″ inside the USDA mark of inspection.

As consumers take to their fridges and freezers to figure out if their ground turkey has been recalled, local, state and federal public health officials are working to identify and link illnesses to the outbreak. At least 77 illnesses in 26 states, beginning as early as March, have been reported to be the same strain of resistant Salmonella.

Those numbers are likely to grow as more consumers learn of the recall. Normally, a low percentage of foodborne illnesses are ever lab-confirmed and thus reported to public health authorities, let alone definitively linked to outbreaks.

“It is regrettable that people may have become ill from eating one of our ground turkey products and, for anyone who did, we are truly sorry,” said Stevel Willardson, president of Cargill’s turkey processing division, in a statement.

Cargill’s recall follows a July 29 USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service public health alert, issued last Friday, urging consumers to use caution when handling ground turkey and to cook all poultry products to an internal temperature of 165 degrees.

Serious questions remain about why it took food safety officials several months to issue a public health alert or announce a product recall after Salmonella Heidelberg illnesses began to spike in March.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also announced that the agency found four retail ground turkey samples to be positive for the same strain of Salmonella Heidelberg between early March and late June. The samples were taken as part of routine sampling for the National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System (NARMS), and had “not been linked to illnesses” so they did not spark a recall. Salmonella is not considered an adulterant in meat products, but consumer groups have petitioned USDA to consider antibiotic-resistant strains adulterated.

As late as Tuesday, FSIS officials said there was not enough evidence to substantiate a recall. Wednesday the agency said that epidemiologic and traceback investigations, as well as in-plant findings, led the agency to determine there is a link between the Cargill ground turkey products and the outbreak.

“FSIS is continuing to work with CDC, affected state public health partners, and the company on the investigation. FSIS will continue to provide information as it becomes available, including information about any further related recall activity,” the agency said in a press update Wednesday.

Salmonella infections can be life-threatening, especially to those with compromised immune systems, including the young and the elderly. The most common manifestations of salmonellosis are diarrhea, abdominal cramps, and fever within six to 72 hours. Additional symptoms may be chills, headache, nausea and vomiting that can last up to seven days. Individuals concerned about an illness should contact a health care provider.

A complete list of recalled products, with pictures of labels, can be found here.

Originally posted on Food Safety News.

When San Francisco’s Underground Market got started, the city’s health department recognized it as a private event where people exchanged (albeit, with money) homemade foods. Interested participants simply had to sign up on the Web site of the event’s host organization, Forage SF, and they became “members.”

Soon the market became one of San Francisco’s most popular phenomena–a place where hip, mostly young food entrepreneurs could get their brands out there and foodies could gather, socialize, and discover bafflingly delicious items such as “bacon brack.” The whole point, said founder Iso Rabins, was to create opportunities for food entrepreneurs who could otherwise not afford to operate out of certified commercial kitchens.

When the event swelled to accommodate the hundreds and soon thousands of people who would line up to attend, the market became an undeniably public. Then, earlier this summer, the San Francisco Health Department put a halt to the whole delicious operation. At present, the market is in limbo and Rabbins, the Health Department, and many others are chewing on the question: What makes an event or club private?

The realm of shareable food is flourishing; there’s community meal sharing, potlucks, gift-economy restaurants, community food growing projects, food swap events, pop-up stores, stone soup gatherings, food-buying cooperatives, goat-sharing, chicken cooperatives, and events like The Big Lunch. A handful of start-up companies are also creating peer-to-peer platforms to help people feed each other. Check out Grubly, Munchery, Gobble, and EatWithMe, all of which connect chefs with foodies and/or catalyze community food events.

Now picture all of this food sharing activity on a spectrum. At the private and personal end, we eat a homemade meal with our family. At the public and commercial end, we get chicken nuggets from the drive-thru window at a chain restaurant. Somewhere in between a line has been drawn to determine when to impose protections and regulations. At the Sustainable Economies Law Center, we are on a constant search for that elusive line.

What is a Private Club?

“Private club” could very well be the magic password to the sharing economy, for legal purposes, anyway. The term might conjure up exclusivity, but, to the extent that private clubs are exempt from burdensome legal regulations normally applied to public activities, this designation also benefits groups of people that come together to share.

The public/private distinction is relevant for the purpose of applying many laws, not just food regulations. With a shortage of case law in the food realm, we can derive guidance from a handful of cases that examine the issue in the context of Civil Rights laws, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), smoking laws, and employment laws. For anyone wanting to delve deeper, see the original version of this article.

The cases vary, but generally, courts have weighed a handful of factors to decide whether a club is really and truly private. Factors that courts tend to weigh include:

• Whether the club applies meaningful selection criteria to the admission of new members;
• The size of the membership;
• The degree of member control of club operations;
• Whether substantial membership fees are charged;
• Whether the entity is operated on a nonprofit basis;
• Whether members know each other and whether there is personal interaction among members;
• Whether the primary purpose served by the club is social or business;
• The extent to which the facilities are open to the public;
• The extent to which the club advertises to the public and/or publicly solicits new members;
• The degree to which club facilities are available for use by non-members;
• The degree of public funding; and
• Whether the club was created specifically to avoid compliance with the Civil Rights Act or other laws.

Although no single factor is controlling when determining whether a club is private, most courts have considered the selectivity of the membership to be of great importance. Preferably, private clubs will have meaningful criteria on which people are chosen to be accepted as members, rather than allowing anyone to join at any time.

Your Private “Cafe”

Let’s say you and 10 of your close friends agree that you make the world’s best quiche. You jointly hatch a plan for Quiche Café, which is essentially a weekly dinner party at your house. You buy the ingredients and make the quiche. Your 10 friends, the core members of the Café, bring the drinks and entertainment. Most importantly, everyone helps out with the dishes. Each core member of Quiche Café is encouraged to bring a friend or two, so each dinner is attended by an average of 25 people. Everyone chips in around $8, even though you’ve calculated the per-person cost of ingredients to be around $4. Everyone feels that any surplus could be seen as a modest stipend or your thank-you gift for being the hostess with the most-est.

So is Quiche Cafe private enough to avoid health and safety regulation? Based on guidelines we’ve gleaned from the court decisions, we think so.* Participation is restricted to the original 10 friends and their guests. Quiche Café is neither advertised nor open to the public. The members jointly manage the club for their own benefit. Although the chef is making a small stipend, the core purpose of the activity is to provide social and edible sustenance to friends.

(Note that zoning is a separate issue. A neighbor could still complain to the local Planning Department that you are operating a social club or business out of your home in violation of the residential zoning of your neighborhood. Arguing that you are a private dining club might not help here, but you could argue that this is a dinner party, which is generally accepted as a residential use of a home.)

Your Private “Market”

Let’s imagine you want to share your quiche with more people. You hear about a weekly gathering where people exchange homemade foods. Sometimes people gift their foods to each other, sometimes they barter, and sometimes they sell. You have to be recommended for membership by someone who is already a member. You also need to fill out a membership application and explain how most of your ingredients come from socially responsible sources. Once you are admitted as a member, you are given passes to bring up to five guests.

No one can get in the door without a pass, and you are not allowed to sell your five guest passes or give them to people you don’t know. Members are required to pay monthly dues of $50, to attend four meetings per year, to elect a board of directors, and to sometimes take part in special committees. The board of directors may hire a manager for the event, but major decisions about the gathering are made by the member-elected board. The gathering is limited to 100 food artisan members and overall attendance is limited to 600.

Again, we feel that this activity should be treated as private and not subject to health permit requirements.* The activity is collaboratively managed by members, membership is restricted, the event is not publicly advertised, and non-member attendees may come, on a limited basis, as guests of members. Although income from the event may contribute to the livelihoods of the food artisans and the event manager, the entity itself is not operating for a profit, but rather to provide a forum for the appreciation of interesting and hand-crafted foods.

Your Private Goat Club

Sharing goats and cows is a common way that people have overcome barriers to raw milk access. Raw milk is subject to strict food and agricultural regulations, and has become a hot topic with the recent and dramatic shutdown of some raw milk operations and vendors. Most recently, we learned that a goat-sharing arrangement managed by Evergreen Acres Goat Farm was cited by the District Attorney in Santa Clara County, California. It seems that the legal particularities of goat sharing still need to be explored and clarified. Nevertheless, a small and private group of goat sharers, in our opinion, should be exempt from the legal hurdles.

Here’s an example. You and 10 community members come together to buy and share ownership of four goats, which are kept in your yard. Each week, members stop by to pick up bottles of milk. Your group has decided to allow in only four more members, but only if those members demonstrate that health needs prevent them from consuming pasteurized milk. Everyone takes turns helping out with the goats, and the group meets monthly to touch base and meet about goat-related things. Everyone chips in $30 per month for goat food and veterinary costs. Since you are the designated goat keeper, you don’t have to pay the $30.

Once again, we believe that this club is private and should not be subject to food safety regulations.* Like the private “market,” this goat club is collaboratively managed by the club members, membership is restricted to 15 people, and it is not advertised to the public.

But Feeding Total Strangers is Fun and Important!

This is true. Enabling people to feed each other should be a high priority, and it won’t always be practical or desirable to relegate our food sharing activities to the private realm. We’re hungry for a world where tons of small food entrepreneurs can make it in competition with the giant food conglomerates. The shareable food movement localizes economies, feeds communities in challenging economic times, and supports our environment by encouraging localized food production and lower carbon “foodprints.”

Furthering the Shareable Food Movement

There’s much to say on this topic, but here are a few thoughts. First, we can create new platforms for food production and food sharing: Shared commercial kitchens, like La Cocina in San Francisco, are part of the answer, because they reduce the barrier to entry for small entrepreneurs; more community marketplaces create a space for entrepreneurs to get their products out there; and marketing cooperatives can help entrepreneurs aggregate and sell their products. These are all sharing solutions that give entrepreneurs access to spaces and markets that are normally expensive and inaccessible.

Furthermore, we can all work to pass new laws that lower the overall set of legal barriers to small food enterprise. An easy place to start is with cottage food laws which have already been passed in half of the U.S. states. Cottage food laws enable the sale of home-made foods that are “non-potentially hazardous,” such as breads, cakes, jams, and granola. Allowing the sale of back-yard produce is another step, and a handful of cities have recently done this or are currently considering it. (See San Francisco, Berkeley, and Oakland.) Food sovereignty laws take this even further and endeavor to de-regulate many facets of food production.

* Disclaimer: Please don’t rely on anything in this article as legal advice. In spite of what some courts may hold or what we at SELC may opine, every jurisdiction has a mind of its own.

A version of this article first appeared on Shareable Magazine. The Sustainable Economies Law Center’s Legal Intern Kelly Densmore also contributed to this article.

Photos of the LA Food Swap by TypeFiend.

Last year Iowa’s modern agricultural practices were made famous by legendary food safety violator Jack DeCoster, who is still in business after a 500-million egg recall due to salmonella that sickened more than 1,500 people in 23 states. This year Iowa’s state legislators are about to pass a bill that would make it illegal for anyone to take a photo of his “farms” or any other farm or field in Iowa. Even though some of the worst animal welfare abuses in U.S. history have taken place under the roofs of Jack DeCoster’s hundreds of industrial animal confinements, Iowa lawmakers are willing to offer immunity to offenders like him and penalize those who blow the whistle on those who would abuse animal livestock, i.e., our food.

Incredibly, House File 589, which I call “The Jack DeCoster Animal Abuser Protection Act of 2011,” passed the Iowa House on March 17 by a vote of 66 to 27, despite the fact that 65 percent of Iowans oppose the bill. Unfortunately for consumers across the country, versions of this bill have been popping up in states like Minnesota and Florida, where both bill recently failed to pass.

While most Americans have been caught off guard by agribusiness’s boldness, those of us in Iowa know this is how the game is played. No matter how big the violation or how bad the sin, agribusiness always finds a way to influence elected officials into papering over the most egregious abuses under the guise of economic development, stating the Big Lie that it’s “good for business.”

However, this time they’re wrong. And in a way that could give Iowa farmers and elected officials a black eye that no amount of political makeup can hide for the first in the nation caucus state.

The bill is so fringe and outrageous that famed Republican strategist and former President Bush adviser Mary Matalin recently wrote to Iowa House Republican leadership, stating,  “If House File 589 succeeds, it may well single Iowa out as the state with something to hide.”

While some farmers might not like the idea of photos of their farms or undercover videos being taken, this heavy handed attempt to shelter the worst abusers only exposes the truth of industrial livestock production. Regretfully, for the vast majority of Iowa’s farmers, who have nothing to hide, the passage of this bill could make agricultural products coming out of Iowa seem unsafe, unsanitary and inhumane.

If allowed to pass by Iowa Senate Democrats, HF 589 will make it much easier for groups to mislead America’s consumers about livestock production by convincing them that the terrible abuses that happened on a farm in Texas, where dairy calves had their heads smashed with hammers and pickaxes, are not the exception but the rule. In fact, if these Ag Gag bills pass, those battered calves will become the new face of animal agriculture.

Imaginary Problem, Thuggish Solution

HF 589 is so Orwellian that it invents a solution to a problem that doesn’t really exist. Sure, there are a number of videos on the Internet that show horrendous abuse at meat slaughtering plants and livestock facilities. But in reality the videos are rather rare events and most people are so shocked by the abuse that they see they tend to go numb and move onto the next Internet distraction.

However, passing poorly conceived bills that limit Americans’ freedoms and place an iron curtain between farmers and consumers is certain to backfire, only drawing more attention to agricultural practices that occur in rural America on otherwise sleepy, poorly traveled roads.

While initially sponsored by a Republican in the Iowa House, Senate Democrat Tom Reilly has taken the charge in trying to get the bill passed by writing amendments in the desperate hope to take some of the totalitarian stink off of this Ag Gag bill.

For some reason, Reilly seems to think that people taking photos of farms or undercover videos will destroy Iowa’s economy and turn people into instant vegans. In a recent interview with the Sioux City Journal, Reilly said, “They want to hurt an important part of our economy… These people don’t want us to have eggs; they don’t want people to eat meat.”

Is this how bad the thinking of our political leaders has gotten? Rather than writing laws that further protect animals from these horrific abuses, state elected officials are now wasting taxpayer money figuring out how they can get between a vegan and a corporations’ bottom line.

And because a number of undercover videos have been taken by the animal rights group Mercy for Animals, which ends its videos with the line: “Boycott animal abuse. Choose Vegan,” Reilly and other gullible lawmakers across the country are falling for the new agribusiness lie that these people are going to “end animal agriculture.”

In truth the only thing that will end family farmer involvement in animal agriculture is our government’s absolute failure to protect family farmers from the economic abuses of the vertically integrated, massively consolidated meat industry that keeps tightening the financial screws on farmers, making it harder, if not impossible for them to stay in business.

Ironically, while legislators in Minnesota, Florida and Iowa have wasted many an hour bickering over the phantom menace of videotaping vegans, the Obama administration has failed to act on important Department of Justice investigations into monopoly abuses in agriculture and to implement vital and fair livestock marketing protections for independent producers known as GIPSA.

These are the greater injustices that legislators could easily accomplish to truly protect America’s farmers. In reality, when the dust finally settles over the fight for rural America and our food supply, these will be the critical failures that future historians will point to for decimating America’s farmers, not vegans with video cameras.

If the few farmers that remain in livestock production in Iowa think it’s a bad thing for an undercover activist to videotape their farm, wait until PETA and the Humane Society and other “radical” groups start a boycott of Iowa agricultural products because the state knowingly promotes the cover up of animal welfare abuses.

As Voltaire, one of the Enlightenment figures who influenced America’s founding fathers, coolly observed more than two centuries ago: “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”

And regretfully, this is where Iowa’s elected officials stand today: Ready to commit a grave offense against our constitution and democratic rights based on the advice of greedy fools who would aid and abet factory farms where some are bashing the brains out of animals with pickaxes, rather than protecting those animals from harm and abuse. In doing so, they not only endanger the animals, but also Iowa’s famers, their economic livelihoods and the reputation and safety of all food production in the state of Iowa.

A version of this article originally appeared on Huffington Post

The bill, with the Tester-Hagan small farm exemption intact, now goes back to the House. But the action will likely put the food safety law on President Obama’s desk before Christmas.

“Yes, consumers, there is a Santa Claus!,” the Consumer Federation of America effused.

Sunday’s Senate move came as a surprise, especially because no Republican objected to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s request for his colleagues to pass the food safety bill by unanimous consent.

No one objected, not even Republican Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn.

“Tonight we unanimously passed a measure to improve on our current food safety system by giving the FDA the resources it needs to keep up with advances in food production and marketing, without unduly burdening farmers and food producers,” Reid said in a statement.

The majority leader said this marks the first time in almost a century that the food safety system has been updated in such a broad manner. He called it a “common-sense issue with broad bipartisan support.”

Reid’s success Sunday night was not even predicted by his own staff earlier in the day.

The food safety bill has had a tortured life. The House passed its version (H.R 2749) in July of 2009 by a vote of 283 to 142. The Senate did not move on its version (S. 510) until last month after a compromise (the Tester-Hagan Amendment) was reached between Small Ag, Big Ag and consumer groups. The final vote was 73 to 25.

However, Section 107 of S. 510 contained a fee provision that the House Parliamentarian considered a tax in violation of the “Origination Clause” of the Constitution, which states that the House must initiate revenue measures.

The House then appended S. 510 to the “Omnibus Spending Bill,” in essence the 2011 Budget. That bill was narrowly approved by a 212 to 206 vote, but when the Senate refused to take up the spending bill, the food safety legislation was left in limbo–until Sunday evening.

The bill’s goal is to increase the Food and Drug Administration’s powers to keep food safe by increasing inspections of food facilities, placing stricter standards on imported foods and giving the agency broader authority to order a recall.

As word of the bill’s new life got out, advocates expressed their relief. Many were part of a coalition that had sent a letter Sunday to Reid and Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, asking them to act quickly to save the bill before the end of the session.

Caroline Smith DeWaal, food safety director for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, said, “The Senate made good on its promise to pass food safety legislation tonight when it passed a corrected version of the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act. It is a huge victory for consumers following a weekend cliffhanger as both consumer and industry supporters prepared for bad news. Senator Harkin, Senator Reid and Senator McConnell are to be congratulated on their skill in making sure American families will enjoy greater protection and safer food in 2011 and beyond.”

Jean Halloran, director of Food Policy Initiatives at Consumers Union, said, “This is a wonderful day for consumers. This day will be especially important to families whose children have suffered lasting damage to their health, and families who have even lost a child, because of contaminated food. Many of them have worked hard for this bill to prevent others from having to go through a similar ordeal. This bill gives FDA essential tools like mandatory recall authority to insure that the food we eat is safe.”

Originally published on Food Safety News.

Though Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said earlier this week he would, if necessary, keep the Senate in town over the weekend to finish the bill, sources on the Hill said it was more likely the legislation would not move forward until after Thanksgiving recess, which begins Monday.

The bill’s most outspoken opponent, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), has created an unrelated political sticking point by trying to force a vote on an amendment to ban all earmark spending through 2013.

A staffer close to the agreement told CIDRAP yesterday, “We’re at an impasse over Coburn’s earmark provision–we’re unable to reach a time agreement on the bill as a result of Coburn’s earmark threat and without a time agreement this whole process has reached a standstill. It’s unclear if or when this will be dealt with, and if or when the bill will proceed toward passage.”

The FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, a prevention-focused bill that would boost the FDA’s inspection mandate, give it mandatory recall authority, and require food facilities to put food safety plans in place, is the first overhaul of the federal food safety regulatory system in over seven decades. It has maintained wide bipartisan support in the Senate and the House, where a version of the bill approved in July 2009. The measure passed a key procedural hurdle on Wednesday, but also drew the ire of big agriculture groups unhappy over a recent deal to include small farm exemptions.

In a statement yesterday, the United Fresh Produce Association said it was working with its produce-industry allies to build opposition to Montana Senator Jon Tester’s amendment, which it described as “exempting small farms and business operations from basic federal food safety requirements.”

“[W]e have also consistently stated that food safety policy must be based on risk and science, not speculation and ideology,” said Robert Guenther, United Fresh Vice President of Public Policy. “Unfortunately, Senator Tester’s amendment would reject a risk-based approach to food safety, setting up a federal food safety system that adheres to arbitrary exemptions rather than to sound scientific principles.”

The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, one of the key groups negotiating for the inclusion of the amendment by Tester (D-MT) and Sen. Kay Hagan (D-NC) to reduce the regulatory burden on small farmers and producers, was very pleased that a compromise was included in the manager’s package late Wednesday.

“While not perfect, the final version of the amendment is something our farmer members can support,” said Ferd Hoefner, NSAC Policy Director. “We congratulate the bill and amendment sponsors on forging a deal,” said Hoefner. “With the inclusion of this amendment and the earlier inclusion of several other critical family farm amendments, we can now urge the Senate to pass the manager’s amendment and the bill and to do it yet this week.”

“We are encouraging Senators to ignore Big Ag’s bluster and to get on with the important business at hand – passing the amendment and the bill to improve food safety,” said Hoefner.

The so-called “bluster” is now coming from some of the biggest names in produce.

Twenty groups, including the Produce Marketing Association and several regional industry groups, sent a letter to Senate leadership and Sens. Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Mike Enzie (R-WY), chairman and ranking member of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which has been working tirelessly on the bill.

“As organizations representing the vast majority of fresh produce grown and consumed in this country–from small, medium and large-sized farms–the Tester amendment utterly fails to protect consumers by including blanket exemptions from the rest of the bill’s strong safety net, without regard to risk,” reads the letter.

“Comments from Senator Tester and supporters are now making it abundantly clear that their cause is not to argue that small farms pose less risk, but to wage an ideological war against the vast majority of American farmers that seeks to feed 300 million Americans. We are appalled at statements by Senator Tester reported today in the Capital Press that ‘Small producers are not raising a commodity, but are raising food. Industrial agriculture, he said, takes the people out of the equation.’ ”

If the Senate can pass bipartisan food safety legislation, the House will agree to the most recent version of the bill, Sen. Harkin said on the floor yesterday. “If we pass it with bipartisan support, the House will take and pass it and send it right to the president,” he said.

The Senate may resume debate on the bill today, but the timing going forward remains uncertain.

UPDATE: Here is an overview of the procedural hurdles that lie ahead.

Originally published by Food Safety News