Safer eggs with a mere price tag of 81 million dollars

The LA Times reported today that the Obama administration is at it again in regulating the food industry. This time they have targeted the egg and meat industry. Supposedly this whole thing is going to protect our food source and save us all from a painful death. Please pardon the severe case of sarcasm I am now expressing. This whole thing just makes me extremely cynical of our new administrations and its knowledge of the food industry.

Chickens carry disease. Yes all of the new plans to make chicken farmers buy only salmonella checked hens and to set up checks for bio terrorism and rodents may in some ways decrease salmonella, but in the end chickens are dirty animals and will still carry disease. You can have chickens in your back yard, fed food better than the food you eat, living in the cleanest cage you can maintain and the hens will poo on the eggs and the odds are they will leave some diseases on those eggs. This whole plan is going to cost the egg industry 81 million dollars a year. So in a time when the people of America can't afford to buy groceries, Obama is going to put into action a plan that will cost them millions of dollars. You may think that you are not going to be affected by this neurotic power trip, but if the egg industry is losing 81 million they are going to raise prices of eggs till they aren't losing 81 million and they are making money again.

The real problem in all of this is that this plan and the plan that is going to come for meat products is not really helping the food industry at all. All of the small private farmers that already keep track of how clean their chicken pens and barns are, are not going to be able to afford all of these new checks and regulations. The giant conglomerate Walmart farms will be able to afford and follow the regulations to a bare minimum. The food from the private farms will still be safer than the giant farms even with the regulations, but because of the regulations we soon will not have a choice of where we get our food. Small farms just can't afford all of this government intervention in our food supply.

Many of you may be shaking your head in disgust about my feelings. You may think that Obama is just helping make our world a little safer. I'm sure you'll bring up all of the recent food scares and tell me all about how our food just isn't safe anymore. I must ask you, have you ever considered that the reason we are hearing more about food scares in the new millennium is because we know a lot more about science and food than we did even ten years ago. If a bunch of people got sick from food 50 years ago, we wouldn't have the tools to know how many people were sick, what areas were affected, and where the food came from. Even if someone knew the information it would be hard to get the message to everyone as CNN didn't exist, so if the crisis was on the the west coast and you lived on the east coast it might take a while before you even heard about it. Food scares like the ones we've been witnessing lately have happened before. We just haven't had the ability to necessarily see them as what they are.

Another reason why these kind of scares are popping up more recently is because we don't know where our food is coming from. Those cheaper eggs at Walmart may be from a farm in Iowa. Buying eggs from the local farmer may be more expensive, but at least you would be able to walk into their chicken coop and see what kind of condition those hens live in. Unfortunately like I said already this option may soon come to an end thanks to our current administration.

Obama has not been a friend to the food industry. He seems to think that it is a good industry to hit with taxes, regulations, and extra checks. The FDA is not God, and giving the FDA more power will not promise the American people that our food will be safe. If you want safe eggs, COOK THEM!!! I know that seems extra complicated, but it really isn't. If you want safe meat, cook it to the proper temperature. This isn't rocket science people. I can not tell you all of the degrees President Obama has, but I believe it is time someone sent him to cooking school so he could learn the real way to make our food safe.

I apologize for getting so heated about this subject. I can name you so many people that I know who own farms. They work day after day; they do not know of weekends or holidays. These people make sure that we can go to the grocery store and find food there. In my eyes, farmers are as important and integral to our society as our servicemen and women. Unfortunately they are being punished because of politics. I can not even express how sad this makes me. I hope you stay informed as to where your food comes from and that you consider local farms and produce. Fight for local farms or the next generation may not know anything other than giant farms far away that pick produce early and ripen their produce through chemicals, so that it seems fresh when it is at the store.

Happy or maybe thoughtful Eating!!!

Emily