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2016 | Book

Introduction Read chapter Read first chapter

Biting the Hands that Feed Us

How Fewer, Smarter Laws Would Make Our Food System More Sustainable

Author: Baylen J. Linnekin

Publisher: Island Press/Center for Resource Economics

Part of: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

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About this book

This volume introduces readers to the perverse consequences of many food rules. Some of these rules constrain the sale of “ugly” fruits and vegetables, relegating bushels of tasty but misshapen carrots and strawberries to food waste. Other rules have threatened to treat manure—the lifeblood of organic fertilization—as a toxin. Still other rules prevent sharing food with the homeless and others in need. There are even rules that prohibit people from growing fruits and vegetables in their own yards.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter
Introduction
Abstract
Chef Mark DeNittis was a rising star in the Denver food community early in 2012. His artisanal salumeria, Il Mondo Vecchio, was still relatively new to the scene, but was already one of the hottest and most respected food businesses in the state.
Baylen J. Linnekin
Chapter 1. Unsafe at Any Feed
Abstract
In 2013, California’s state assembly adopted a new law requiring chefs, bartenders, and virtually anyone in the state who prepares ready-to-eat food for customers to wear disposable latex gloves when handling that food. The law was intended to improve food safety in restaurants, which—thanks largely to poor hand washing by some food preparers—is the source of many foodborne illnesses. At first, the bill was uncontroversial. In fact, it won unanimous approval in the legislature. More than forty other states have similar laws on the books.
Baylen J. Linnekin
Chapter 2. “Big Food” Bigger Thanks to “Big Government”
Abstract
When it comes to consumers’ food-buying decisions today, perhaps no single symbol is more powerful and influential than a seal confirming a food meets the USDA’s definition of “organic.” To consumers, the symbol means an assurance that an agricultural product such as beef or celery has been produced using only naturally occurring fertilizers, pesticides, and other inputs.1 To producers, the USDA organic seal means higher costs, but also the opportunity to charge consumers more for that beef or celery.
Baylen J. Linnekin
Chapter 3. Wasting Your Money Wasting Food
Abstract
In July 2015, a series of new composting and recycling services debuted in Oakland, California. City officials touted the new program, part of their “Oakland Recycles” initiative, as “a huge step” forward in Oakland’s goal to produce zero waste.1 Although the new services were intended to make Oakland more sustainable, the details of the program show its early impact has been just the opposite. The leading criticism of the rules is that they effectively force restaurants to throw away tons of food that might otherwise be recycled as compost. Somehow, a newservice intended to reduce waste has instead promoted the wasting of food.
Baylen J. Linnekin
Chapter 4. I Say “Tomato,” You Say “No”
Abstract
In the introduction to this book, you learned about Ohio farmer Roscoe Filburn, who in 1941 challenged a USDA rule that barred him from keeping a quantity of wheat for his own family’s use. The lore around the case has Filburn claiming he and his family were using the surplus wheat to make bread. That may not tell the whole story. “To consume the 239 excess bushels at issue in the July 1941 wheat harvest,” wrote law professor Jim Chen, in a definitive Emory Law Journal article on the case’s legacy, “the Filburns would have had to consume nearly forty-four one-pound loaves of bread each day for the following year.” As I noted in this book’s introduction, Filburn and his family sold the amount of wheat the USDA said they could and kept the rest to make bread—yes—and also to feed to the family’s livestock and to save some for seed. Farmers have been doing exactly this since the dawn of farming—selling (or trading) some of the food they produce, using another portion of the food to feed themselves and their family, saving some for next year’s planting, and using the rest to feed their pigs, chickens, goats, and cattle. Still, the Supreme Court ruled against Filburn, saying the USDA had the power to order him not to keep any of the wheat he grew to make bread, to feed livestock, or for any other reason.
Baylen J. Linnekin
Chapter 5. There Are Good Food Rules
Abstract
Are there good food rules, as the title of this chapter suggests? Indeed, such rules do exist. For example, early on in this book I endorsed food-safety rules that punish those whose food sickens or kills people. I also endorsed some inspections and testing—to make sure food doesn’t do that in the first place. In addition to inspection and testing by agencies such as the FDA and USDA—of the sort, for example, that salumi crafted by Mark DeNittis and Il Mondo Vecchio were subjected to (and passed)—smart rules require employee hand washing. They mandate that food sellers keep potentially hazardous foods—such as raw meat—at temperatures below 40 °F. They require warning labels on foods that are more likely to sicken consumers—from raw meat to sprouts to raw milk. Concerns over sustainability play little or no role in such rules. And they shouldn’t. Food-safety rules shouldn’t care one bit whether or not the guilty party was a sustainable food producer. Leading food-safety lawyer Bill Marler, whom you met in chapter 1, is an equal-opportunity litigator, suing violators of all types and sizes. “To me it is very straightforward,” he told me, of every food company’s responsibility, regardless of size, to “do everything you can do to produce food that will not kill your customer.” I—and readers of this book, I suspect—agree with that statement.
Baylen J. Linnekin
Conclusion. More Sustainability, Fewer Food Rules
Abstract
In February 2015, the federal government’s Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC), a rotating group of appointed academics that meets every five years to recommend food policies that will promote health, prevent chronic disease, and help people reach and maintain a healthy weight, issued its latest report. Since its inception in 1980, the DGAC has “serve[d] as the cornerstone of all Federal nutrition education and program activities” in the five years after the committee meets. DGAC recommendations are used to set the food policies of many federal agencies, including the FDA and USDA. Those policies include everything from food labeling to the USDA’s National School Lunch Program.
Baylen J. Linnekin
Backmatter
Metadata
Title
Biting the Hands that Feed Us
Author
Baylen J. Linnekin
Copyright Year
2016
Publisher
Island Press/Center for Resource Economics
Electronic ISBN
978-1-61091-676-9
Print ISBN
978-1-61091-825-1
DOI
https://doi.org/10.5822/978-1-61091-676-9