As my regular reader, if that person is still there, I was without any real computer connectivity for over five months. Further as I was subscribed to various podcasts via itunes, when I did finally get back online I had stacks of stuff to down load. Including eight thousand emails! But that’s another story.
It was via one of these podcasts that I heard that in the US there was a bill going through the senate that could have effectively killed off small holders (small farmers, homesteaders) selling their produce. With having no access to the net, I was unable to research if this was true or what the facts were. Fortunately, while the bill is now law in the US, it seems that this time the government did listen to the people. As only business with a turn over of half a million Dollars will be effected.
Here in the UK regulations and the way they are implemented, make it increasingly difficult for small farmers and growers to sell excess produce, or make food products.
When I was a child, I lived on a street where there was a regular street market. Current regulations would have prevented many of the then stall holders from trading. It was not that there was anything wrong with the way they sold the food, it was just that the customers knew that the fish from the fishmonger had to be washed, as you would have to do with the fruit. Now often unless the foods are encased in plastic of some form, the sellers at markets, particularly Farmers Markets, just can not sell. Therefore, it adds extra costs upon the framers and growers.
While there has to be regulations regarding food hygiene, there also has to be common sense applied too. At least in the US that appears to have happened. Here I am not so sure, as the local pub wanted to cook and prepare meals for the senior residents in the village but the local environmental health people said that they could not. Even though they were going to be packaging the meals in a way that’s better than most take aways do. There is no sense or logic to this.
Well as I have said before, in my experience Sense is just not common.
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I just heard a rumor that our new idiotic governor of the state of Maine, US, wants to revoke the need for home processing licenses which require a premise inspection. Business-minded folk might see that as a good thing, but having been a professional food handler for years the thought of eating baked goods or sandwiches from an uninspected kitchen makes me feel a bit ill. You can't wash a ham bun.
I had a brief problem with censorship online, but I am happy to be back. I wasn't too sure why *they* (the ones who crashed my blog) were worried about my one reader. :D
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