Page 20 - Winter2010

exist back then, which have enabled us to solve This mindset really became apparent to me
the kinds of problems that accompanied indus- when a friend of mine started a little neighbor-
trialization, starting in 1915 to about 1950. Un- hood abattoir. Now remember, the law says if you
fortunately, a lot of the perceptions about food jump this hurdle, if you check all the boxes, and
safety are still based on that two- to three-decade get the stamp of approval from USDA, then they
anomaly—crowding of people in the cities and will provide you an inspector for your abattoir. So
crowding of animals on the farm—before indus- he got all the stamps and cleared all the hurdles
try gave us the rest and completed the picture. and then opened his door to start processing.
When epidemiologists today tell us that raw They shut him down two weeks later because
milk is a bad thing, the first thing they’ll do is they said he was not fast enough. Now that’s not
bring up 1940s data, all derived from that specific how the law reads. The law doesn’t say anything
anomalous time period. about speed.
When our opponents say that we want to go So it’s hard for us to believe that in the mind-
back to the Neanderthal Age, they are assuming set of the inspection service, they actually think
that we want to engage in biological farming they’ve arrived when they’re seeing a lot more
without electricity, stainless steel and hot water. things going by them, which means there is this
But this is not correct. What we want to do is massive prejudice in the entire system against
to go back to the wise traditions of a heritage- anything small. A massive prejudice against us.
based system along with all of the appropriate They don’t like to stand there in a small plant,
metabolic capacity to solve all the problems that because they think they’re wasting their time.
occurred during the infantile stage, during the “Why should I waste my time?” I mean that’s
diaper phase of the industrial revolution. a nice noble thing, isn’t it, to not want to waste
time and the taxpayers’ money. And so they
NUMBER THREE: FOOD SAFETY can feel very good about themselves because
INSPECTION SHOULD MEASURE they’re against small plants, and they value their
When our PERFORMANCE time and their co-workers’ time. That makes the
opponents The assumption is that the food safety in- inspector a very noble person.
say that we spection service should measure performance in The problem with this prejudice against
pounds of product per person hours of inspection. smallness is that it discriminates against embry-
want to go This concept might be new to you. The last time onic innovation. All innovation, the things that

back I testified at a congressional hearing was when we are bringing to our culture, all have to start
to the Congressman Dennis Kucinich convened a meat as a prototype. If they have to start big and fast,
safety hearing following that California opera-
the embryo is too big to be birthed, and that’s the
Neanderthal tion where the downer cows were being picked problem with non-scalable regulations.
Age, they are up with a fork lift and taken into the abattoir. The
assuming that first guy to testify in the hearing was the head of NUMBER FOUR: FOOD SAFETY IS ALL
ABOUT THE LETHAL DOSE
US Food, Safety, and Inspection Service. It actu-
we want to ally shocked me to listen to him pat himself on Lethal dose is the standard of toxicology,
engage in the back and describe how much more efficient the standard in the industry. I’m reminded of Bill
biological the department had become since there were Wolf, who started importing Icelandic kelp into
no longer many neighborhood abattoirs and the the US and selling it because of the high return
farming inspectors could see so many more thousands he was getting. He branded it as a plant growth
without of pounds of product per hour going past their stimulant and, of course, to fill out a box on the
electricity, noses. This was an unprecedented economy of paperwork for the EPA, he had to provide the
scale, of productivity and efficiency, the likes of lethal dose. Well, they were feeding these rats
stainless steel which we had never seen before! And it struck kelp and they just got healthier and slicker. So
and hot me—my goodness, why didn’t I think of this he’s scratching his head, “How do I check off the
water. But this before—that these people measure performance lethal dose box on this plant food?” So he finally
in pounds of product going by their noses. That’s got a five gallon bucket of water, put a little bit of
is not correct. the industrial mindset. his seaweed in there, dropped the rat in, drowned

20 Wise Traditions WINTER 2010

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