"john" wrote in message
...


Ed Huntress wrote:

"john" wrote in message
...


I bet we all ate cat at one time or another if we ate chinese. I
remember a chinese restruant in Journal Square, NJ that was paying kids
25 cents per cat back in the late fifties.


You *eat* in Journal Square? I try not to breathe there. d8-)

lol, I lived in Secaucus for many years. 50's to the 70's and worked in
the pig farms, in the truch maintance garage. I could never get near
"city fed pork" stuff while cooking smelled just like the garbage they
fed the pigs.

I remember when we had to wrap garbage separately from trash, because the
garbage was taken to the hog farms. And that was when we lived in Vineland
and again in West Trenton.


There also was the Chinese restaurant over near Somerville that was cited
for using roadkilled venison, and that was only a few years ago.


Nothing wrong with roadkill if the meat wasnt brused. I hit one once at
one in the morning and it was a clean kill... head hit the front bumper,
but wasn't in the mood to screw with it at 1 AM.

I don't think the Chinese restaurant was particular about *when* it was
killed. I've never hit a deer but my boss in Michigan used to carry his
gutting knife and big trash bags in his trunk for just such eventualities.



FWIW, I think that reducing the number of food inspectors is a very bad
idea. I also am wary of all of the fresh food we're importing, although
that one certainly is a losing battle. I'm shooting for increasing my
percentage of locally grown food this year, and it's not that tough to
do.


There should be a lot of local grown food in your area or did the farmers
all decide growing houses was more profitable?

It's houses around here, but you don't have to go far to get to the truck
farms and the farm stands.

The problem with some 'locally grown food' stands is that you see the
empty boxes behind the stand that the food came in from distant places.

Oh, yeah. I only buy from ones I know. And I know what *isn't* grown for
market in central and western NJ. That helps.

We know from experience, before the passage of the Pure Food and Drug
Act, how things are driven by unregulated market forces. It's deadly. I
can't accept the idea that we can't have vastly improved food inspection,
nor do I believe consumers would fight the extra costs by lobbying to
reduce inspections.


I guess you read Upton Sinclair too.

Yes, and quite a bit about the Act itself, as well as the early history of
the drug industry. It's not pretty.



In any case, it can't cost more than the present effects of using corn to
produce ethanol. Have you priced corn on the commodity markets lately?
Holy cow.


Ethanol is another ripoff by the food cartel, Cargill, ADM and others.

Yes. There was still another story about what a loser corn ethanol is in
_The Economist_ just last week.

I am waiting to see how the govt changes the rules again on computing the
inflation rate to hid the increases in food prices due to the increased
cost of corn.

If the bill is written by a congressman from the Midwest, we'll know what to
look for.


Some industries have a good inspection program but even with the
inspection programs things slip through the cracks. It does seem though
fot that much meat to be contaminated, there was a gross on going failure
in the inspection at Topps.


John


Something is screwy about that whole thing. I think there will be more to
be heard about that story.



We have a couple of new large scale meat processing plants opening up in
this area.... I wonder if there is a connection?

I don't know. Once holding companies are involved it tends to get very
complicated. I hope one or more of the news organizations are digging into
it right now.

--
Ed Huntress