Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Food Production Ideas Based on Nostalgia

Turn back the clock on country's food production
Lean and Lovin' It
By Don Mauer Daily Herald Columnist
Published: 9/2/2009 12:04 AM

Grandmother Mauer grew up in Alton, a downstate farming community. As a kid I was fascinated by the rows upon rows of gleaming bottles filled with rainbow-colored home-canned goods that filled the cellar. Her pantry yielded pink rhubarb, homemade deep-red chili sauce relish and pale green pickled watermelon rind.

Decades ago, a friend of mine helped open and operate The Green Earth, an organic food store in Evanston. The yogurts came from California (Alta Dena), the local, organically grown produce looked fairly shabby compared to that in a supermarket, but at the time it was the best they could find. They also sold a few flavorful, but dense, whole-grain, whole-wheat organic breads and cookies. Times have certainly changed.

A few years later, while camping my way down the Oregon and California coast, I tasted raw (unpasteurized) milk for the first time; its cream floating on the top of the milk, just as the cream on milkman-delivered milk did when I was a kid. It tasted sensational. Pasteurization guards against ill-health, but also makes milk taste cooked. Fresh, cold unpasteurized milk tastes sweet and clean; the way milk should taste. Read More

We should not base our food policies based on nostalgia from our childhood’s. That is exactly what this food reporter has done. It’s especially dangerous when we have people like this that are calling for less food safety requirements. There is a reason that pasteurization was invented and utilized. The food that he talks about is available in season for a premium price, it’s just that the demand for it is quite low. In the end though, no one should put much stock in a reporter that used Hollywood movies as their source of information.

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