Biting the Hands that Feed Us How Fewer, Smarter Laws Would Make Our
Food waste, hunger, inhumane livestock conditions, disappearing fish stocks—these are exactly the kind of issues we expect food regulations to combat. Yet, today in the United States, laws exist at all levels of government that actually make these problem
- PDF / 6,200,622 Bytes
- 283 Pages / 430.859 x 649.134 pts Page_size
- 83 Downloads / 149 Views
Biting the Hands that Feed Us How Fewer, Smarter Laws Would Make Our Food System More Sustainable
Baylen J. Linnekin
Washington | Covelo | London
Copyright © 2016 Baylen J. Linnekin All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher: Island Press, 2000 M Street, NW, Suite 650, Washington, D.C. 20036. ISLAND PRESS is a trademark of the Center for Resource Economics. Library of Congress Control Number: 2016938036 Printed on recycled, acid-free paper Manufactured in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Keywords: agriculture, beef, dietary guidelines, FDA, food, food freedom, food law, food safety, food waste, foraging, FSMA, Good Samaritan laws, organic farming, raw milk, standard of identity, sustainability, ugly fruit, USDA.
Contents Foreword Preface
ix xiii
Acknowledgments Introduction
xix
1
Chapter 1: Unsafe at Any Feed
15
Chapter 2: “Big Food” Bigger Thanks to “Big Government” Chapter 3: Wasting Your Money Wasting Food Chapter 4: I Say “Tomato,” You Say “No” Chapter 5: There Are Good Food Rules Conclusion Notes
201
Index
249
189
145 175
107
63
Foreword Few consumers realize the law’s impact on our ability to produce and access certain foods. But food is a heavily regulated field—safety rules control the production and sale of food, labeling laws regulate the information that must, may, and may not appear on a package, and zoning ordinances restrict where food may be grown and where and when it may be sold. These examples are just the tip of the iceberg. Recently, consumers have begun to recognize the significance of these laws and have started examining the policy decisions surrounding them. For some, this is due to changing eating habits, such as the growing interest in purchasing foods that were produced more sustainably, or products prepared without the use of certain ingredients. Others may have come into contact with this system when their favorite farm or dairy was forced to shutter its doors, not because its products were unsafe but because of the crushing burden of complying with regulations. Biting the Hands that Feed Us provides a groundbreaking account of this flawed system. Baylen Linnekin skillfully examines laws at various levels of government that, despite good intentions, operate in ways that make the food we produce and consume less sustainable, rather than more so. I first met Baylen at a food law conference at Northeastern Law School in January 2011, where he spoke about current and historical food safety laws that, paradoxically, have made our food supply less safe. ix
x
FOREWORD
I could see immediately that Baylen possesses a genuine curiosity about the consequences of our system of food regulation, and that he brings a necessary critical perspective to the discussion. He is a gifted storyteller, weaving together historical facts, personal anecdotes, and legal explications in a way that makes this field compelling t
Data Loading...
