I just have to rant and rave for a minute and you are my victims!
I just came from a 3 hour conversation about food waste. The Sonoma County Health Services and Agriculture departments had people there educating us about the regulations surrounding food.
Here is the message (my rant and rave)
I, as an adult, have the legal right to enjoy consenting, unprotected sex, smoke cigarettes, drink bourbon and probably soon, smoke pot. I can eat toxic meat from Safeway full of hormones and antibiotics and vegetables laden with pesticide residue.
What I cannot do is eat a tomato from a community garden that has been grown without permits from the Agriculture and Health departments.
That is a slight exaggeration but not by much. Allow me rant and rave a bit more.
Food Insecurity
The concern is that I might die from a foodborne illness!
The regulators are very nice people but they are caught in a mindset that makes me into an insane woman. If I am poor and hungry why should I need their permission to eat “unregulated” food? Why?
Just so you know one-fifth of the population in Sonoma County is food insecure. That means that more than 80,000 people need the food bank to eat every month.
Better that I should not eat rather than risk getting a food borne illness from home grown tomatoes!
How ass backwards are we?
Meanwhile, you can eat lovely fall food from the Sebastopol Market this Sunday.
Now that it has rained I feel like eating orange food – lucky that we have so much squash. There are some more exotic ways to fix squash but I bake it and put on brown sugar and lots of butter. Peasant comfort food.
See you at the Sebastopol Farmers Market! See you on Sunday!
