The Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund and Mark McAfee responded to FDA’s denial of their citizen petition to lift the interstate ban on raw butter by filing a complaint on May 25 with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, seeking a court ruling overturning the FDA rejection of the petition (see FDA Denies Raw Butter Petition for background.) Among other things, the complaint asks for a court declaration that the denial of the petition violates the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (FDCA). On July 24, FDA filed an answer to the complaint, unconvincingly denying petitioners’ allegations as to why the raw butter ban is illegal. If anything, the agency’s response to the lawsuit further exposed the weaknesses in its justification of the ban.

In its February 27 letter denying the petition, FDA included a five-page table on “Illnesses and deaths associated with butter not known to be pasteurized (1908 to 2003),” listing thirteen outbreaks during the ninety-five-year period attributed to raw butter consumption. The cause of five of those outbreaks was listed as typhoid fever with a sixth outbreak blamed on both diphtheria and tuberculosis. The only deaths listed in the table were six fatalities caused by a typhoid fever outbreak in 1913. The latest U.S. outbreak according to the table was 2002; one of the thirteen listed outbreaks occurred in England.

FTCLDF and McAfee’s complaint notes, “. . . the pathogens causing diseases, including typhoid fever, diphtheria, and tuberculosis, which the FDA attributes to butter in its data in Table 1 are not listed as pathogens of concern in butter in an independent report prepared for the FDA by the Institute of Food Technologists (“IFT”), (FDA/IFT 2001). Instead of using this study and others available to the FDA, or peer-reviewed publications regarding well characterized outbreak investigations, the FDA relied on summaries in chapters in an outdated encyclopedia of food microbiology, a trade newsletter, and a lawyer’s website for references to ‘illnesses and deaths associated with butter not known to be pasteurized’ in its Table 1.”

FDA’s response to this observation was, “Defendant admits that typhoid fever, diphtheria, and tuberculosis are not included as ‘pathogens of concern’ in Table 1 on page 11 of the report prepared by the Institute of Food Technologists (“IFT”) (FDA/IFT, 2001), available at fda.gov/files/food/published/Evaluation-and-Definition-of-Potentially-Hazardous-Foods, pdf.” In other words, FDA believes that six outbreaks with no recorded fatalities attributed to “pathogens of concern” over a period of one hundred twelve years (1908-2020) is justification for the ban. In addition, FDA is clearly violating the FDCA standard-of-identity law—standards-of-identity requirements prescribing what a food product must contain to be marketed under a certain product name in interstate commerce. FDA has claimed that pasteurization can itself be part of a standard-of-identity requirement. The FDCA prohibits the agency from issuing a standard-of-identity requirement for butter; FDA is claiming that its power to regulate communicable disease has precedence over the standard-of-identity law. The evidence in the case is increasingly showing that FDA is banning a food under its power to regulate communicable disease that has made few people sick. The appeal of the FDA’s denial of the raw butter petition will be a costly process. Those wanting to support this important effort to expand freedom of food choice can donate to FTCLDF online at farmtoconsumer.org/rawbutter or call 703-208-3276.

This article was first published in the Fall 2020 issue of Wise Traditions in Food, Farming, and the Healing Arts, the quarterly journal of the Weston A. Price Foundation.

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The post Lawsuit Over FDA Raw Butter Petition appeared first on Real Milk.

Access to slaughterhouses has been poor for small livestock producers in most of the country for many years now but has become considerably worse since the onset of the COVID-19 crisis. USDA-inspected slaughterhouses have since last spring been booking customers as far out as 2022. Many custom slaughterhouses are now booking well into 2021.

Demand for locally raised meat is only going to increase. At a recent food safety conference, a high ranking official from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced that the department was working to have low-dose ionizing radiation, known as irradiation, to be considered as a “processing aid”^a which means there would be no labeling requirement to inform consumers that meat or poultry they were purchasing had been irradiated.

One possible answer for the slaughterhouse logjam is the personal use exemption codified in federal regulation at 9 CFR 303(a)(1). The regulation states:

The requirements of the [Federal Meat Inspection] Act and the regulations in this subchapter for the inspection of the preparation of products do not apply to: (1) The slaughtering by any individual of livestock of his own raising and the preparation by him and transportation and commerce of the carcasses, parts thereof, meat and meat food products of such livestock exclusively for use by him and members of his household and his non-paying guests and employees.[1]

On May 24, 2018, USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) published a guidance document titled, “FSIS Guidelines for Determining Whether a Livestock Slaughter or Processing Firm Is Exempt from the Inspection Requirements of the Federal Meat Inspection Act.” In the guidance, FSIS explains what those under various exemptions from inspection, including the personal use exemption, can legally do. FSIS’s interpretation of the guidance provides a way for farmers to sell live meat animals while being under the personal use rather than the custom slaughter exemption.

The guidance states that under the personal use exemption,

A person may purchase livestock from a farm or ranch and then slaughter it onsite using the farm or ranch facilities or equipment.    a. If a person purchases livestock, and uses the on-site facilities without assistance from the seller, then the activity remains personal use.     b. If the seller participates in the slaughter or processing activity, then the facility owner is subject to the custom [slaughter] exempt criteria….[2]

The document goes on to state, ”the owners of the livestock may or may not reside at the same physical location as the animal”[3], establishing that there can be more than one owner under the personal use exemption. FSIS does not say how many owners there can be under the exemption, but it has stated that there can be unlimited owners under the custom slaughter exemption.[4] FSIS has stated that all owners must obtain some portion of the custom animal but has not required that there be a specific minimum amount.[5]

The only other requirements listed in the guidance for the personal use exemption have to do with adulteration. FSIS requires:

• “No livestock are slaughtered which are unfit for human consumption.”[6]
• “Specified risk materials (SRMs) are inedible and prohibited for use as human food.”[7]
• “The carcasses and parts are not prepared, packed or held, under insanitary conditions.”[8]

There are many more requirements for the custom slaughter and custom processing exemption than there are for the personal use exemption including requirements for the physical facility, water, labeling, recordkeeping, and ingredients used in the preparation of meat products.[9] There are also state licensing requirements for custom facilities; usually there is no licensing requirement for a farmer operating under the personal use exemption.

Most, if not all, states have adopted the personal use exemption as part of their law, few of those states have imposed additional requirements beyond what the Feds’ mandate.

There is no limit on the number of livestock that an owner may slaughter and process for their personal use.[10] Livestock slaughtered and processed under this exemption can be shipped across state lines.[11] For the farmer shut out at inspected and custom slaughterhouses, it’s possible to sell live animals under the personal use exemption if one of the owners is experienced at meat processing, whether that individual is another farmer or someone specializing in the trade.

^aProcessing aids: Ingredients that are present in a meat or poultry product in an insignificant amount and that have no functional or technical effects in the finished meat or poultry product are considered to be processing aids. Processing aids are not required to be listed in the ingredients statement for a meat or poultry product. [FSIS, “Compliance Guide on the Determination of Processing Aids”, PDF, April 8, 2008; weblink]

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1. 9 CFR 303.1(a)(1), see also 21 USC 623(a)

2. USDA-FSIS, “FSIS Guidelines for Determining Whether a Livestock Slaughter or Processing Firm Is Exempt from the Inspection Requirements of the Federal Meat Inspection Act”, PDF, May 24, 2018, p. 3. Accessed 11/5/2020 at https://www.fsis.usda.gov/wps/portal/fsis/topics/regulatory-compliance/guidelines/2018-0007

3. Ibid.

4. FSIS, “For Dr. Gillespie – ownership, custom meat”, AskFSIS, PDF, April 13, 2017

5. Ibid.

6. Guidelines, p.3

7. Ibid.

8. Ibid. See also 9 CFR 310.22

9. See 9 CFR 303.1(a)(2)

10. Guidelines, p.3

11. Ibid.

The post Remedy for Slaughterhouse Logjam? appeared first on Real Milk.

If anyone needed evidence on the importance of passing the PRIME Act (H.R.2859 / S.1620), the bill enables states to pass laws allowing the sale of meat from an animal slaughtered and processed at a custom facility), the logjam at slaughterhouses around the U.S. should provide it. Federally inspected slaughterhouses, state-inspected slaughterhouses, and custom facilities around the country are stretched beyond capacity. With the COVID-19 crisis triggering a shift in demand from industrial to locally produced meat and the concerns about food security leading to increased stocking, the market demand for local meat has never been greater. Compounding the strain on slaughterhouses is the demand from livestock farmers that previously sold to the major meat packers until they lost that business in the shutdown or slowdown of the country‘s biggest processing plants.

There are USDA slaughterhouses around the country now booking into 2022; many custom houses are taking reservations for well into 2021. It is not uncommon for livestock producers who were able to get a slaughter date two or three months out are now having to book eight months or more in advance. More farmers are considering whether to construct a custom facility on their own land. Under federal law, which states are required to follow, farmers can slaughter animals they have raised without regulation as long as the meat from the slaughter only goes to the farmer’s family, non-paying guests and employees. If anyone else obtains meat from an on-farm slaughtered animal, the farmer must comply with federal regulations governing custom slaughter and processing.

A number of states have taken steps during COVID-19 to increase the meat supply. In May, the Mississippi Department of Agriculture and Commerce issued an emergency regulation lifting the restriction on the number of owners there could be for a custom processed animal.¹ Prior to the emergency rule (which will be converted into a permanent rule sometime this summer), there was a limit of four owners per custom animal; now a farmer can distribute beef direct to the consumer without limitation on the number of individual owners. Agriculture Commissioner Andy Gipson said Mississippi residents wanting to buy local beef or pork “can buy a share in that animal whatever the farmer wants to sell” or however he wants to divide it up.² The new rule is in line with USDA’s position that federal regulations do not set a limit on the number of owners there can be for a custom animal.

On April 28, the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food (UDAF) announced that it had “invited ten qualifying custom exempt slaughter establishments in Utah” to come under state inspection which would allow the sale of meat from animals processed at those facilities in intrastate commerce. A UDAF press release stated that “if all the [invited] custom exempt plants take part in this emergency program it could increase Utah’s processing capacity by at least 10 percent.”³

USDA has a cooperative interstate shipments program (CIS) which allows meat from approved state-inspected slaughter and/or processing facilities—with no more than 25 employees—to be shipped in interstate commerce if the plant is located in a state that FSIS has approved to participate in a state meat inspection program. At the present time, FSIS has only approved seven of the 27 states with their own meat inspection programs to be part of the CIS.

In May, Maine and Wisconsin, two states participating in the CIS program, each sent waiver requests to FSIS asking that the Feds allow meat from all state-inspected plants to be shipped in interstate commerce.

In a May 7 letter to FSIS, Commissioner Amanda Bill of the Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry (MDACF) said, “Given the current challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, we ask that FSIS grant a temporary waiver to allow all state-inspected meat to be sold in interstate commerce or to be donated to food banks that require federally inspected products. This temporary waiver would lift usual restrictions on place of sale and allow for more processing and marketing opportunities for Maine producers and consumers during the unprecedented crisis. USDA processing facilities in Maine are under immense pressure to meet demand and are reportedly booked out over a year in advance in some locations. Allowing state-inspected meat to temporarily cross state lines will greatly support regional marketing opportunities, smooth out bottlenecks in the local food chain, reduce the need to cull healthy livestock and poultry, and support those who are food insecure during this extremely difficult time.”⁴

In his letter to FSIS, interim secretary Randy Romanski of the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP) also asked USDA to grant a temporary exception to allow state-inspected meat to be sold or donated across state lines. Romanski stated, “Our agricultural development staff have been working tirelessly to identify state-inspected Main Street meat processors who may be willing to slaughter and process even an extra dozen animals a week. Our state meat inspectors stand ready to provide additional slaughter inspection days as necessary. We feel that new partnerships between farmers, processors and consumers or food donation programs are vitally important in responding to this pandemic.”⁵

Oregon, earlier this month, passed a bill authorizing the start up of a state meat inspection program. North Carolina and Minnesota have both recently had bills introduced that would provide financial help to improve slaughterhouse infrastructure and capacity.

There is currently legislation before Congress, Senate Bill 1720 (S.1710) that would allow the sale of state inspected meat and poultry in interstate commerce. S.1720 is legislation that needs to pass with its potential to increase the supply of meat available to consumers that is outside the meat packers’ monopoly, but the bill won’t have the impact on improvising the slaughterhouse infrastructure in the U. S. that the PRIME Act would.

Custom slaughter and processing facilities are less expensive to construct then federal and state-inspected plants; they are also considerably less expensive to operate, with the custom facilities not having requirements such as HACCP plans. Representative Thomas Massie (R-KY), the lead sponsor of the PRIME Act, has said that he has been contacted by a number of people who owned buildings that were once slaughter facilities. They have told Massie that if the PRIME Act passes into law, they could have their slaughter plants up and running in five weeks. Many of those individuals would not be interested in operating a facility again if an on-site inspector had to be present–a requirement for state and federally inspected facilities but not for custom, Only a custom facility from which meat could be sold by the cut will get them back into business. The PRIME Act will increase the number of slaughterhouses more than S.1720. Currently, 27 states have their own meat inspection program; all states except South Carolina allow the operation of custom facilities. It has been many years since FSIS has approved the start up of a state meat inspection program.

The notion has been planted in the public mind that meat can’t be produced safely without an inspector being present for slaughtering and processing, but the truth is otherwise. Custom slaughtered and processed meat has an excellent track record for food safety. USDA recalls over 20 million pounds of meat in a typical year, little or none of that comes from custom facilities. It isn’t uncommon for hundreds of people to become ill from meat processed at the large USDA-inspected processing plants; few cases of foodborne illness have been blamed on meat processed at a custom house. Where is there a better quality control, an inspected plant slaughtering 300 to 400 cattle an hour or a custom facility slaughtering a few beeves a day? Fifty such plants account for nearly 98% of the meat production in this country according to a story posted by The New York Times referencing beef analyst Cassandra Fish.⁶

The PRIME Act has over 50 sponsors in the House; the support is there to pass the bill. The biggest weakness in the local food system is the lack of community slaughterhouses. The existing custom houses can’t keep up with the demand. Passage of the PRIME Act is the best way to get additional slaughterhouses online now.

How You Can Make a Difference

Please call your U.S. Representative and Senators asking them to cosponsor the PRIME Act. For more information on the PRIME Act see the previous post and view the latest WAPF action alert posted at www.westonaprice.org under “Get Involved”.

You can look up your two U.S. Senators by selecting your state at www,senate.gov in the “Find Your Senator” field near the top of the webpage and your U.S. Representative by entering your zip code at www.house.gov again at the top of the webpage; you may also call the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121

Article – PRIME Act Reintroduced in Congress
https://www.realmilk.com/prime-act-reintroduced-in-congress/

Action Alert – Tell Congress the PRIME Act is the Best Shot for Small Livestock Farmers!
https://www.westonaprice.org/tell-congress-the-prime-act-is-the-best-shot-for-small-livestock-farmers/

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[1] Mississippi Administrative Bulletin, Rule: Mississippi Department of Agriculture and Commerce. Title 2, Part 1, Subpart 4, Chapter 07, Subchapter 01, Section 111. Amended May 7, 2020. Bulletin, System Number 24883 [entry search parameters: Title 2, dates 5/7/2020] https://www.sos.ms.gov/adminsearch/default.aspx?current_page=Bulletin

Yields amended rule (bulletin entry cited below), retrieved from https://www.sos.ms.gov/adminsearch/ACProposed/00024883b.pdf

“Due to issues related to the COVID-19 emergency and the impact the spread of the disease has had on the meat supply chain, the Department issues this temporary rule in an effort to increase meat availability to consumers. The temporary rule will increase the number of people that can own an animal (cattle, sheep, swine, and goats) from four to multiple owners for the purposes of the custom slaughter exemption of the meat inspection laws. The regulation will be effective for 120 days from May 7, 2020 through September 3, 2020.”

[2] Brandy McGill, “Miss. Dept. of Agriculture changes rules on how farmers can sell meat products”, WDAM7 News, May 17, 2020 (6:17 PM CDT – Updated May 18 at 3:35 PM CDT). PM. Retrieved from https://www.wdam.com/2020/05/18/miss-dept-agriculture-changes-rules-how-farmers-can-sell-meat-products/

[3] Utah Department of Agriculture and Food, “UDAF to Allow Private Custom Meat Plants to Slaughter and Process Livestock for Commercial Sale”, Press Release, April 28, 2020. Retrieved from https://ag.utah.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/2020-4-28-UDAF-Allows-Custom-Meat-Plants-to-Process-Commercial-livestock.pdf

[4] Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry, “Commissioner Beal Calls on USDA to Allow State-Inspected Meat to Cross State Lines during COVID-19 Pandemic”, Maine Government News, May 8, 2020. Retrieved from https://www.maine.gov/tools/whatsnew/index.php?topic=Portal+News&id=2509074&v=article-2017

[5] “DATCP asks USDA for meat shipment flexibility”, Morning Ag Clips, May 6, 2020. Retrieved from https://www.morningagclips.com/datcp-asks-usda-for-meat-shipment-flexibility/

[6] Michael Corkery and David Yaffe-Bellany, “The Food Chain’s Weakest Link: Slaughterhouses”, New York Times, April 18, 2020. Excerpt below retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/18/business/coronavirus-meat-slaughterhouses.html

“After decades of consolidation, there are about 800 federally inspected slaughterhouses in the United States, processing billions of pounds of meat for food stores each year. But a relatively small number of them account for the vast majority of production. In the cattle industry, a little more than 50 plants are responsible for as much as 98 percent of slaughtering and processing in the United States, according to Cassandra Fish, a beef analyst.”

The post PRIME Act Now — Demand Overwhelms Slaughterhouses appeared first on Real Milk.

As expected, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has denied a citizen petition from the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund (FTCLDF) and Organic Pastures Dairy Company (OPDC) to lift a ban on the interstate distribution and sale of raw butter.

In a February 27 letter to FTCLDF and OPDC, Mark Moorman, director of the FDA’s Office of Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, stated: “Your petition does not contain facts demonstrating reasonable grounds. . . to allow the interstate delivery or sale or distribution of raw cream butter. Further, your petition does not substantially show that your proposal is in the public interest and will promote the public health objectives of FDA and the statutes we administer.”

Allowing access to a nutritious raw dairy product like butter is not a “public health objective” of FDA. While FDA’s decision wasn’t a surprise, the weakness of its response to the petition was. At the end of the FDA letter was a five-page table on “Illnesses and deaths associated with butter not known to be pasteurized, (1908 to 2003).” There were thirteen outbreaks during that ninety-five-year timeframe attributed to raw butter consumption, with one of the outbreaks occurring in England.

Of those thirteen outbreaks, all but one described the butter as “not specified but commonly unpasteurized” or “not specified.” The one entry listed as “unpasteurized” is a 2001-2002 outbreak where two hundred two people in North Carolina allegedly became ill from butter. This entry conflicts with the CDC’s foodborne illness outbreak database, which attributes the illnesses to “other milk, unpasteurized.” According to published articles, homemade butter was served to elementary school students as part of a demonstration.

Seven of the thirteen outbreaks fail to specify the “total number of illnesses”; one shows “reports of consumer injuries” while six show “NA” (meaning “not available or not reported”).

One of the entries, a 1991 outbreak where two hundred sixty-five people became ill in California and Nevada, lists the implicated food as “blended butter and margarine products.” How often has raw butter been blended with margarine—ever?

Two of the thirteen outbreaks indicate that someone was hospitalized—one person in one case, four in the other. The remainder indicate that no data are available. Only one of the thirteen outbreaks specified whether there were any deaths (six in a 1913 Minnesota outbreak). Again, the remainder indicated that no data are available.

If a petitioner had submitted a graphic to FDA with data this incomplete, the agency would have rejected it out of hand. Even if FDA is correct on the number of outbreaks attributed to raw butter consumption, the total amounts to one outbreak every seven or eight years. If that is the standard for banning a food in interstate commerce, many foods would be illegal.

Much of FDA’s response consisted of disagreeing with the petitioners’ interpretation of various studies regarding butter and pathogenic bacteria, as well as citing challenge tests (such as studies in which butter is inoculated with pathogens, then observed to monitor what happens). Shouldn’t the ultimate determining factor, from a scientific standpoint, be how many people have gotten sick from consuming a food?

The CDC database on foodborne illness outbreaks from 1998-2016 that FTCLDF and OPDC used in their petition to FDA doesn’t blame a single outbreak on commercially produced raw butter, and only one outbreak is blamed on homemade raw butter.

FDA tried to downplay raw butter’s impressive safety track record by pointing to the 1987 interstate ban as the reason there have been almost no outbreaks. However, raw butter sales have been legal in California since the state’s inception.

Mark McAfee, OPDC’s president, stated that his company has sold well over two million pounds of raw butter over the past twenty years without illness. About ten other states allow the sale or distribution of raw butter.

Aside from the small number of foodborne illness outbreaks attributed legitimately or otherwise to raw butter consumption over the past one hundred twelve years, the FDA denial of the petition could be vulnerable to a court challenge in other areas.

The butter ban is illegal according to a statute (21 USC 341) in the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act that governs “standard of identity” for food, which are requirements prescribing what a food product must contain to be marketed under a certain product name in interstate commerce. For instance, the standard of identity for milk requires that it be pasteurized or ultra-pasteurized and that it contain not less than 3.25 percent milkfat [21 CFR 131.110]. The citizen petition notes that FDA addressed the question of requiring pasteurization as part of a standard of identity regarding milk and found that such health-based requirements were properly addressed as standards of identity stating, “The Commissioner rejects the contention that section 401 of the act does not permit provisions of a standard of identity to be promulgated for health reasons.” [39 Fed. Reg. 42,351 (Dec. 5, 1974)]

Congress has given FDA power to establish standard of identity requirements for most foods but specifically prohibits the agency from doing so for butter. In its response, FDA justified its violation of the standard of identity by claiming the Public Health Service Act gives it authority to require pasteurization for butter as part of its power to regulate communicable disease, a stretch given the food safety track record of raw butter. FDA, in its response, argued that standard of identity was about protecting consumers against economic adulteration and reflecting consumer expectations about food, contradicting its earlier statement that health reasons can also be a factor in these regulations.

A second area where FDA is on weak ground is that, in the lawsuit that resulted in the court order to FDA to impose the ban [Public Citizen v. Heckler, 653 F. Supp. 1229 (D.C. District, 1987)], butter is not mentioned at all in the court record of the case. Butter, like cheese, is considered a manufactured milk product. The lawsuit sought the ban of all raw milk and raw milk products in interstate commerce. The definition of “milk products” in the FDA Pasteurized Milk Ordinance (PMO)—the governing document for the production and distribution of milk and milk products in interstate commerce—does not include butter or cheese.

The court record discussed only dairy products that were listed in the PMO definition of “milk product.” When the court ordered FDA to ban “raw milk” and “raw milk products” it was only those products under that definition.

In its response, FDA claimed the court order banned all products made from raw milk but if the agency is correct in its interpretation, aged raw milk cheeses wouldn’t be legal in the U.S. as they have always been. The impetus for the litigation that resulted in the court order was the lack of FDA enforcement on standard of identity regulations requiring pasteurization for milk and various milk products—because of the statutory prohibition, there is no standard of identity regulation for butter.

FTCLDF is appealing the FDA denial to the federal district in court in the District of Columbia. The appeal to challenge FDA is likely to be costly as it will require paying scientific experts as well as attorneys. FTCLDF could really use your financial support. Overturning the butter ban is a big step toward a day when all raw dairy products will be legal in interstate commerce. To donate specifically to support the case to overturn the FDA decision, please go to farmtoconsumer.org/rawbutter or call (703) 208-3276. The Weston A. Price Foundation has provided $12,000 in support of this cause.

This article was first published in the Spring 2020 issue of Wise Traditions in Food, Farming, and the Healing Arts, the quarterly journal of the Weston A. Price Foundation.

Fall 2020 UPDATE: Lawsuit over FDA raw butter petition

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The post FDA Denies Raw Butter Petition appeared first on Real Milk.

With all the laws on the books today favoring industrial food under the guise of protecting the public health, one that stands out is the federal prohibition on fresh cheese (raw cheese aged less than sixty days). The cheeses whose producers are hurt by the sixty-day aging requirement are the soft-ripened and semi-soft cheeses defined in regulation by FDA in the Code of Federal Regulations, 21 CFR 133.182 and 21 CFR 133.187.

The production and sale of fresh cheese has been legal in Europe for centuries, with an excellent overall track record for safety. Moreover, the legal shelf life of a raw cheese like camembert in Europe is only fifty-five days, mainly due to the increased chance of the growth of listeria after that time; so in the U.S., artisan cheesemakers producing camembert or a similar cheese must wait longer than they should have to in order to get paid while being forced into selling a product that has a higher risk of contamination. Each type of cheese has its own pH and moisture level, two among other factors that need to be taken into account before determining the proper aging time for the cheese.

The FDA has no intention of changing its one-size-fits-all aging requirement for cheese, but a recently published book, titled Ending the War on Artisan Cheese, should help any effort to go in that direction. The book, written by Catherine Donnelly who is a professor of food science and nutrition at the University of Vermont, covers in extensive detail how the FDA’s policies on raw cheese aren’t based on science but rather on creating a climate of fear and intimidation against artisan producers to protect and expand the market share of industrial cheese makers.

The FDA actions Donnelly lists against artisan producers include:

• Inspections, along with product detentions during each inspection, of every cheesemaker (as well as two Whole Foods stores) who attended a 2013 workshop in Georgia titled “Food Safety and Hygiene in Artisan/ Farmstead Cheesemaking” that was cosponsored by the Georgia Department of Agriculture, the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy and Whole Foods.1 The workshop was designed for small-scale cheesemakers and also included invitations to federal and state inspectors, the thought being that many of the inspectors were “not always knowledgeable about artisan cheesemaking.”2 The inspections and detentions occurred the day after the workshop. As Donnelly states, “the notion that attendance at, or sponsorship of, an educational workshop could subject an artisan cheesemaker or cheesemonger to regulatory scrutiny defeated the very purpose for which these workshops were intended.”3

• The American Cheese Society (ACS) is the leading organization in the U.S. supporting the promotion of artisan, farmstead and specialty cheeses. As Donnelly explains it, “Attendees at the American Cheese Society began to notice some interesting connections between the dates when the annual ACS meetings were occurring and the timing of FDA recall announcements and unannounced visits to their establishments. Cheesemakers would lament that they were unable to bring the quality assurance members of their organization to the ACS annual meetings because it becomes a matter of routine that unannounced inspections from the FDA occur during the ACS meeting.”4

• FDA officers would take cheese from producers for “microbiological compliance sampling,” which then requires cheesemakers to “withhold the production lots being tested from distribution into commerce until results of the FDA’s analysis were returned. Affected companies noticed a pattern: Many times results were released only after the products had reached the end of their sell-by dates. And in most cases, the tested products met compliance criteria: They were salable products that fully complied with regulations, but they could not be sold, because of regulatory targeting and testing of these goods.”5

• In 2009-2010 FDA changed the tolerance level of generic E. coli in raw milk cheese from ten thousand colony-forming units per gram of cheese (cfu/g) and lowered it to ten Most Probable Number (MPN) per gram in “two or more subsamples or greater than one hundred MPN per gram in one or more subsamples.”6 The European Union hasn’t established a generic E. coli tolerance level for raw cheese, only pasteurized cheese. The new tolerance levels effectively prohibited artisans from being able to release significant amounts of their product into commerce. Extensive sampling by FDA from 2004-2006 before the new requirements went into effect showed that about 70 percent of the cheese tested then would not have met the new standard.7 This standard especially created trouble for producers of raw milk soft and semi-soft cheeses; the long acidification times often involved in the production of those cheeses can easily lead to levels above ten MPN. There is no scientific evidence that these new standards lead to safer cheese. Thanks to political pressure, FDA finally halted using the one hundred-to-ten MPN standards in 2016.8

During most of the time FDA actions against artisan cheesemakers were occurring under the aegis of the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN), John Sheehan was the director of FDA-CFSAN’s Division of Dairy, Egg and Meat Products. Monica Metz was the chief for FDA-CFSAN’s Milk and Milk Products Branch; both Sheehan and Metz were former employees of industrial cheesemaker Leprino Foods.9

FDA established the 60-day aging rule in 1950. Donnelly shows that: the regulations were formulated around the behavior of bacterial pathogens such as Salmonella typhi and brucella in Cheddar cheese, the predominant cheese variety produced in the United States in 1950. Cheddar cheese has a low moisture content, high salt content and low pH/high acidity, and these parameters interact to create an environment that is inhospitable to bacterial pathogens, so they die off as cheese ages over the course of sixty days or longer. Not all cheeses share these characteristics, however, and the regulations currently upheld in the CFR have been broadly applied to a number of specified cheese varieties despite scientific evidence that suggests such regulations are inappropriate for certain cheeses, such as soft-ripened varieties like Brie and Camembert.10

For reasons of food safety and quality, soft and semi-soft cheeses should have shorter aging requirements. While it’s true that soft and semisoft cheese have been responsible for more foodborne illness outbreaks than hard cheeses, there is plenty of evidence that these cheeses can be produced safely.

Donnelly herself has been part of a successful effort to produce safe raw cheese through her work with the Vermont Institute for Artisan Cheese (VIAC), which has developed risk reduction protocols and process control measures for Vermont artisan cheesemakers that have resulted in more sanitary facilities. When FDA conducted nationwide environmental sampling for listeria at soft cheese firms, not a single Vermont cheese facility tested had a positive test for listeria out of one hundred to three hundred environmental swabs taken at each facility.11

FDA has more than shown it is interested only in destroying artisan cheesemakers, but the legislative process is a vehicle to lower and/or eliminate aging requirements to allow the sale of fresh cheese. There is no prohibition against the sale of unaged raw cheese in intrastate commerce; Wyoming, Kansas and some seventy to eighty towns in Maine currently allow the direct producer-to-consumer sale of fresh raw cheese. Fresh cheese is a great opportunity for small farmers and local artisans to produce a safe, nutritious product. The demand and the safety protocols are in place to make that happen.

REFERENCES

1. Catherine W. Donnelly, Ending the War on Artisan Cheese: The Inside Story of Government Overreach and the Struggle to Save Traditional Raw Milk Cheesemakers. White River Junction, Vermont: Chelsea Green Publishing, 2019. Paperback, p. 94.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid., p. 127.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid., pp. 57-58 citing from “Compliance Policy Guide Sec. 527.300 Dairy Products—Microbial Contaminants and Alkaline Phosphatase Activity,” Federal Register notice of availability, December 23, 2010.
7. Ibid., p. 67.
8. Ibid., pp. 69-70 referring to an FDA press release, “Constituent Update,” February 8, 2016; accessible 3/11/2020 at https://www.fda.gov/food/cfsan-constituent-updates/fda-taking-new-look-criteria-raw-milk-cheese.
9. Ibid., p. 106 citing about Monica Metz from Barbara Boland, “Former employee of ‘big cheese’ wrote FDA letter that put NY artisan cheese makers out of work”, CNSNews, June 13, 2014. Accessed 3/11/2020 at https://www.cnsnews.com/mrctv-blog/barbara-boland/formeremployee-big-cheese-wrote-fda-letter-put-ny-artisancheese-makers. [Note: Confirmed from “Experience” listed on LinkedIn for John Sheehan as quality control manager for Leprino 1988-2000; accessed 3/11/2020 at https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-sheehan-94a0588]
10. Ibid., p. 21.
11. Ibid., p. 92-93.

This article was first published in the Spring 2020 issue of Wise Traditions in Food, Farming, and the Healing Arts, the quarterly journal of the Weston A. Price Foundation.

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Passage of the PRIME Act [H.R. 5859 / S. 1620] would give states the power to legalize the sale of custom processed meat in intrastate commerce (i.e., meat from an animal slaughtered and processed at a facility where an inspector is not required to be present to observe the slaughtering and conduct an ante mortem and post mortem inspection of the animal).

Currently, federal law prohibits the sale of custom processed meat; the prohibition went into effect with the passage of the Wholesome Meat Act of 1967. The Act mandated that meat could not be sold unless it was slaughtered and processed at a facility that was either federally inspected or one inspected in a state whose meat inspection laws were at least as strict as the federal requirements; meat slaughtered and processed at a state facility could only be sold within the state.

The Wholesome Meat Act has done tremendous damage to local slaughterhouse infrastructure around the country. In 1967 there were nearly 10,000 slaughterhouses in the country¹; today there are less than 3,000.²*

The bottleneck caused by the lack of slaughterhouses has frustrated small livestock operations in getting their products to market and has led to an inability to meet the overall demand for locally produced meat. The 1967 Act has been one of the worst laws ever passed for local food; what’s more, it was known from the beginning that the Act would have the effect it did.

On September 16, 1971, the Small Business Administration (SBA) presented a paper to the United States Senate Select Committee on Small Business titled: “The Effects of the Wholesome Meat Act of 1967 upon Small Business – A Study of One Industry’s Economic Problems Resulting from Environmental-Consumer Legislation Prepared by the Small Business Administration.”³

The SBA paper³ discusses the cost of compliance (mainly, the costs of facility upgrades) with the requirements of the Act and the effects it could have on small-scale slaughterhouses and processing plants. The paper includes the following comments:

• “[I]t could be argued that the Wholesome Meat Act was as much of a disaster for many small meat firms as a hurricane….” [p. 32]
• During the Congressional deliberations in 1967 over the Wholesome Meat Act, there was little discussion of the effects that the Wholesome Meat Act would have upon those 15,000 or so firms who now would be subject to rigorous inspection of their product. [p.31]
• Emphasis was upon “consumerism”, the American housewife and her family. And this was “consumerism” in a rather narrow sense. There was little or no consideration given to the costs, particularly in the first few years, that would have to be borne by the meat industries in order to comply with the Wholesome Meat Act. “…[I]t was likely that meat prices would increase for several years, because of the Act. Scant attention was paid to this highly important problem during the Congressional consideration of the Wholesome Meat Act.” [p. 31]
• Nor was much attention paid to the potential effects of the new law upon competition within the meat industries. “[T]he meat industries are among the more competitive in the American economy. But the Wholesome Meat Act could lead to a significant diminution of competition. How many firms would have to shut down because they could no longer compete due to the new law? … Would the Wholesome Act lead, however unwittingly, to an undesirable increase in concentration in the meat industries? Questions such as these, highly fundamental questions, were barely raised during the legislative process.” [p. 31]
• The SBA report notes that following passage of the Wholesome Meat Act, legislation was introduced in Congress that would have allowed SBA disaster loans for slaughterhouses attempting to become compliant with the Act if the slaughterhouse’s financial need could not be met “by private financial institutions or by regular Government credit programs.”  As recorded in the report, “the SBA disaster fund ‘is based upon the legal principle that the emergency is created by the act of the sovereign U.S. Government which is beyond the control of the individual business. This may cause major losses to the businessman, particularly if the company is forced out of business. The sovereign act is thus similar to a natural disaster…’” [p.33]
• “We find that the small business concerns affected by the Act need a substantial amount of financial assistance in effecting compliance with the Wholesome Meat Act. The establishments not in conformance with the Wholesome Meat Act say they need $278.6 million to make the improvements needed to conform to the law. Of this amount, the establishments surveyed say $132.2 million is unavailable. In addition, fully one-third of the establishments not in conformance with the Act report that financing is unavailable…. We find that the amount that may be forthcoming from private financial institutions is seriously deficient.” [p.84]
• “The Wholesome Meat Act only directly affects strictly intrastate producers whose production at the most is 20-25 percent of the total national products of meat. Of this intrastate group, slightly less than half are not in conformance with the Wholesome Meat Act and probably about one-third or so of the group not in conformance will go out of business if some form of Federal loan program is not developed for their benefit.” [p. 86]
• “The authors think the empirical evidence contained in this report points inevitably to the conclusion that many firms will suffer substantial economic injury without Federal assistance. In fact, many face terminal economic injury without some form of Government relief.” [p.87]

Much of what the SBA report questioned about the Wholesome Meat Act has come to pass. The Act did contribute significantly to the consolidation of the meat industry; today four companies control over 80% of beef processing in the U.S. and four companies control over 60% of pork processing.⁴

The inability to comply with costly federal requirements has led to thousands of slaughter and processing facilities going out of business; many of these were small facilities processing only for commerce within the state. These facilities might have been accountable for only 20-25 percent of national meat products but they gave the small livestock farmer much better access to slaughterhouses at a better price than is the case today. The local abattoirs that dotted the country are mostly gone. Passage of the PRIME Act can begin the process of bringing them back.

The Wholesome Meat Act has not led to the production of safer meat today; there are more recalls than ever for positive pathogen tests in meat products. The 1967 Act has also contributed to higher meat prices as the writers of the SBA report predicted; the higher costs with expanded federal regulation have been passed on to the consumer. The Wholesome Meat Act has failed small-scale slaughterhouses, family farms, consumers and communities on numerous levels.

It’s time to start the process of rolling it back by passing the PRIME Act. Call you representative and ask that they sign on as a cosponsor of HR 2859 / S 1620.

ACTION ALERT 5/6/2020 – Help pass the PRIME Act – Call today!

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REFERENCES
¹ Denny, R.C.H. (2012). Between the Farm and the Farmer’s Market: Slaughterhouses, Regulations, and Alternative Food Networks (Master’s thesis). Retrieved from Auburn University AUETD database, https://etd.auburn.edu/handle/10415/3247*

² United States Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Statistics Service. Livestock Slaughter 2019 Summary. April 2020. p. 62. Posted at http://www.usda.gov/nass/PUBS/TODAYRPT/lsan0415.pdf [View PDF – http://bit.ly/1i6sxS9]

³ United States. Small Business Administration, and United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Small Business. The Effects of the Wholesome Meat Act of 1967 Upon Small Business: A Study of One Industry’s Economic Problems Resulting from Environmental-Consumer Legislation. Washington: U.S. Govt. Print. Off., 1971.

⁴ Heffernan, W. & Hendrickson, M. (2007). Concentration of agricultural markets. University of Missouri, Department of Rural Sociology. Posted online at http://www.foodcircles.missouri.edu/07contable.pdf [View PDF – http://bit.ly/1JZuqGf] 

Reprinted by permission of the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund from article originally posted September 10, 2015, titled “The Wholesome Meat Act of 1967: Disaster for Small Slaughterhouses from the Start“. Republished here with minor edits.

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On March 25, Governor Gary Hebert signed House Bill 134 (HB 134) into law. The bill legalizes the sale of raw butter and raw cream in Utah; HB 134 took effect immediately. Representative Kim Coleman (R) was the lead sponsor for the legislation.

With the Utah law taking effect, there are now around twenty states that allow the sale or distribution of raw cream for human consumption; around a dozen states allow the sale or distribution of raw butter. There are at least two other states considering the legalization of raw butter sales.

The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) remains the greatest roadblock to the legalization of raw dairy products in the U.S. On February 27, FDA rejected a petition to lift the interstate ban on raw butter filed by the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund and Mark McAfee, the biggest producer of raw butter and cream in the country. In its rejection letter, one of the agency’s justifications for maintaining the prohibition was that raw butter was responsible for a foodborne illness outbreak occurring on average every 7 or 8 years; a standard that, if applied consistently across our food supply, would make many foods illegal in interstate commerce. As time goes on, an increasing number of states will no longer side with FDA, taking matters into their own hands by legalizing sales of raw dairy products in intrastate commerce.

HB 134 marks the third time in the last five years that a Utah raw milk bill has passed into law. In 2015, the mother-daughter team of Symbria and Sara Patterson were mainly responsible for the passage of a law legalizing the distribution of raw milk and raw milk products through micro-dairy herd share agreements. In 2018, Red Acre Center, a nonprofit formed by the Pattersons, was the driver in passing a law allowing the unlicensed on-farm sale of raw milk and the delivery of raw milk by licensed dairies. A bill similar to HB 134 nearly passed in the 2019 session; under the new law, licensed dairies can sell raw butter and raw cream on the farm, through delivery, and at a retail store if the dairy has a majority ownership interest in the store.

The passage of HB 134 comes at a time when, with the Covid-19 situation, demand for food direct from the farm is soaring. Legal raw butter and cream will move more of the food dollar to where it belongs–at the farms producing some of the safest, most nitrient-dense foods available.

Graphics credit: Jon Tyson, neon lit butter sign at unsplash.com

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By Pete Kennedy, Esq.

The FTCLDF raw butter lawsuit followed an FDA rejection of a petition. This petition asked that the FDA exempt from enforcement action any farmers shipping raw dairy products in interstate commerce, if they followed certain labeling requirements. In April 2017 the Real Food Consumer Coalition filed a petition asking the FDA to use its enforcement discretion not to take action against farmers who put information on their labels warning of the risks of consuming raw milk and raw milk products along with instructions on how to pasteurize milk.

In its one-page response denying the petition, the FDA claimed, “Requests for the agency to exercise enforcement discretion are not within the scope of the FDA’s citizen petition procedures.” The agency stated that the regulation governing citizens petitions do not cover “referral of a matter to a United States Attorney for initiation of court enforcement action and related correspondence.”

This article was published in the Winter 2019 issue of Wise Traditions in Food, Farming, and the Healing Arts, the quarterly journal of the Weston A. Price Foundation.

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On October 22, 2019, the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund (FTCLDF) and Mark McAfee, president of Organic Pastures Dairy Company (OPDC), filed suit in federal court seeking a court order to compel the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to respond to a citizen petition filed by the parties in June 2016 to overturn the interstate ban on raw butter. Federal law gives the FDA six months to file a response to the petition but the agency has yet to provide a substantive answer, only sending petitioners a letter in December 2016 stating that it needed more time to respond. The Weston A. Price Foundation has donated $12,000 to this effort.

There has been a ban on raw dairy products (other than aged raw cheese) in interstate commerce since 1987. States can pass laws legalizing the sale of raw dairy products within their boundaries; less than a quarter of the states currently allow the sale or distribution of raw butter. A successful petition to lift the interstate ban would change that in a hurry. If there were no interstate prohibition, nearly all states would likely pass laws legalizing the production and sale of raw butter; most every state currently allows the production and sale of aged raw cheese.

There are several reasons the petition has a good chance of success. First, the FDA ban on raw butter violates the federal “standard of identity” law. A “standard of identity” is a requirement prescribing what a food product must contain to be marketed in interstate commerce. For instance, the standard of identity for milk is that it be either pasteurized or ultra-pasteurized and that it contain at least 3.25 percent milkfat and at least 8.25 percent non-fat milk solids. The FDA’s long-held position is that pasteurization can be part of a standard of identity requirement; standards of identity are meant to promote honesty and fair dealing for consumers.

The FDA has the power to issue standards of identity for most foods but there are exceptions and one of those is butter. The Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act specifically prohibits the FDA from establishing a standard of identity for butter. Congress has passed a law defining butter, which serves as a standard of identity for the product; that definition does not require butter to be pasteurized.

Another strike against the FDA on the ban is that the case leading to the ban, Public Citizen v. Heckler, concerned only fluid milk and fluid milk products; manufactured milk products such as butter and cheese were never mentioned once in the court record. The judge ordered the FDA to issue a ruling prohibiting raw milk and raw milk products in interstate commerce but the FDA had excluded butter from its definition of “milk products” years earlier in the Pasteurized Milk Ordinance (PMO).

The PMO is a document that the FDA and others in the dairy industry have written which governs the production and sale of fluid milk and fluid milk products. The FDA exceeded its authority given by the judge in instituting the raw butter ban.

Finally, the ban on raw butter is weak because the product has little or no record of making anyone sick. CDC data from 1998 to 2016 list no cases of commercially made raw butter causing illness and only one foodborne illness outbreak where homemade raw butter was a possible suspect. Raw butter sales have been legal in California since the state’s inception, but as far back as its records go, not a single case of illness has been attributed to raw butter consumption. Organic Pastures Dairy Company has sold over two million pounds of raw butter without incident.

The McAfee/FTCLDF lawsuit asks the District of Columbia Federal District Court to order the FDA to file a response to the butter petition within thirty days. The FDA has not commented on the lawsuit.

This article was first published in the Winter 2019 issue of Wise Traditions in Food, Farming, and the Healing Arts, the quarterly journal of the Weston A. Price Foundation.

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For the fourth time in 2 years, the North Dakota Department of Health (NDDH) is trying to water down the state cottage food law, also known as the 2017 North Dakota Food Freedom Act (FFA). The FFA allows the unregulated sale by producers direct to consumers except those foods that have either meat or raw dairy as an ingredient. NDDH has issued proposed regulations that would make illegal the unregulated sale of a number of foods that are currently legal under the 2017 law. In doing so, NDDH is overstepping its authority and is arguably hurting food safety; the proposed regulations are not about food safety–they are about control.

The FFA clearly states, “Notwithstanding any other provision of law, a state agency or political subdivision may not require licensure, permitting, certification, inspection, packaging, or labeling that pertains to the preparation or sale of cottage food products under this section….” Under the FFA, “cottage food product” means “baked goods, jams, jellies, and other food and drink products produced by a cottage food operator”; it was the NDDH that actually convinced the legislature to adopt this definition for the FFA. The legislature initially included the unregulated sale of raw dairy products in the FFA but pulled those foods out of the bill. The FFA excludes the sale of any uninspected products made from meat. There is no exclusion on any other foods in the FFA.

Shortly after the legislation passed in 2017, NDDH issued a guidance document for the FFA that prohibited the sale of a number of foods other than meat and raw dairy. FFA supporters didn’t abide by NDDH’s interpretation of the law; in 2018 the department followed up with proposed rules that would have again banned the unregulated sale of foods that are legal under the FFA. When food freedom proponents and members of the legislature defeated that effort, NDDH through its allies in the legislature introduced a bill in the 2019 session to roll back the FFA. The legislation, Senate Bill 2269 (SB 2269), as introduced would not only have prohibited the unregulated sale of a number of legal foods but also would have banned the unregulated sale of all drink products. The House of Representatives eventually killed the bill. SB 2269 represents the only legal attempt NDDH has made to dilute the FFA.

The proposed regulations have a number of the same changes that were in the bill that the legislature rejected. Among other things, the bill would have changed the law by making the unregulated sale of low-acid canned foods such as carrots, beets or beans illegal. The rules would prohibit the sale of unrefrigerated foods unless they are frozen–foods such as banana cream pie, potato salad, and carrot and celery sticks would all be affected. The proposed rules define “frozen foods” as foods maintained at temperatures no higher than zero degrees Fahrenheit.

The FFA allows the sale of all foods subject to time and temperature control other than those with meat or raw dairy as an ingredient. The proposed rules would limit the sale of time-and-temperature-control foods to baked goods (e.g., cream pies that are “frozen”) and home processed fresh-cut fruits and vegetables that are either “dehydrated or freeze-dried” or “blanched and frozen” ( i.e., no longer fresh).

The FFA specifically states that no government agency can require licensure for anything pertaining to the preparation of cottage food products, but that is what NDDH is trying to do in prohibiting the unlicensed sale of many foods that are currently legal to sell without a license. There are also labeling and certification requirements elsewhere in the proposed rules, both in violation of the FFA.

Beyond the proposed rules exceeding NDDH’s authority, what makes the department’s action a waste of taxpayer dollars is that in the two-plus years the FFA has been in effect, there has not been a single case of foodborne illness attributed to a producer operating under the state cottage food law. Cottage foods are thriving in the state, bringing in an estimated $1.5 million per year for producers and their families.¹ The rules are a “solution” in search of a problem.

The experience of other states allowing the unregulated sale of time-and-temperature-control foods is similar to North Dakota. Towns in Maine have allowed the selling without regulation time-and-temperature-control foods direct from producer to consumer other than meat and poultry as far back as 2011 under local food sovereignty ordinances; no case of foodborne illness has been attributed to any producer operating under the ordinance. Under the Wyoming Food Freedom Act, producers in that state can sell any food product other than meat without regulation; in the 4-1/2 years since the law went into effect, no one operating under the Act has been found to make anyone sick. The same goes for the Utah Homemade Food Act which went into effect over a year-and-a-half ago, that Act allows the sale of all foods other than meat and raw dairy from the producer direct to the consumer without regulation.

The track record in these states indicates that NDDH’s proposed rules would hurt food safety in North Dakota if they become law. Some producers currently selling under the FFA will not be able to afford the cost of compliance if a license is required for the foods they sell require; others currently producing safe and nutritious food will stop if the law requires them to get a license because they don’t want a government inspector in their home kitchens. Fewer local producers will likely result in more purchases of industrial food which has a higher rate of foodborne illness outbreaks then foods produced under the FFA. The more producers operating under the cottage food law the better the public health is served. Instead of trying to dilute the FFA, there are ways NDDH could be spending taxpayer dollars productively to work with cottage food producers. Farmer LeAnn Harner, a leader in the North Dakota Food Freedom Movement, pointed out that the department could help provide education, equipment, and free testing of recipes to cottage food producers.² The more cottage food producers there are, the safer the food supply, the stronger the local economy, the more self-sufficient communities will be in food production, and the better the health of North Dakota residents.

NDDH has a chance to be an agency that promotes the production and sale of nutritious food rather than being a bureaucracy that restricts it or, in the words of North Dakota Representative Daniel Johnston (R-Kathryn), “the Department of Control”.³

North Dakota residents have until October 12th to comment on the proposed rules. It is important to call and or email NDDH asking that they withdraw the proposed rules. The phone number for the Division of Food and Lodging is 1-701-328-1291 or 1-800-472-2927; the email address is foodandlodging@nd.gov.

Please take action now.

If you are a producer affected by the proposed rules, let NDDH know what products you sell and how the Food Freedom Act has helped your business.

Consumers should let NDDH know what healthy nutrient-dense products the Food Freedom Act has enabled them to purchase direct from producers.

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[1] Harner, LeAnn. “Testimony of Cottage Food Rules”. North Dakota Department of Health hearing on proposed rules, Bismarck, North Dakota. October 2, 2019.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Dura, Jack. “North Dakota Department of Health accused of ‘arrogance’, confusion in proposed cottage food rules”, Bismarck Tribune, October 2, 2019. Accessed at https://bismarcktribune.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/north-dakota-department-of-health-accused-of-arrogance-confusion-in/article_d800a478-ac7d-5a88-8a6c-2f841cf81b96.html

</ br> photo by XXX from Pixabay

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