Sorry, but, WTF? "Not worth it"? That's what kills local markets - the idea that a few purchases here and there are not worth it. I know a lot of those folks from PA who wake up at 3:30 am to drive to the many NYC greenmarkets, they count on these markets for their living, and as you might recall, no farms, no food. I support the local markets to the greatest degree possible, it's not only good for you, it's good for your long-term planning and prospects, in all senses of the word.

Not worth it - as in, these are the same people that are at Atlas Park on the week end - not worth an hour drive to get that little selection. If I'm going to drive an hour, I can be in Suffolk or Northern NJ, at a real farm stand, with a lot more choices, and a better selection

That said, it IS worth walking across the Street on Thursdays to check out the ONE farmer who shows up, and the Apple folks in the fall (that said, I USUALLY end up at one of their competitors actually up by the orchid the last Sunday in September, and a buy about 1-2 bushels of apples

I must say that I agree with everything Martin has said. Although I do have my own chickens, I do refrigerate the eggs. I've never understood the NEED to not refrigerate them when you have a refrigerator, but that's more of a personal issue.

The big bugaboo with raw milk (according to the government which is both ignorant, supercilious and taking payoffs) seems to be the bacteria Listeria. It can be found in some raw milk in minute amounts. Our USDA doesn't want ANY Listeria in milk, despite the fact that illnesses from Listeria in raw milk in the U.S. come to the grand total of zero. Yep.

If you have chickens and like to eat raw egg yolks in egg nog, all you have to do is collect one egg from each hen and have them tested for salmonella, to see if they have it in their egg-forming mechanism. None of them showed up with salmonella? My, my, what a surprise!

All the problems with animal protein in the U.S. comes from the combination of filth and high-density confinement operations, and filth and poor slaughtering practices. And stupidity.

The U.S. watched Britain dealing with BSE (Mad Cow Disease) for ten years. It didn't take long to discover that BSE was being transmitted by feeding cow remnants (waste, garbage) to live cows. They knew this, yet U.S. feed companies continued to add beef trash to cattle feed. Our USDA knew it, and they didn't say a word against using beef trash in cattle feed. All these complacent bozos just kept on doing what they'd been doing for years, and then here in Washington State, in a slaughterhouse just ten miles down I-5 from me, a cow showed up with BSE. Surprise!

The 'hot' version of E. coli O157:H7 was unknown until 1982. When 1.2 million pounds of of beef contaminated with it is recalled (3 days ago), where do you think it came from? From Joe Smith's 20 head that graze 200 acres of clean grass pasture, or from some crowded, heavily-medicated, manure-buried feedlot containing several thousand animals that spend their life shoulder-to-shoulder with thousands of others? As far as I've ever read, there has been no case of this contamination in grass-fed cattle in the U.S. In 2007, the U.S. produced 26.2 MILLION head of feedlot cattle. THIS is where the contamination is coming from.

And neither the USDA nor the feedlot cattle corporations want to clean up their mess. Instead, they are touting the advantages of irradiation. What they really want to do is continue to produce filthy meat, and just zap it with radiation to kill the bacteria. Is this what you want? It's like taking a steak, dipping it in liquid manure, then pouring bleach all over it. It's still filthy meat. YUM! I'll have seconds!

There has been some indication that microwaving food damages the molecules, which has some negative affects on the quality of the food, creating radiolytic compounds. So let's irradiate ALL of our food, just because most Americans have been trained to eat garbage and filth.

Why can't we just have clean food? Is this too much to ask?

Sue

I treat every gun as if it is loaded and I treat all raw meat and eggs as if they are contaminated, even if I'm a direct blood relative of the cow or chicken.

The good news is, all you have to do it cook it and its safe.


Absolutely! Its called COOKING.


Uh, absolutely not.

Ah, we know everything about everything, eh?

Sue