I am sorry to burst your bubble.
Whether you want to call it food or not is understandable some of the stuff does not taste at all like "old fashioned".
Some of the problem is not farmers though. It is regulations. Everyone wants to be 100% safe and at the same time have 100% natural. Regulations do not allow that ( the natural part). I remember when I was a kid, there was no selling eggs at the end of the drive. My Grandparents took them to town and traded them for credit at the grocery store. Everyone had fresh eggs. Try that now?
We sold milk, We only had a grade B farm. We sold our milk in cans, not a bulk tank. The milk was picked up daily. People from town came out and bought their milk directly from us dipped out of the can. I refused to drink milk in school and still refuse to drink milk. It was homogenized, pasteurized and all the flavor removed.. Try finding a farmer with a can of milk now. let alone buy some from him..
Sure pasteurized might be safer but it is tasteless too. Homogenized makes it look pretty and there is no cream to skim, but it helps make it tasteless too. Removing the bad stuff removes the good stuff too. Remember the milk maids that were immune to small pox?
Remember real smoked hams and bacon? they are illegal now too.
IMHO the food supply we have now is as much of big government over regulation, peoples desire to be 100% safe 100% of the time at all costs. As it is economics and science or the farmer.
Rant over, I have many farmer relatives and they would like to do things different, but they can't either.
BTW I live in my own LALA land too...
It is funny that you are using the word "safe", when in actuality, all the regs cause more harm than good when it comes to food and how it is processed. Milk has an abundance of wonderful nutrients, including disease fighting organisms, that are killed when they are process, pasteurized and homogenized. I grew up drinking out of the bulk tank myself and LOVED milk. I still love a cold glass of it but have adapted to drinking skim/fat free milk over the years, which just is not the same as what I knew growing up.
There is a book called either The Milk Story or The Story About Milk, I can't remember exactly. What really happened is the people in the suburban and urban areas were afraid of raw milk, along with all the lovely government overreaching that has ruined one of the best foods a person can drink. Years ago, doctors actually prescribed whole, raw milk to treat some illnesses. In fact, there is a story about one of the Mayo Brothers who had used milk to cure something that was happening to himself.
We feed the world. Yes, we feed everyone corn and soybeans. Corn is the base for so many foods today that it is just incredible. Factory farming wouldn't be necessary if people would learn to grow or raise their own food and/or buy local. Corporations have created their factory farms and have dictated what is available for food, but consumers continue to support that method. It doesn't take 10 acres to feed a family of 4, if people turned their beloved lawns they spray with chemicals to kill weeds and keep it looking pretty into intensive gardens, and raised their own chickens along with it (or meat rabbits, quail or other small protein sources) they could feed themselves in a natural and chemical free manner, but since about the 1940's our country has been growing further and further away from self-sufficiency, which is also a more healthy way of life.
I could go on and on about this, in case none of you could tell
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