The un-crunchy gummint
[Rod Dreher  03/10 06:42 PM]

Diane from Oklahoma writes to extol the virtues of her local food co-op saying that she started thinking about the politics and morality of how she spent her food dollars after reading articles about a particular chicken processor that made its illegal aliens work in dangerous conditions, and when they would get injured, would ship them back to their country of origin and forget about them. So that’s one thing that got her to go to the Oklahoma Food Co-op. She writes:

It is an all-volunteer food coop, win which we order on-line, the producers bring their orders to a central location, and then volunteers take the food out to pick-up sites. Our family now orders the bulk of our meat, eggs, cheese, coffee, and laundry detergent through the coop.

We were particularly happy with the chicken we order through the coop. Alas, due to new government regulations, we no longer have the convenience of ordering from our favorite and closest producer and having pick-up through our coop. That's because Oklahoma has a law that chickens must be processed through a USDA-inspected facility in order to be sold through a third party. We do not have such a facility in Oklahoma. So, my coop chicken choices are to drive my favorite farmer's farm to pick up my chicken (rather than get same-day delivery through the coop) or to choose the one Oklahoma producer who is fortunate enough to live near a bordering state (and mean that my chicken has a much longer drive to get to me).

Not the end of the world, of course. But I bet my local chicken farmer produces a superior product and under more humane conditions to both bird and human than the cheap chicken that passes USDA approval from Mega Producer.

As to the people who wail about the Food Police at schools ... There are those of us who remember a time when there were no vending machines at school (and even gum was verboten in the classroom) and an overweight child was a rarity. Somehow those of us who grew up before 1970 managed just fine with an occasional candy bar or soft drink and neither at school.

I am not trying to take away anyone's Twinkie. At the same time, I don't want the corporatization/globalization monster to rule that Twinkies and cheap chicken are my only and/or easiest food choices.