"By the way, the idiocy is thinking that because big food companies are inspected that they are safe.

No.

The true idiocy is in asserting that because some laws are poorly written, all laws are bad.

Which is what you are doing.

I do not know how much more plainly I can explain this. I have shown you the Emergency Response Guidebook for shipping hazmat, shown you the proper operation of organic farms, explained the principles of consumer protection including process design, explained your total inability to discern whether the food you are about to purchase and consume is poisonous, and even linked to a list of fallacies.

And you still do this.

So much for a "science-based" blog.

Return to logic. Point out that some laws are badly written and need to be amended.

From the comfort of a home built to codes you apparently don't think should exist.

"From the comfort of a home built to codes you apparently don't think should exist."

I would take your accusations of excessive hyperbole more seriously if you didn't resort to excessive hyperbole. I've read this website for a couple of years now and maybe I have missed Amy's well known stance on all building codes.

(Not to say you don't have a point. I think the nature of blogging tends to lead towards a little excessive hyperbole.)

I'm fine with a simple notice that this product was not inspected. The risks with baked goods and lemonade seem minimal to me.

On the other hand, pets and people (in Japan) have died from eating food imported from China, despite alleged government inspections. I may well be overreacting, but I generally try to avoid them myself.

Requiring a hawkers permit for something like this is a bit nuts. This is where "zero tolerance" bites, because the neighborhood cop should just look the other way. Nope, didn't see that, not gonna see that.

Kitchen inspections: the really dangerous places are kitchens in continuous use. A commercial kitchen (or factory) that is in use for long hours every day can be a breeding ground for harmful bacteria and fungi that would never get off the ground in a private kitchen, simply because a private kitchen has long periods where is it not in use.

Laws regulating "cottage food" do have a point. An amateurs producing food on a continuous basis in a private kitchen can be the worst combination of both worlds: the dangers of a commercial kitchen without the hygenic know-how to prevent problems. Plus, private kitchens aren't built to be cleaned the way commercial kitchens are.

But again, it's that zero tolerance attitude: a lemonade stand isn't even cottage-food.

I have shown you the Emergency Response Guidebook for shipping hazmat, shown you the proper operation of organic farms, explained the principles of consumer protection including process design, explained your total inability to discern whether the food you are about to purchase and consume is poisonous, and even linked to a list of fallacies.

And yet how many food execs go to jail for failing to follow those standards?

How many food inspectors miss things or take bribes?

How often do you see food recalls fr things that have been on the shelf for wees/months and are only being recalled not because government inspectors found something, but because multiple people got sick?

Alos this:
On the other hand, pets and people (in Japan) have died from eating food imported from China, despite alleged government inspections. I may well be overreacting, but I generally try to avoid them myself.

And not just in Japan

This reminds me of a "Dennis the Menace" comic book from many years ago. Dennis and his friends are trying to sell lemonade, but no one is buying. Then they get the idea to sell a different kind of lemonade, like how the circus sells pink lemonade. They go into the house and put every liquid that was colorful, like hot sauce, in the lemonade. The first customer, an older woman, thinks it's iced tea. She drinks some and has flames shooting out of her mouth! It wouldn't surprise me if something like this happened for real in that town, which is why law enforcement cracks down on that.

Never bought a brownie at a neighborhood stand that would kill if ingested, but have bought some from neighbors' kids that could break teeth, and would be hazardous if thrown. However, I was encouraging their initiative, not judging gourmet skills (& neighbors have returned the favor).

Inspectors breaking up lemonade stands is a good one on slow news days, but the rules have to apply to everyone. In my area it's common for women to sell tamales. Of course you know they're unlicensed, so it's a buyer beware kind of thing. My husband occasionally brings home such stuff from work at apartment complexes because a little old lady made it for him and he's been in her house and seen her kitchen, but having seen other seller's kitchens, he can tell you why it's regulated. Some of them are shockingly dirty. I'm talking people sleeping in the kitchen floor, underwear drying on the ceiling fan kind of dirty.

Yay, just caught that the story and I are both talking about Texas.

The problem with these lemonade stands is there's not enough money in them to pay for permits and inspections. If the bureaucratic beast can't feed on them, it must crush them.

From the comfort of a home built to codes you apparently don't think should exist.

Ah, the assumption parade.

The cute wooden shack I share with my dog and three million termites was built in 1907 from a kit. It wasn't "built to code." It was simply built. It has its quirks, but if I felt it were dangerous, I wouldn't live here.

Oh, and it should be my choice if I eat a brownie from an unlicensed, un"inspected" stand -- and it is yours to not do so.

I also -- gasp! -- regularly eat food friends serve me. None of them have yet to poison me -- not even the friend who finds libertarianism horrifying.

"Return to logic. Point out that some laws are badly written and need to be amended."

Yes, just because we are being buried in laws, just because so many laws are written by lobbyists for their own benefit, just because not even lawyers and lawmakers know or understand more than a fraction of the laws already on the books, just because we are approaching 1% of the national population in prison, just because law and lawmaking are a trillion dollar industry, just because 'Law Enforcement' at all levels in this country have been converted into jack-booted thugs tasked with generating revenue and denying the civil liberties of the people, none of these are reasons not to write more laws so Safety Nazi's can feel good about themselves.

And remember kids, when driving in Dearborn MI Sound your horn when approaching an intersection, so as not to startle any nearby horses, and never take a Bath during a thunderstorm in Detroit, it is a crime.

A fun fact about mayonaise, and so lemonade. There is enough acid (vinegar) in mayonaise so that bacteria are slowly killed by it, it is not a growth medium.

When people get sick from picnic chicken salad, the chicken is responsible. Either the chicken was not cooked through or it was prepared on a chicken-juice contaminated cutting board.

Baked goods are almost sterile after reaching the typical 200 F final temperature. To be dangerous, they would have to be sprinkled with bacteria after baking.

The part about "selling bad, giving-away good" tells everything. The lemonade is not forbidden, but selling it is forbidden. The food laws are motivated by restaurants and commercial kitchens, which want to stop the development of food production for sale outside of currently licensed facilities.

Expensive regulation creates its own supporters. Motto: We had to pay big money to comply with the regulations, so we support everyone being required to do this.

Andrew: A fun fact about mayonaise, and so lemonade. There is enough acid (vinegar) in mayonaise so that bacteria are slowly killed by it, it is not a growth medium.

When people get sick from picnic chicken salad, the chicken is responsible.

According to this 2008 "Really?" piece in the NY Times, mayonnaise can be the culprit if it's a "homemade version that contain unpasteurized eggs." And, even with commercial mayo, "when temperatures rose to those of a hot summer day, the [bacterial] growth increased." However, the increase was "not as much as in samples that did not contain mayonnaise."

Amy: By the way, the idiocy is thinking that because big food companies are inspected that they are safe.

Some people may believe that food from big food companies is 100% safe, guaranteed, because they have been inspected. I suppose you could say that's "idiocy" (and, by the same token, I suppose you could say that 100% certainty about anything in our complex modern world is "idiocy.")

However, I think that the vast majority have a more realistic belief: that while inspections can't guarantee safety, they can (and do) reduce the risk of the food being unsafe.

The questions here are:
1. if it can be determined, how great of a reduction is likely?
2. is that degree of reduction worth the cost?

● This libertarian - "Of necessity, regulations violate people’s rights to property, contract, and trade. Regulations cannot be reformed into good sense. They should be repealed — one and all." -- would answer "doesn't matter" to #1 and a resounding "NO!" to #2.

● At the other extreme, you'd have people who would agree with that libertarian on #1 but have the opposite answer on #2.

● Most of us are probably in the middle, where we agree that a significant reduction in risk is worth the cost -- in $$ and lost liberty -- but not a very minor reduction in risk. And we see something like a lemonade stand in that latter situation.

Amy, I know you're opposed to government regulations (anti-discrimination laws) on businesses when it comes to serving customers, but how do you feel about government regulations on businesses for the purposes of keeping customers safe (healthy)? Are you, like the libertarian above, opposed in principle, or do you agree with some measure of food safety laws?

To JD,

It seems that you were having an oppositional day. It remains true that if you get sick from chicken salad, the overwhelming probability is that the chicken did it.

Yes, you can get sick from raw contaminated eggs, about a 1 in 20,000 chance per egg in the US. Strangely enough, mayonaise made with the usual amount of vinegar or lemon juice becomes safer if left at room temperature for 1 to 3 days. The acid slowly kills any pathogenic bacteria.

About your quote [ "when temperatures rose to that of a hot summer day, the bacterial growth increased." However, the increase was "not as much as in samples that did not contain mayonnaise." ]

Restated positively, bacterial growth was fastest without mayo. The mayo helped to keep the food healthy, but is not a powerful disinfectant.

More at http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/33212/room-temperature-rest-for-fresh-mayo

http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/89275.Fr_d_ric_Bastiat

Frédéric Bastiat (died 1850)
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Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all.
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The point about government regulation: it is costly, untrustworthy, and slow to respond to changing technology. Of course I want 3rd party inspection of many food products, but I don't want the government to do it.

In some cases, I personally don't require inspection at all when the reputation of a brand name gives the incentive to produce a good product. Imagine the result if salmonella were found in Twinkies. Hostess Co. had every incentive to produce safe twinkies or lose its market.

The incentives for government inspection are wrong. The government has no reputation to defend because it is the monopoly provider. It will not reform its practices or impose accountability on itself.

Underwriter's Laboratories is the right model. Let companies buy the inspection which is appropriate. Let the public demand the quality it wants. Remove the fiction that government is always ensuring quality, so that the public demands the proper level of inspection at a reasonable cost.

And egg regulations in the US are a perfect example of poorly constructed non-scientific laws. What the US requires of eggs actually is illegal in most other nations. Even third world ones. We actually increase the risk of food based disease by over-processing which is required by law.