Food Safety

I recently received information from a government agency about on-farm bio security and food safety. It listed plenty of things that I would need to do if I wished to sell the food I produce to customers such as the food bank, schools, institutions, supermarkets, and such. I'm truely amazed what a mess our food system has gotten into that such requirements are now necessary. Our government sees commercially produced foods to be rather hazardous, actually dangerous and at times lethal. E. coli, listeria, toxoplasmosis, salmonella, campylobacter, norovirus , botulism, cryptosporidium, cyclosporiasis, just to name some for the current buzzwords. Contaminated food is far to common, in my way of thinking. 

By taking responsibility for most of my own food, I side step most of the "food poisoning" contaminants associated with modern foods. (I also eliminate all the chemicals found in commercial foods too.) Of course it's up to me myself to correctly cleanse and handle my own food. I totally accept that responsibility. 

I deem the fact that I'm avoiding the various problems and concerns with commercial foods to be side benefit of homesteading. It wasn't the reason I got into doing this. But the more that I'm learning about the state of commercially produced foods, the more I'm interested in producing my own. Besides, I'm getting to an age where food poisoning could kill me. Kind of a scary thought, for real. 

So in my own mind, homesteading has added a new line to its definition......

....to produce one's own clean and safe foods, to take responsibility for one's own food safety.....