Thoughts on Food Safety

I’ve been thinking about this whole food safety problem the past few days. While it seems logical to me that a tracking system isn’t going to solve the problem, I was a bit stumped as to what would solve the problem. Then I got into a discussion about the benefits of raw milk yogurt and the strength of the diverse microbe populations in raw milk and it hit me. If we were eating fresh, local food then we would all develop a healthy balance of the microbes existent in the local community. This would eliminate the problem of some virulent strain getting out of control and causing disease. Local food should make local immune systems stronger. This is what we do in the garden when we add compost or use compost tea as a foliar spray. Having a robust, diverse microbe community in the garden keeps the plants healthier. The same should work for human communities. What I can’t imagine is a government program that could produce such a result.