yet another food topic--Farmer's Markets

Whenever I can get it.My big peeve right now is not so much produce as meat.
Our local supermarket suppliers (we only have two) are all polluting their products with a 12-14 % phosphate salt solution to "enhance moisture". Phoooey. The locals don't even seem to notice, but I won't buy the stuff - it tastes salty too. The kicker is, you have to pay a premium price to get "all natural" pork or "Smart Chicken" (kind of tells you something about the other chicken, doesn't it?).So the damn food-processing industry is now charging us extra to NOT contaminate our food. Makes me furious. Corporate America is truly responsible for the poor state of health most people have in this country.This message has been edited by EZscience, 03-22-2006 02:31 PM

Yes, for natural 'organic' production I agree a premium is justified for the greater costs of production involved.But in this case you are essentially paying the same company extra to NOT comtaminate your food. And look at it this way - they are actually getting to sell salt water by weight for the price of meat!
It should not be allowed by law, but the food industry lobbyists have the FDA in their pockets. They are no better than the pharmaceutical companies.

Stop - you're making me jealous.
I used to be able to do that kind of thing all the time when I lived in rural British Columbia.

I agree again. But if your local comnunity does not contain discerning shoppers, you end up screwed. I don't like Walmart either, but it is the only place to get decent produce here a lot of the time. We can't even get decent whole grain breads or imported cheeses at our other supermarket anymore because no one else buys them. I end up making my own bread and ordering my specialty cheeses from - you guessed it - Zingerman's.

Yes, it's getting harder and harder for the local producer and the small hobby farmer. My ex-wife is one of the latter - has had nightmares over senseless bird flu panics in BC - not being allowed to sell any of her organic chickens even though they were perfectly healthy.To make matters worse, the commodity groups representing large farming interests are putting more and more funding into 'value-added' research (read more food processing and contamination for increased profit) and taking money out of 'production-oriented' research. That includes funding for the kind of research I do that seeks more environmentally friendly production and pesticide alternatives.