Thoughts

I have a question as usual. What is the stated purpose behind the NAIS program being pushed by the USDA? You've got it, to protect our food supply.

According to those pushing it, NAIS will lead to a safer food supply and give us the ability to track down food borne illness to the source. This, according to advocates, will protect the health of American Citizens and protect American farmers and ranchers markets overseas from disruption.

So, let's look at the latest food borne illness in the US and how it could have been made less virulent with the proper use of NAIS. The latest food borne illness in the US was an outbreak of E.coli. E. coli comes from beef so obviously NAIS would track the beef to the source. So lets look at the news story.

More E. coli infected spinach found in US outbreak

More bags of spinach tainted with toxic E. coli bacteria have been found and could help investigators track down an outbreak that may have killed three people, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Tuesday.

SPINACH!!!??? The E. coli outbreak is in spinach? How do we protect ourselves using NAIS when the food borne illness is in spinach? I guess we will have to start a new program called National Spinach Identification Program. Each and every leaf of spinach will have to have it's own unique 15 digit identification number. This number will have to be recorded for each movement of the leaf from field to, processor, supplier, trucking company, grocery store, to the consumer, who of courses needs to give their name, address, American ID code, and personal signature acknowledging acceptance of the identified spinach and absolving the large corporations of any responsibility in any liability associated with the product. Yea, that's the way the government should handle it to protect us all.

Sounds pretty silly doesn't it. Tracking a leaf of spinach from field to consumer but that's what they want to do with animals. Why animals and not all food products? Or is the NAIS program just a precursor to labeling all food?

That's it, they will expand the NAIS system to include all food products including Spinach. Let's call it the Federal Uniform Calories Key Identification Tracking (FUCK IT). It will go right along with the Real ID program to track everything and everyone.

I, of course, exaggerate here but wanted to point out the fact that the NAIS program would not have helped with the latest food borne illness and would not significantly affect any future ones either. NAIS is not about protecting the food supply but protecting the large corporations from liability for their slaughter practices and to protect the Packers market.

An Identification number never stopped a disease, it just gives the government an excuse to help the Meat Packers.