Anthony sends in a link to a blog post to wit:
Generating over $12 billion in annual sales, kosher food is big business. It is also an unheralded story of successful private-sector regulation in an era of growing public concern over the government’s ability to ensure food safety. Kosher uncovers how independent certification agencies rescued American kosher supervision from fraud and corruption and turned it into a model of nongovernmental administration.
Yes, I too have selected "kosher" on long flights to get a better meal. Whereas the government is only reactive, kosher is proactive. I recall going into a local grocery store in my youth and seeing the Rabbi overseeing the butcher. Never in my life have I seen an inspector otherwise in a grocery store.
Currently, a network of over three hundred private certifiers ensures the kosher status of food for over twelve million Americans, of whom only eight percent are religious Jews. But the system was not always so reliable. At the turn of the twentieth century, kosher meat production in the United States was notorious for scandals involving price-fixing, racketeering, and even murder. Reform finally came with the rise of independent kosher certification agencies which established uniform industry standards, rigorous professional training, and institutional checks and balances to prevent mistakes and misconduct.
Exactly. There is a transition where order emerges out of chaos if the free market is allowed to flower. I haven't read the book but it is cited at the original blog, so buy it through there is you are interested.
And until someone does something about it, note that of the millions of meals served at Indian Reservation Casinos, there has never been a case of food poisoning. Not yet. It will happen. But note that Indian Reservations are exempt from county health inspections.
We need markets, not states.
Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.
Generating over $12 billion in annual sales, kosher food is big business. It is also an unheralded story of successful private-sector regulation in an era of growing public concern over the government’s ability to ensure food safety. Kosher uncovers how independent certification agencies rescued American kosher supervision from fraud and corruption and turned it into a model of nongovernmental administration.
Yes, I too have selected "kosher" on long flights to get a better meal. Whereas the government is only reactive, kosher is proactive. I recall going into a local grocery store in my youth and seeing the Rabbi overseeing the butcher. Never in my life have I seen an inspector otherwise in a grocery store.
Currently, a network of over three hundred private certifiers ensures the kosher status of food for over twelve million Americans, of whom only eight percent are religious Jews. But the system was not always so reliable. At the turn of the twentieth century, kosher meat production in the United States was notorious for scandals involving price-fixing, racketeering, and even murder. Reform finally came with the rise of independent kosher certification agencies which established uniform industry standards, rigorous professional training, and institutional checks and balances to prevent mistakes and misconduct.
Exactly. There is a transition where order emerges out of chaos if the free market is allowed to flower. I haven't read the book but it is cited at the original blog, so buy it through there is you are interested.
And until someone does something about it, note that of the millions of meals served at Indian Reservation Casinos, there has never been a case of food poisoning. Not yet. It will happen. But note that Indian Reservations are exempt from county health inspections.
We need markets, not states.
Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.
1 comments:
Good article - I'm not Jewish, but I think I'm going to start eating Kosher food anyway. I recall reading an article recently about how the big milk companies are trying to be allowed to add ASPARTAME, which has its own health issues, to milk, WITHOUT any labeling - this is very troubling. I'm really disgusted with how the big food companies manufacture and process food that we eat - I try to eat food that has not been processed in any way, or minimally, - fresh fruit and vegetables, whole meat (chicken breast and beef), absolutely NO hamburger or hotdog meat. I've read recently that even tuna fish has been mislabeled, when it is actually some other kind of fish. Unbelievable that we have these problems today with our food.
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