Long ago it was pointed oout to me that almost no Italian Olive Oil is Italian. If you carefully observe, it notes "packed in Lucca" not made in Italy. That is because most oil is pressed in Tunis, Greece, Turkey, elsewhere and then packed and exported from Italy.
Wait wait there is more... now it is also bogus...
Did you know that the Mob makes money hand over fist by selling you fake olive oil? Olive oil is a $1.5 billion industry in the United States alone. According to Tom Mueller, an intrepid journalist who wrote a scandalously revealing book on the subject, 70% of the extra virgin olive oil sold is adulterated — cut with cheaper oils. Apparently, the mob’s been at it so long, that even most so-called “experts” can’t tell a real olive oil from a fake olive oil based on taste alone.
Read the article for how you can quickly test for real extra virgin olive oil. It is enlightening. But as more and more people come to doubt olive oil, the market for the real thing, not necessarily at a higher price since the mob is not one to reduce price along with a reduction in quality. The change in design would not be in extra virgin olive oil, but in serial number that traces a given bottle back to the California farm that produced it.
This is a geat oppty for anyone who wants to get into the olive oil business. In a free market, when wrongdoing is afoot, competitors can fill the gap.
And this should be a warning to USA food folk. We have a great reputation worldwide for wholesomeness. It pays off. The customer-as-regulator usually works very well. We have a problem when our allows the huge subsidized companies who ship out e coli tainted foods, yet crush the small businesses who have not even made anyone sick. The image might become bad and bad.
The impression of USA foods might change, and that would be very bad for exports. Tactically, small food growers should never fight the FDA as such, since their resources are unlimited, even unsequestered. Fight the rogue FDA agent who is pushing his own agenda. Name names and document every step of the way. Get film, rig cameras. Get public early. Bright lights cast sharp shadows. And get in front of a judge pro se as soon as possible. This involves a US Attorney, who has better things to do than back some rogue agent on a cheese hit.
We already know the FDA cannot inspect everything, and it is economically impossible for them to do it effectively. Therefore it does not happen. Customer injury eventually precipitates FDA inquiry, usually after CDC alarms. That is a bit late.
We are safe because the cook is there, the first and last line of defense. This is the reality, regardless of law and funding. Re-establish this fact, and then let the customer again deal with the producer.
If we stopped there we can push back on any idea that USA products are less than wholesome. Protect our brand! But there is more.
Here is an idea that would be a tremendous moneymaker, something that google would buy for $30 million dollars in 2 years. Create a website that tracks the serial numbers of food produced by big companies.
As a preliminary, note my comments on "traceability" earlier this week. Just about every huge food producer puts serial numbers on its products already. Small producers could do the same. As the food producer ships out, they could send in their serial numbers and description to a website that registers them, say www.IdontFeelSoGood.com, www.greenaroundthegills.com, or for a bad oyster, www.putmeoutofmymisery.org. (Nothing worse, believe me.) Now every time someone eats and gets sick, they can send in the serial numbers on what they ate to this website, which would real time be accepting any others, looking for common products and illness descriptions.
My associates tell me ads on my blog cost eighty cents a click (pay eighty cents a click?) Anyway, imagine what the ads on a website crowded with food poisoned viewers would command. If you've had food poisoning, you know you'd sell your kids for relief. You'd certainly welcome the nearest RN who'd pump your stomach and hook you up to an electrolyte IV for $250, something the website could offer.
Modern statistical analysis would produce non-event, caution and alarm readings to post on the front page. This private initiative would obviate the need for the FDA inspections (well, offer security where in reality there is none now) and eventually replace the CDC.
But more seriously, who better to create the websites above than people working now at the CDC, who'd like to pick up $30 million for their retirement. They'll need at least that after future presidents attached their pensions to pay for, well, whatever.
Budgets will be cut. Work needs to be done. Where are the specific recommendations? Where are the actions aside from street theatre sequestration and fiscal "perils of Pauline" cliffs?
Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.
Wait wait there is more... now it is also bogus...
Did you know that the Mob makes money hand over fist by selling you fake olive oil? Olive oil is a $1.5 billion industry in the United States alone. According to Tom Mueller, an intrepid journalist who wrote a scandalously revealing book on the subject, 70% of the extra virgin olive oil sold is adulterated — cut with cheaper oils. Apparently, the mob’s been at it so long, that even most so-called “experts” can’t tell a real olive oil from a fake olive oil based on taste alone.
Read the article for how you can quickly test for real extra virgin olive oil. It is enlightening. But as more and more people come to doubt olive oil, the market for the real thing, not necessarily at a higher price since the mob is not one to reduce price along with a reduction in quality. The change in design would not be in extra virgin olive oil, but in serial number that traces a given bottle back to the California farm that produced it.
This is a geat oppty for anyone who wants to get into the olive oil business. In a free market, when wrongdoing is afoot, competitors can fill the gap.
And this should be a warning to USA food folk. We have a great reputation worldwide for wholesomeness. It pays off. The customer-as-regulator usually works very well. We have a problem when our allows the huge subsidized companies who ship out e coli tainted foods, yet crush the small businesses who have not even made anyone sick. The image might become bad and bad.
The impression of USA foods might change, and that would be very bad for exports. Tactically, small food growers should never fight the FDA as such, since their resources are unlimited, even unsequestered. Fight the rogue FDA agent who is pushing his own agenda. Name names and document every step of the way. Get film, rig cameras. Get public early. Bright lights cast sharp shadows. And get in front of a judge pro se as soon as possible. This involves a US Attorney, who has better things to do than back some rogue agent on a cheese hit.
We already know the FDA cannot inspect everything, and it is economically impossible for them to do it effectively. Therefore it does not happen. Customer injury eventually precipitates FDA inquiry, usually after CDC alarms. That is a bit late.
We are safe because the cook is there, the first and last line of defense. This is the reality, regardless of law and funding. Re-establish this fact, and then let the customer again deal with the producer.
If we stopped there we can push back on any idea that USA products are less than wholesome. Protect our brand! But there is more.
Here is an idea that would be a tremendous moneymaker, something that google would buy for $30 million dollars in 2 years. Create a website that tracks the serial numbers of food produced by big companies.
As a preliminary, note my comments on "traceability" earlier this week. Just about every huge food producer puts serial numbers on its products already. Small producers could do the same. As the food producer ships out, they could send in their serial numbers and description to a website that registers them, say www.IdontFeelSoGood.com, www.greenaroundthegills.com, or for a bad oyster, www.putmeoutofmymisery.org. (Nothing worse, believe me.) Now every time someone eats and gets sick, they can send in the serial numbers on what they ate to this website, which would real time be accepting any others, looking for common products and illness descriptions.
My associates tell me ads on my blog cost eighty cents a click (pay eighty cents a click?) Anyway, imagine what the ads on a website crowded with food poisoned viewers would command. If you've had food poisoning, you know you'd sell your kids for relief. You'd certainly welcome the nearest RN who'd pump your stomach and hook you up to an electrolyte IV for $250, something the website could offer.
Modern statistical analysis would produce non-event, caution and alarm readings to post on the front page. This private initiative would obviate the need for the FDA inspections (well, offer security where in reality there is none now) and eventually replace the CDC.
But more seriously, who better to create the websites above than people working now at the CDC, who'd like to pick up $30 million for their retirement. They'll need at least that after future presidents attached their pensions to pay for, well, whatever.
Budgets will be cut. Work needs to be done. Where are the specific recommendations? Where are the actions aside from street theatre sequestration and fiscal "perils of Pauline" cliffs?
Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.
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