DesertFox- wrote:
Jay, I guarantee you'd be saying the opposite if we didn't have the USDA or FDA. It's nonsense to claim we don't need them when you reap all the benefits they provide and then say "Look, no diseases! We don't need 'em!" People will send food back if someone loses a hair through the hairnet, and you think sourcing untraceable, unknown-quality meat is kosher? (PUN!!!) Just because you can cook disease-ridden meat to look like the clean kind doesn't mean it's not disgusting and unsafe.
Not to mention the other important letter in FDA. Go to a GMP facility and ask what an FDA audit is like. It's their job to be sticklers over issues like safety, traceability, and quality of drugs. When you're dealing with life-or-death medicines or things you inject into your goddamn bloodstream, it's incredibly important to be well-regulated (and not in the 2nd Amendment sense of a "well-regulated militia" , I mean actually regulated).
Have you ever bought food from a roadside stand? What about from a farmer's market? Did you get sick? I've bought food from them many times, all of which is uninspected and unregulated. Guess what? Never got sick. I washed the veggies I bought just like I wash the veggies I buy from the supermarket. I cooked the meat, and I put the cheese in the refrigerator. I trusted the farmer or seller to not shit on my food and give me e.coli poisoning.
The USDA and FDA largely do nothing. Only a tiny fraction of all food is ever tested before it reaches the market. Their primary role is not preventative, but reactive after people have already gotten sick. They'll do an investigation and try to find and fine the source. It really requires a full time agency to do police work
What has made people less likely to get sick over the past century has got nothing to do with the government and everything to do with SURPRISE! Refrigeration, and a ton of research conducted by the industry in getting food to distant markets without losing a ton of money to food spoilage. It ain't the FDA and USDA keeping you safe, it's in the best interest of the food industry to provide you with healthy food.