Everything I Want to do is Illegal: War Stories from the Local Food Front

This month I’ve been looking at the farmer’s who keep our country fed, making this weeks book Everything I Want to do is Illegal: War Stories from the Local Food Front by Joel Salatin. So let’s do this.

So, the first book of Salatin’s I read was three weeks ago when I read his Sheer Ecstasy of being a Lunatic Farmer, and there we learned that his family has been one of the pioneers of organic farming and regenerative agriculture. In this weeks book, we learn about just what an uphill battle that has been.

Now, he even jokes in his introduction that when he says Everything I Want to do is Illegal, most people laugh and assume he’s referencing something inane like smoking pot...or even just growing pot. He is not. He’s not inherently against marijuana himself, but it’s not because he has any inherent desire to try it himself, he’s just against government intervention on behalf of freedom loving people’s. Basically, the nanny state has run amok, and prohibition against marijuana is just the tip of the ice berg.

Some of what he’s talking about is dependent on state laws, and so some states are a bit freer than others. Some of it is federal regulations, and those should alarm everyone. What kind of illegal are we talking here? Well, some of the general nuttiness he has encountered while trying to run his small family farm includes:

Federal law prohibits him from slaughtering and dressing his own cows for sale. So he MUST take his cows to a USDA approved abbatoir. Interestingly enough, if his cows experience contamination, it’s most likely to occur at this USDA inspected facility. Because, as someone who is government adjacent, I can confirm when Salatin says that the only thing the inspectors care about is checking that all the boxes are checked. And woe betide the poor factory worker who misses checking a box. He tells one tale of a missed temperature check that resulted in scrapping several thousand pounds of beef. The temperature check before and after were right in target with what was expected. But extrapolating that nothing untoward had happened is beyond the USDA inspector. Charging a small fine, like $50 or even $500 for missing that temperature check...totally beyond the scope of their jobs. That one missed check resulted in thousands of dollars of beef being scrapped. Just remember that, when you’re looking at the price of beef at WinCo. Government does not care that the meat is actually healthy and fine to eat. They care that a box was not checked properly.

And for the record...if I’m the factory worker and I see the kind of bullshit that results in that kind of loss...I’m real fucking tempted to make up a temperature to put in the box...something that would be expected and in range. Because...fuck the feds. And down that slippery slope lays truly appalling conditions where contaminants DO get a toe hold. As Salatin says many times, you cannot legislate integrity...but yeah. Some bullshit bureaucrat who is just checking boxes costs you thousands of dollars because YOU didn’t check the RIGHT box and the RIGHT time? Temptation to cut corners will run rampant.

Salatin discusses the problems with chicken, raw milk, and dairy, and processing pork. He describes some of the ways he….circumvented….the bullshit laws he found himself surrounded by. I sincerely hope he consulted a lawyer before publishing to ensure the statute of limitations had expired on his million mile chicken.

He discussed why he is NOT certified organic. Side note...if you’ve ever loathed an HOA, then you understand why he is not certified organic. It’s a popularity contest. Some people can afford to jump through the requisite hoops to obtain certification. Some cannot. Salatin just never bothered, because he saw the writing on the wall when people decided certification was a good thing, warned against it, then stepped away from the whole shit show.

He discusses what the government decides is “Best Management Practices” and how those compare to ACTUAL best practices. Salatin discusses how panic in the restaurant industry resulted in unwanted visits from the USDA at his own property. Someone got sick. So the FDA/USDA visited a restaurant that was supplied by Salatin. And because the suspected outbreak salmonella, and everyone knows salmonella comes from poultry, it absolutely must have been Salatin’s home processed salmonella. Spoiler alert: It was not.

His semi-outdoors home processing plant was infinitely cleaner than the USDA certified facility. They also checked his eggs. The eggs were also cleaner. But it’s not USDA certified...it is not REQUIRED to be...different requirements for chicken than for beef. But people still freak the fuck out.

It’s not all doom and gloom. This book was published in 2007 and Salatin discusses the NAIS...the National Animal Identification System. Basically, at one point the USDA thought it was reasonable to RFID tag ALL animals. All trillion of them, domestic farms and pets...to track illness, of course. The good news is, in 2010, this ridiculous scheme was abandoned. I googled it. It was always impractical. But at some point, some unelected bureaucrat believed this was wholly plausible. To implant an RFID chip into EVERY SINGLE ANIMAL for the sake of tracking, so we would know where illness originated. Another spoiler alert...illness doesn’t come from farmers like Salatin, who actually care about the animals under his control.

It comes from Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations...CAFO’s. Think Tyson’s chickens. Think….USDA. Seriously. The USDA does not, in and of itself, process beef. But it DOES provide the recommendation that it is totally ok to feed cows...Herbivores...pieces of other dead cows. This process has been tracked to mad cow disease. There is another possible source of mad cow, identified by Salatin has identified heavy use of insecticides on the forage that cows eat as another possible contaminant contributing to Mad Cow.

As a non-farmer...it’s probably both. Herbivores eating the dead bodies of their fallen comrades is most likely a contributing factor. But the insecticides that poison the food supply of the cows...well, we know that food the cows eat is expressed in their milk. Like Abraham Lincoln’s mother dying of snakeroot poisoning because she drank contaminated milk. This was in the early 19th century. And it was a KNOWN factor in the 19th century. So for at least 200 years we’ve known that what our food eats, impacts us, from a health perspective.

And yet...we continue to feed our food literal shit. No joke… cow feed supplements, at least as of 2007, included chicken manure. That information had me searching for local farmers who do NOT feed their cows chicken shit. What the actual fuck is WRONG with the USDA that they consider eating of shit healthy for any organism?

And yes...I know over the last two weeks I talked about chickens foraging in cow manure. Here’s the thing….the chickens are not eating the shit. They are eating the BUGS which are hatching in the shit. Big difference.

Salatin does provide several recommendations for all these freak outs. He recommends allowing people to opt out of the current food models. Sign a release promising not to sue anyone if you get sick, and you’re free to shop at your local farmer for all your meat and produce. I’d sign that waiver. But I’m big on personal responsibility. Also...the best eggs I’ve ever had have come from friends who have back yard chickens. Also…the best steaks I ever had were grass finished from a quarter cow the husband and I bought from a friend whose parents own a farm.

Salatin discusses the absurdity of how people bypass the USDA on cow purchases. It’s a legal loophole and thank god it exists. We’re waiting to buy another quarter or half cow. Moreso, now that I know cows are fed chicken shit. Truly...it’s almost enough to make me reconsider veganism.

He recommends ending agricultural subsidies. Sounds harsh. But really….those subsidies come from somewhere. Guess where? Hint: four days ago, was national tragedy day...aka April 15… aka tax day. You and I pay those subsidies. This is not a hate on for farmers. He also recommends eliminating grants and concessions to private businesses….like airlines, automakers, ethanol plants, and processing facilities. Too big to fail is bullshit. If a company fucks up that badly, they deserve bankruptcy. Not a taxpayer bail out.

Eliminate funding to land grant universities. This may already be happening. Schools have been failing and I feel like I quite recently saw something about schools closing. Again...land grant means publicly subsidized. Along those same lines, I’m going to throw in get rid of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The easy availability of student loans have directly contributed to the sky rocketing rates of tuition.

Allow ANYONE...ANYONE… to grow, process, and deliver food directly to any consumer who opts in to their service. This truly is a self-selecting process. Because dirty facilities will rapidly close down as people want to see where their food comes from. Salatin is HAPPY to have people come to his farm and see how they process their chickens on slaughter day. Tysons, in comparison, has armed guards and posted no trespassing signs. I know who I trust.

Testing for contaminants should come from the retail packaging. See, processing plants HAVE TO keep processing separate, so they know which customer to charge for the service. So check the retail packing. I’m betting that if they check the packaging, they will find many more problems at CAFO’s then they will at Polyface and other regenerative agricultural centers.

I loved this book. As one might guess, given the very large number of books I have, as I review books I cycle them off my shelves and in to storage. At least until I can build my own little slice of heaven with a 5000 book library. This one will NOT be shuffled into storage. This book will remain on my active shelf until I am able to buy my own farm, and then kept readily available for the inevitable day when the USDA shows up on my doorstep, and I can tell them to kick rocks or return with a warrant.
Review is up on YouTube and Rumble.