Your food is trying to kill you, people are insane, and I-told-you-so about pigz.

It has been an incredible news cycle this morning... where do I even begin?

First up, we see how commercially produced food is doing a terrific job of keeping us all safe. Did everyone see this big recall? Here is the list from the CDC. It was weird to me that some of this is organic food and you'd think it would be better. But, as I understand it, once you get listeria in your production facility it is extremely difficult to get out.

After I saw the news I was out there willing my lettuce to grow - with my mind power.

If you are a small farmer and you want to sell your products to friends and neighbors or maybe at the local farm market you will soon be subject to hellacious food safety regulation. To be fair they do have some exceptions for smaller businesses -  but some of the farmers I know are shaking their heads. This may put a lot of farms out of business or at least dissuade them from even starting. This seems ridiculous when they hold up commercial production as the shining beacon of safety. I have to admit that I'm surprised that frozen foods are now kinda of hinky.
*scratches "buy frozen food" off my list...*

Hurry up, celery!!!

Personally, I can't wait for my garden to hurry up and start producing. I had to buy some celery the other day and I looked at it very suspiciously. At this point I'd rather take my chances from food grown in my dirt and that has very possibly been peed on by dogs than some of the big processors.

Mouse-poison-free onions.

Next, if the listeria from your frozen peas isn't gonna try and kill you.... there is this guy. Honestly what kind of world are we living in that produces this kind of behavior. One of the few 'salad bar' types of set ups that I like to go to is the one at Whole Foods. Now I'm going to be looking at it - and the other customers - kinda funny. It really makes me mad because the near-ish Whole Foods has a really nice Indian food buffet.
*scratches "go to Whole Foods" off my list...*

Potatoes are actually coming along pretty well. Hurry up.

So what are you going to do? Grow your own? Sure! But first a note of caution... your food on the hoof might be trying to kill you also. Violently. A couple of points about this story ...but first I feel like I can give the naysayers a told-you-so... I frequently get angry folks telling me that pigs are gentle loving creatures that just need snuggles.

Yeah.

Here is the hard truth: Pigs can be big, mean, and dangerous and all the snuggling is the world is not going to change the fact that any animal can have a bad day. When you couple that with a powerful animal... well.. things can go badly.

So before you run right out to get your pigz this summer carefully evaluate your facilities and your abilities to handle a large and possibly mean creature. 

Back to my points.....aside from the obvious that I hope these folks recover quickly and I'm very sorry to hear this happened.

1. I take great comfort in the fact that if I was attacked by a mean pig the very first thing my husband would do when we got home would be to walk directly out there and shoot that pig until it was completely dead. Be assured that pig would die a hard death.

2. These folks need better dogs. I'm always glad that I have my Brute Squad with me - even if we don't actually get into the pen with the pigz.  My crew have saved me from being buffaloed by big pigz many times.

3. The funny thing about this report is that they wonder why a pig would do that? Oh honey, pigz don't need a reason. Maybe it was sick or hurt but don't make the mistake of thinking that big, mean, and dangerous animals are reasonable or need a reason to do anything. 

As I said, whenever I talk about this I generally get berated by well meaning people with a "nah-UH!" and then am told I'm just ridiculous or that I'm "afraid of pig." Friends, I assure you that I have zero fear of pigz. I do, however, know what they are capable of so I never put my self in a position where I can be cornered and I always have the dogs with me.

I don't know about you but all of the food news today is crazy. Sometimes I think we should just forget all this work, move to the city, get a condo, and be regular people. But then I see stuff like this and I resolve that we are just going to keep producing our own food.

Good luck, everyone, it's crazy out there!