4 ms·

The concept of buying from the farmer next door doesn't only encapsulate less distance (meaning less time and fewer chances for the cold chain to be broken), bu

The concept of buying from the farmer next door doesn't only encapsulate less distance (meaning less time and fewer chances for the cold chain to be broken), but also an element of trust. You can view the facilities, and make a judgement about the cleanliness -- as you might in a restaurant before considering the beef tartare -- and you have likely been buying from this farmer for some time.

schwartzworld 6y ago
Ah yes, using your expert knowledge of food safety practices and cow biology to tell if you are eventually going to consume contaminated milk. It's coming out of the tap contaminated. Food can be contaminated at any number of places along the supply chain, but I don't see how trust enters into it. It's like trusting that you won't be served a bad oyster, impossible to rule out at even the nicest, most "trustworthy" establishment.
- _-___________-_ 6y ago
  If you think that non-experts can't make a judgement about food safety that, while not being perfect, is still useful, then I don't think we will agree about much.
  - schwartzworld 6y ago
    I think that certain kinds of risks are just risks regardless of your "judgement". If you want to drink raw milk, that's cool, but don't kid yourself that you can tell the safety by the cut of the farmer's jib.
    - _-___________-_ 6y ago
      It's just not black and white like that. You can tell a lot of useful things about the food safety of an establishment by looking at it. If the farmer's equipment is filthy, or she keeps chickens in the same room she processes the milk, I'm probably not gonna drink milk from there. If it's all spotless, and there are clearly systems and processes being followed, I feel reasonably safe (I've been drinking raw milk most of my life and never once became ill from doing so). These kinds of risks are similar to the risks of eating beef tartare or oysters (things that I also do fairly regularly, including sometimes in developing countries!), and humans have been reasonably successfully managing these risks for a long time, meanwhile some other humans seem to massively overstate the risks for some reason.

schwartzworld 6y ago

Ah yes, using your expert knowledge of food safety practices and cow biology to tell if you are eventually going to consume contaminated milk. It's coming out of the tap contaminated. Food can be contaminated at any number of places along the supply chain, but I don't see how trust enters into it. It's like trusting that you won't be served a bad oyster, impossible to rule out at even the nicest, most "trustworthy" establishment.

_-___________-_ 6y ago
If you think that non-experts can't make a judgement about food safety that, while not being perfect, is still useful, then I don't think we will agree about much.
- schwartzworld 6y ago
  I think that certain kinds of risks are just risks regardless of your "judgement". If you want to drink raw milk, that's cool, but don't kid yourself that you can tell the safety by the cut of the farmer's jib.
  - _-___________-_ 6y ago
    It's just not black and white like that. You can tell a lot of useful things about the food safety of an establishment by looking at it. If the farmer's equipment is filthy, or she keeps chickens in the same room she processes the milk, I'm probably not gonna drink milk from there. If it's all spotless, and there are clearly systems and processes being followed, I feel reasonably safe (I've been drinking raw milk most of my life and never once became ill from doing so). These kinds of risks are similar to the risks of eating beef tartare or oysters (things that I also do fairly regularly, including sometimes in developing countries!), and humans have been reasonably successfully managing these risks for a long time, meanwhile some other humans seem to massively overstate the risks for some reason.