FDA anonymous

I am totally and completly addicted to the FDA. Or at least to the idea that they do something that makes my food safe to eat. I am terrified of food that has not gone through the process of being deemed clean.

 Now exactly what that process might be, I have no idea. I actually can barely guess at what the FDA does, checks out work conditions I suppose, makes sure there is no mold in the fridges, no mouse poop in the panties. Then I suppose there is some random sample selections made that are chemically tested for ecoli and salmonella..but come on - we all know that most government agencies are barely capable of handling the tasks they are given.And anyone who has ever watched a video of an animal butchering plant knows that things don't always follow the FDA's plan. So the fact that most people eat everyday and do not keel over indicates that food is mostly safe to eat with or without the help of the FDA. The trouble with food comes when you buy it from people who don't care about growing or raising good healthy food.

So why then, am I afraid to eat food that I've grown myself, or that comes off my friends organic lemon tree? I just always wonder, how would I know if this food is diseased? How can you tell if some nasty worm lurks inside ready to hijack my intestines? Can you tell by just looking at it? Is it the opposite of books - you can judge the fruit by it's cover? I am so deeply and completely Americanized. I prefer my food freeze dried, homogenized, pasteurized, rubbed in animal fat for shine, stacked neatly under fluorescent lights with a little sticker on the side. I need an intervention, a bee stung, bunny fenced, organically grown intervention!

My friend Mirja has this great blog about how she and her family left New York to move to a cabin in Maine and become homesteaders http://brooklynbumpkin.blogspot.com/2012/12/butter-update-and-confessions-of-crap.html
I love her blog! One thing that is part of homesteading is getting your own food, so she describes her husband bringing home a goose that he had shot and they cooked it and ate it including the heart. I love this image but I keep thinking, how did they know that they could eat it? How did they know it wasn't sick? We all the know that the cause of death in that bird was that he shot it, but how would he know that that bird wasnt horribly sick with West Nile or something and would have died the next day on it's own and now they will eat it and get west nile. Does west nile cook out? Did anyone call the FDA? And how did they know how long to cook a goose heart to be sure it had reached the proper internal temperture? There is no marking for goose heart on my meat thermometer, I checked. How did they even know you could eat a goose heart? And what about brains? Are there rules around eating brains?
It just feels like an awful big job, this idea of me taking full responsibility for what goes into my mouth and body with out getting the imput of three government agencies.

I sure hope I'm up to the task.