Topic: It’s not illegal to use real strawberries, it’s just impossible if you don’t wan - page 4. (Read 5450 times)

And that *has* happened under severe regulation as well, like that German organic farm which killed tenths of people a couple months ago.

Why is it so hard to see the dramatic difference between violently imposed regulations, what's every government regulation is, and voluntarily chosen regulations, or "certifications"? Isn't it obvious that the latter *will* work better? Since they need producers to choose to get certified, they can't impose arbitrary stupid rules like the ones we commonly see in state regulations, otherwise producers will boycott them. And consumers should be always free to choose between certified producers* or take the chances with non certified ones, or those with "unknown certifications". Why should the lady in this typical example be required to abide to strict rules if she only sells her ice cream locally, to people who know her? And even if somebody who doesn't know her is willing to take a chance, he should be free to do so.

Learn one thing: state regulations are there only to protect established industries against competition. It has nothing to do with protecting consumers.

Every law that slightly harms a large and disperse number of people while intensively benefits a small group of people will be approved. That's the basic rule of public choice, people won't even care to know about regulations that potentially harms them just a little, since the cost of even knowing about them is higher than the cost it imposes on them. It is a rational behavior not to know about these laws being approved. On the other hand, the small number of people which will largely benefit from the law will probably be among those writing it, and lobbying hard ($$$) to get it approved.


* Actually, IMHO in a true free market consumers possibly wouldn't even need to care about certifications, that would be handled before the retail. Consumers would only need to know in which retailers they trust, and good retailers would then require proper certifications from producers they don't fully trust. But maybe there would be consumer-oriented certifications as well, one can't predict that.

It's not lobbying against regulation, the article just says the regulation in this case clearly made to benefit the big industrial players. It doesn't say down with all regulations at all.

Like when fresh fish, peas or beans get frozen? You can freeze fresh strawberries without a problem...

Like in a restaurant where you can eat a fresh salad with fresh fruits?
They have to transport it to their restaurant too. Fresh ingredients must be processed and eaten asap, true. No difference in the ice cream case. But this kind of strict regulation is imho Bullshit. In Italy you can get fresh ice cream made with seasonal fresh fruits and raw milk from the local milk farmer in nearly every village. Have you ever heard "Don't eat ice cream in Italy, it will make you sick"? All that people dying every day because they ate ice cream in italy...thousands!!!...it's all over the newz!!!1
I'm much more afraid of not knowing how dirty some restaurant's kitchen is than of fresh ice cream

I disagree. Regulations don't change the presence of spoiled food.

She should sell her ice cream without regulations and be responsible for it. If you're going to introduce all these regulations and she follows them to the letter, the IHDA (whatever it is) should be responsible for the end product; but of course, the IHDA would never be held accountable.

In a free market, private 'regulators' develop and act as auditors who take responsibility (i.e. pay if sued) for the product after inspection. But with government intervention, you get worse products & higher costs.

It does not miss the point.
If it happens the damage is already done and without regulations you can defend yourself by saying "that's what the customer wants".
Also a web of trust won't help (or at least will be slow) if you consider there are big b2b vendors that sell tons of food at a time, you as a customer don't even know where say the meat you buy at a super market came from.

You know, I don't think you should not be able to choose the product you want, but to be able to do so you a) have to know the relevant data which only works if they are printed on the package and are easy to understand and b) it must be assured that the product matches said description.
You simply don't have the choice to say "I don't want ice cream that won't survive eating it over the course of a week" if you don't know which product that applies to or you can't trust the information you have because it is from the same company that produces the stuff.
Here in germany food companys have succesfully blocked a law that simply required to print more information onto the package because they fear an informed customer wouldn't buy their stuff if he knows whats he eats... think about it.

This, combined with the massive amounts of people that are jobless in the current system, makes me think it likely that the grey, unregulated, person-to-person economy will massively increase in the coming decade.

The "wall street economy" (with their government lobbyist and supporters) is effectively starting to exclude a larger and larger part of the population.

Those people either cannot afford the bigco's products anymore because their job was automated away, or want more "real" products which are no longer for sale through official channels; either because they are deemed unhealthy, dangerous, or otherwise "bad" by the government nannies.

Nice lobbying against regulations, but have you even started to think about the consequences of removing them ?
This might be an example of how the particular regulations are (maybe) not fit for a particular scenario, and maybe they should be adepted.
But the product in question is simply does not match hygiene standards for a product designed to be stored.
I am sure it is fine if served directly by the manufacturer, but as non-pasteurized milk is used and fresh fruit is added it can and will grow dangerous concentrations of bacteria especially fast if transported and stored.

I am not saying you should *trust* regulations, also I don't like overly expensive certification procedures, but without regulations people *will* sell you spoiled food. This *has* happened and lifes are at stake.

http://absurdresults.wordpress.com/2011/08/09/its-not-illegal-to-use-real-strawberries-its-just-impossible-if-you-dont-want-to-do-something-illegal/

So fucked up. The government officials outright recommend not using natural ingredients.

And this is the perfect conclussion: