Something I’m painfully aware of, but I think a lot of people don’t realize, is that safety regulations are not created prematurely, to prevent hypothetical problems. Every regulation out there is, at best, the story of someone’s (usually many someones’) very worst day \u2014 more often, regulations are only made after there are deaths, sometimes many deaths. And even then, the survivors are often required to fight, sometimes for years, to get regulations in place. Many fields have a variation on the saying, “our regulations are written in blood.” Some devastating, but related, stories along these lines:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This post is about food, though. So. The FDA was created due to widespread “adulteration and misbranding of foods” in the 19th century, as the FDA’s page on its own origins<\/a> says, while the USDA’s history<\/a> hits some similar points but ultimately talks more about Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle<\/em>, which exposed the egregious behavior of the meat-packing industry in the early 1900s. (By the way, here’s an article about the differences between the FDA and the USDA<\/a>.) Scientific American<\/em>‘s interview with Deborah Blum<\/a> paints a more vivid picture than either agency’s article. Seriously, take a break from my post and go read it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As someone with a compromised immune system, I’ve known for years that, even with a nominally functional (badly underfunded) FDA and USDA, our food system is deeply imperfect, and participating in it is not without risks. I’ve watched E. coli, salmonella, and listeria show up on lettuces, onions, and packaged meats (that’s just off the top of my head from the last year or two), sickening and sometimes killing people. There was also that lead in cinnamon issue, not that long ago. Our food safety organizations and enforcement mechanisms traced these contaminants to their origins, made sure items were pulled from shelves, announced recalls, and saved lives; I’m glad they were there, even as I mourn that they weren’t fast enough to save everyone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But now we are losing these safeguards, imperfect though they were. Because of staff and budget cuts, the FDA has stopped testing dairy products<\/a> and dropped a lot of their routine food safety checks<\/a>. States (some states? most of them? very unclear) are still doing testing, but if I’m reading this food safety law publication <\/a>correctly, they are dependent on national budgets. It’s also unclear what happens in the states that aren’t on the FDA’s contract programs list (second accordion)<\/a>, like Maine. Either way, as the history articles linked earlier in this post point out, our federal food safety departments were created because state testing varied wildly, industry couldn’t be trusted, and people were dying as a result. This article from Risk Management Magazine<\/em><\/a> does a great job of laying out what the current risks are, albeit from a business, rather than a consumer, point of view.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is already going to be a monster-sized post, so I don’t plan to talk about tariffs, except to acknowledge that I stocked up on rice, beans, coffee, pasta, flour, powdered milk, some canned foods, and sugar before the cuts at the USDA and FDA began. The financial situation in this country is a constant background noise to all of this, though, and will certainly impact what is available and what things cost. Right now (at least where I live) it costs more to buy locally-grown foods, but I get the sense that non-local is catching up rapidly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A few other rules that inform my thinking:<\/p>\n\n\n\n At this point I need to point out that I am not a doctor, a food scientist, a microbiologist, or a public health expert<\/strong>; I’m just some internet rando, albeit one who is fairly well-read on this stuff. Especially when I admit to taking shortcuts, I’m not suggesting that what I do is best practice or safe<\/strong>; I’m mitigating risk as best I can with limited time, energy, and money, not avoiding it completely. When in doubt about safety, the best approach is to follow the most cautious guidance you can find (and if you find people being more cautious than I am on any of this, I’d love to learn from them; please feel free to share links!), but literally any steps you take toward reducing risk are positive and probably worth taking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As someone higher-risk than average, I’ve learned out of self defense that E. coli can show up at any point in the food system, including at its origin\u2014I already knew that upstream factory farms are a pathogen risk for any crop (via watering), but my 2023-2024 Master Gardener training taught me that E. coli and other pathogens can live in healthy soil and be splashed onto outer plant parts even with fresh rainfall. I’ve gathered that listeria is more likely to show up in industrial manufacturing scenarios, or at the deli counter, but it’s a risk in raw milk and soft cheeses, too. I associate salmonella with poultry and eggs, but I know it has also shown up in bagged vegetables via cross-contamination. That’s a lot and scary, but on the bright side, I’ve also learned that heating food to a consistent internal temperature of at least 165\u00b0 F is sufficient to kill listeria, E. coli, campylobacter, salmonella, and H5N1 (“bird flu”). So I don’t tend to worry overmuch about pathogens in hot foods. As a result, these days, I’m mostly on the inverse of a raw food diet. I also\u2014and this is actual advice that you should take, too\u2014carefully follow safe food handling practices<\/a> <\/strong>in my kitchen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I’m repeating myself just the tiniest bit in saying this, but I want to introduce this resource: I’ve dropped nearly all of the foods off the “riskier choice” column of the CDC’s “Safer Food Choices for People with Weakened Immune Systems” guide<\/a>. Full disclosure: 1) in theory, I haven’t fully dropped sushi; because I know it’s a risk, I’m picky about where I get it and do so rarely. I usually make my own maki rolls with cooked ingredients when I get a hankering. 2) Also, I’ve eaten brie as recently as 2024; I just baked it first.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With H5N1 causing outbreaks in poultry and dairy herds, even nominally immunonormative folks have been advised to avoid raw milk products<\/a> (don’t ever<\/em> drink raw milk, folks; pasteurization has no down sides) and to cook eggs until they’re solid all the way through<\/a>. I already refused to eat any ground meat with pink parts left in it, so I haven’t followed how hot a burger needs to be, these days; if you eat them, you might want to do some investigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I’m chronically ill, which limits my available time and energy. To make cooking my own food more achievable, I’ve tended to use frozen and pre-cut vegetables (and then I cooked them). With less safety inspection happening now, I’ve broken that habit, with the exception of frozen broccoli I can get in my farm box. Well, and for soup-friendly vegetables like kale, I’ll sometimes buy extra, wash and chop it, and freeze it myself. Fresh broccoli freezes well enough for use in a stir fry later, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I haven’t run out of frozen corn or peas yet. There’s a chance that, when I do, I’ll replace them. Because they are so uniform, in theory, I could dump out the whole bag, make sure there are no pieces of metal or whatever in there, and re-freeze the lot. I like to use both all year, so if I decide I’m not up for that (and if I don’t move somewhere with a functioning food safety apparatus), I will probably try freezing my own from fresh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sweet potatoes, potatoes, and dried beans make up my default dinner, these days (sometimes with some cheese sprinkled on). They’re easy to acquire, store, and cook \u2014 the beans in a countertop pressure pot, the tubers roasted in an oven or, at need, microwaved until soft \u2014 and they make decent leftovers. I buy spinach, chard, and other greens locally, wash them well, and cook them thoroughly. There’s a local mushroom-growing operation, so sometimes we’ll have greens and mushrooms on either rice (if we plan ahead) or couscous (if not) for dinner. The farm box usually has garlic and shallots, so those go in, as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I do still eat some raw vegetables, too. I’ll buy cucumbers when they’re growing locally and wash them well before cutting; if I weren’t planning to move this year, I’d also be growing some of my own. Lettuces are particularly risky\u2014I had already learned to avoid bagged lettuce and most restaurant salads, and to throw away outer and bruised leaves\u2014so I only buy local hydroponic lettuce or grow it in an Aerogarden. And if I saw it for sale somewhere, I’d probably still buy whole jicama, since that can be washed and peeled, and it’s such a nice summer munching vegetable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We tend to eat a lot of granola + yogurt on fruit, and frozen berries are the easiest fruit option for that. I had already cut way back on frozen fruit after a spate of recalls in 2023; at this point, unless I’m sure I’m going to cook them (like in a crumble or a pie), I never buy frozen fruits or berries except from local farms. Even that’s a risk, but with less shipping and storage, plus the knowledge that the producer would have to look me in the eye if they made me sick, I figure I’m willing to take it. The local frozen blueberries are expensive, but also amazing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My primary non-berry fruit, at this point, is citrus, mostly oranges. I wash them with soap (look, I already said you don’t have to do everything I’m doing) before cutting or peeling them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the autumn I’ll probably buy apples from a local orchard and wash them well before eating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If I were staying in one place, I’d plant strawberries, to have something to look forward to next year. It’s probably my favorite fruit and not that hard to grow, even in zone 5b. I’ll probably buy (and clean with vinegar?) some local organic strawberries this year, if I can get them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And, aside from dried fruit, that’s kind of my entire participation in that food group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We already didn’t eat a ton of meat, in part because my tendency for many years has been to buy grass-fed and local, which are more expensive and vary somewhat in availability. We’ve historically bought frozen salmon from Alaska<\/a> every couple of years, which I totally recommend if you like that kind of thing. I did have a habit of throwing a turkey kielbasa into my virtual grocery cart, because it’s a nice addition to a bean soup or a tray of roasted potatoes (add sauerkraut, some Dijon mustard? :chef’s kiss:), but that’s over now. Kielbasa aside, I don’t have to change habits much, I think, beyond dropping canned items (tuna, beans).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Someone on Tumblr recommended buying Halal and\/or Kosher, if you’re buying meat, because there are cleanliness rules that have to be met, for meat to be certified. I don’t know whether there are ethical concerns around people outside these religious communities buying their meat \u2014 I’d say at least “don’t empty the shelves; buy only what you need immediately.” But I’d also think ethical butchers would be glad for added business. We used to buy Kosher rotisserie chicken when Giant Eagle had it, in Pittsburgh, and it was consistently better than their non-Kosher alternative. There seem to be very limited options for either in Maine, so I haven’t really investigated deeply.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I mentioned that we eat a lot of beans. We’re just starting consistently from dried, now, instead of the more convenient canned option. I hear? you can make your own tofu? out of a variety of beans? But I have not tried it yet. I still have some tofu in the freezer. (Hush, it makes it a better consistency.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n I’m out on a little bit of a limb with all of this, in that I’m trusting two companies to do the right thing: I’m still buying peanuts, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, chia seeds, and dried fruit from Bob’s Red Mill and from Nuts.com. The latter is a pretty arbitrary choice, if I’m honest. (I know dried fruit isn’t a protein; it goes into granola with these other proteins, though.) We haven’t run out of peanut butter yet, and I’m not certain how I’ll handle it when we do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We buy eggs from local farms and cook them thoroughly. (The “local,” here is more about chicken welfare than about avoiding disease, ourselves. The farms let them wander; that means they’re happy, and we get better-quality eggs.) When they don’t have eggs to sell, we don’t buy them. It’s fine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dale is still drinking milk, but because he lives with four birds and me, we buy him ultra-pasteurized, out of an abundance of caution while H5N1 is circulating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I admit that I miss milk, mostly for use in tea and coffee. Because I like a buffer against the acid in my first coffee of the day, I’m currently using a combination of powdered oat milk (another arbitrary choice: Now Foods is the brand I have right now) and coconut milk powder from Nuts.com. I’ll be honest: this isn’t great, and I’ll probably start drinking my coffee black, rather than bother with these. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I bake with my supply of powdered milk, for now, and when that runs out, I guess I’ll use powdered coconut milk in baking and curries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Why not buy milk locally, Coral?” Fair question. Our farm box only offers raw milk, and even though it would be fine if I pasteurized it myself, and buying it would allow me to make mozzarella (an easy cheese to make and also one that nobody local sells), I refuse to reward anyone for selling raw milk. If I run across some local pasteurized milk at a farmer’s market or something, I’ll probably pick it up as a treat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Our farm box includes a (different) local dairy that sells excellent yogurt; I emailed them to see what their processing entails, and I believe it’s sufficient for my needs. I miss the less expensive fat-free Greek yogurt I used to buy, but it helps that this stuff is more delicious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I also buy locally-made cheese, as long as the milk going into it was pasteurized. As I said, I can’t get mozarella, but weirdly (and deliciously), I can totally get paneer! I tried some queso tencho on pizza, and it worked OK \u2014 it was a lot oilier than the part-skim mozzarella I’m used to, but it was also pretty delicious. So we’re OK on cheese.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I bought a lot of butter around the turn of the year and froze it. I only use it for things where butter can’t be substituted out, like pie crusts. The farm box only offers smoked butter, and they don’t sell cream, so I assume I won’t be able to replace my butter stash when I run out. We’ll see.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I bought 25 pounds of flour in January. It makes bread<\/a> (note the bread-making post before lockdown, truly I am a hipster of carbs), scones, probably crackers<\/a> (not linking that one with the recipes, because I haven’t tried it myself yet), and a lot of other useful things. When I run out, I’ll do the same thing I do for oats and buy flour from a local mill. Up here, Maine Grains is good and has most of what I need. If I lived on the west coast, I’d be ordering regularly from Bluebird Grain Farms; in the past, I’ve bought emmer and einkorn flour from them, and I enjoyed both.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the warm months, I make overnight oats for my breakfast, using thinned-down yogurt, kefir, or milk substitute, depending on my mood. When I forget to make oats the night before, I put some peanut butter on some bread or get fruit-yogurt-and-granola. In the cold months, I’ll probably continue to have hot oatmeal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I’m still buying commercial pasta. And couscous. Eventually, I’ll accept that I need to stop doing that, but … I can only do so much at a time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We have a ton of rice, because I believe in being prepared for emergencies, and white rice can be stored nearly indefinitely. When we run out, I’ll buy that direct from Maine Grains or similar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We used to buy Triscuits a lot, and I miss them. Like I said, I’ll probably make crackers. I hope I can make something we like just as much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We also used to buy a lot of Mission “Carb Balance” tortillas, because they tasted like soft flour tortillas but had added fiber in them. I don’t have a great substitute for that yet, though I know I can theoretically make flour tortillas of my own when I have the need.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My herbs and spices generally come from the farm box, Mountain Rose Herbs<\/a>, or Penzey’s<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We live in Maine; maple syrup is pretty easy to come by. You can also get maple sugar, which is useful since white sugar is pretty easy to bulk up with added powders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We have local honey, as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I buy olive oil from a farm in California<\/a>. (Can’t get that one locally!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n I like to make a chai concentrate with fresh ginger (which is part of the reason Dale keeps drinking milk, he likes it in chai); since I’m boiling it, I don’t worry too much about the shipping and storage of the ginger (or the tea leaves, which I haven’t had to replace yet, but I think I’d still trust Prestogeorge<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n I don’t know where I’ll get nori when I run out, but probably one of the online Asian grocery stores, same as last time I needed it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And now, I have to admit: all of these rules? I follow them at least 80% of the time, maybe even 90+%. But it isn’t 100%. We went and got ice cream last week, despite knowing dairy isn’t being inspected. I have recently eaten a Wendy’s burger (specifically, the “son of baconator,” because it comes without the raw vegetables that would make it riskier) and, on a different day, Popeye’s chicken (which was fantastic, no regrets, they ruined me for other fast food chicken). We did a whole bunch of housework and then ordered Chinese delivery yesterday. We don’t order delivery, curbside, or drive-through as often as we did in the past, but it isn’t “never,” either.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Honestly, I’m just too tired, especially these days, with everything going on, to be a total purist. Despite the risks inherent in being anything else. So I want to reiterate: if you’re doing things differently than I am, cutting more and\/or different corners, perhaps just following the same patterns as you did in the past, I’m not here to judge you for it. I’m sharing what I do and how I think in case it’s useful<\/em>, not because I think we all have to be approaching everything the same way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And now for some fun stuff<\/p>\n\n\n\n The original image I wanted to put on this post was Samwise Gamgee saying “po-tay-toes,” but it was an animated gif and somewhat distracting. So you get a still of the same hobbit, in a corn field.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Not my catchiest title of all time, but you’ll get what it says on the tin. Unlike some foods, now.<\/p>\n\n
How have I been surviving, so far?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
General food safety and copious application of heat<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Vegetables – mostly local, mostly hot <\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Fruit with accountability, or at least a hard rind<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Protein – lots of beans, small amounts of local meat, well-cooked local eggs, and salmon from Alaska<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Dairy – local, and as pasteurized as we can get, otherwise we do without<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Grains from (mostly) local granaries<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Miscellaneous other foods, some unknowns, and an admission<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Recipes<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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