Sun, 12 Mar 2006

Invisible Danger? Parents Look Inside the Lunchbox

Paranoia? Perhaps - but a justifiable paranoia in a lot of different ways.

Many of my customer fit this profile. The problem is not necessarily that commercially produced food is "unsafe", or that packaging is loaded with carcinogens - the problem is that nobody knows anymore. Factory food processing has become so complex that it's safety factor, especially over a long term, has become practically non-computable. And as materials science advances, the chemistry involved becomes more complex as well, leading to the same problem.

We provide a solution to this by being as open and transparent as we can, and by packaging and processing as traditionally as we can. I do use foam cartons for my eggs, and plastic bags for my frozen chickens, but I recycle the cartons and insure that the bags are 100% new polyethylene. For most moms, just being able to visit the hen house and pet the cattle is enough - they can see where their food comes from, and understand for themselves that it's safer.

Reaching into their nylon lunch bags at school, Casey and Cameron Lilley pull sandwiches made of organic ingredients out of wax paper wrappers, and sip water from coated aluminum containers from Switzerland. Their mother, Shawn Lilley, had carefully chosen the packaging.

(link) [New York Times]

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