Food Freedom Bills and an Outbreak of Reason

What if you could take a flamethrower to everything that was wrong with 2020: the lockdowns, the riots, campus speech codes, chokeholds, the endless emergency orders by fiat? The Indiana assembly has all that and much more in its sights this season. Isolate Grandma? She should soon be able to see a caregiver she's related to. Caught rioting? Three hots, a cot and no government job for you. States of emergency? Not without permission from the legislature, and they're in no mood for mission creep. Speakers you disagree with on campus? Grit your teeth or head for a safe space. Defund the police? LOL, the assembly is looking to repeal the law requiring licenses to carry handguns by persons not otherwise prohibited from doing so.

Also on the agenda: prohibition of conversion therapy, civil forfeiture reform, a ban on police chokeholds, decriminalization of marijuana, body cams and dash cams for the police, allowing pharmacists to prescribe and dispense birth control pills and patches, and making female genital mutilation a felony. The clouds are breaking; the whole world hasn't gone crazy.

Indiana state capitol building. Photo by Massimo Catarinella.

Remember the run on groceries last year? Possibly in response, along with other factors, the assembly has several bills to increase food freedom.

Oases! Establishment of food desert grant programs.

Farm to fork! Allows sale of meat products from custom exempt slaughtering establishments.

Food trucks! Provides a statewide license for food trucks, without local fees or permits.

4H! Allows schools to purchase up to $7,500 of food per year from a youth agricultural program.

Hot coffee! "Micromarkets" can include hot beverages. A micromarket is a self-service kiosk you can purchase fresh food and beverages from.

Cold lemonade! Allows minors to operate refreshment stands free of fees, licenses and most regulations.

Cold beer! Lets you buy it at the grocery store.

Cottage food! Allows home cooks to sell their products in person, by phone or online.

Urban farming! Allows urban land to be rezoned as agricultural.

Good grief, did a new Age of Reason creep up on us? It may be February, but I feel like I could look outside and see blossoms on the trees. This year-long winter finally feels like it's nearing the end.

Comments

An Objective Book about Other Childhood Vaccines

Today's decision by the CDC to add COVID shots to the schedule of childhood vaccines has some people concerned about the rest of the vaccines on the schedule. Contrary to fact-checker claims, adding COVID shots to the schedule means children will be required in about a dozen states to get a COVID shot to attend public school. Indiana isn't one of them--our childhood vaccination law doesn't mention the CDC and such a requirement could run afoul of our ban on COVID vaccine passports. But even freewheeling Indiana has some vaccine requirements and this kerfuffle has people wondering how safe those vaccines are. There's a book called Vaccines: Truth, Lies and Controversy by Peter C. Gotzsche, DrMedSci and co-founder of the Cochrane Collaboration, about the safety and efficacy of all those vaccines, including COVID and others. Cochrane was founded to "to organise medical research findings to facilitate evidence-based choices about health interventions involving healt

Diabetes Down, COVID Curiosities, New Glasses after Accident

Diabetes Down Despite Dietitians' Directions Last Sunday when I wrote about the grifters over at EatThis.com, which calls itself "Eat This, Not That," I was worked up enough to tweet to their medical expert board members if they stood by the site's article flogging sugary drinks and fast food for St. Patrick's Day. The site has over 1,300 articles, mostly puff pieces, on McDonald's and a news feed full of "the most important breaking news" on Doritos, burger joints and Chips Ahoy! I asked a dietitian who responded to me what exactly the "not that" part was in "Eat This, Not That." Important news about what you should eat! I was worked up until I remembered the saying, "You can't cheat an honest man." Meaning that this con, like a lot of others, requires some dishonesty on the part of the mark. Every Joe Six-Pack knows that cookies, chips and coffee-flavored milkshakes from Starbucks aren't health food. It takes s

Battered Cod and my Eclipse Pictures of my Colander

If you miss battered cod on a low-carb, grain-free diet, here's a recipe that'll satisfy your craving. It's based on a Dr. Davis recipe. Battered cod and cole slaw Ingredients 1 pound cod fillets 2 eggs 2 tablespoons butter, melted 1/2 cup ground golden flaxseeds 1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese 1/2 teaspoon onion powder 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper 1 teaspoon garlic powder Instructions Preheat the oven to 375°F. Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper. Slice the cod into 1-1/2 to 2 inch pieces. In a small bowl, whisk the eggs and butter. Beat continuously--don't let the butter cook the eggs. In a shallow bowl, combine the flaxseeds, cheese, onion powder, garlic powder, salt, and pepper. Coat each piece of cod in the egg mixture and then roll in the in the flaxseed mixture. Place on the baking pan. Bake for 20 minutes, turning once. Eclipse Crescent Shadows Today was the total solar eclipse, and my house was in the "path of totality."

Blog Lineup Change

Bye-bye, Fathead. I've enjoyed the blog, but can't endorse the high-fat, high-carb Perfect Health Diet that somehow makes so much sense to some otherwise bright people. An astrophysicist makes some rookie mistakes on a LC diet, misdiagnoses them, makes up "glucose deficiency," and creates a diet that's been shown in intervention studies to increase small LDL, which can lead to heart disease. A computer programmer believes in the diet and doesn't seem eager to refute it because, perhaps, scientists are freakin' liars and while he's good at spotting logical inconsistencies, lacks some intermediate knowledge of human biology. To Tom's credit, he says it's not the right diet for everyone, but given the truckload of food that has to be prepared and eaten, impracticality of following it while traveling (or even not traveling), and unsuitability for FODMAPs sufferers, diabetics and anyone prone to heart disease (i.e., much of the population), I'm

Eclipse Glasses, Probiotics for Heart, Muscle Recovery

Are your eclipse glasses fake? The total solar eclipse over North America is almost here, and Indianapolis is in the "path of totality," meaning the moon will completely block the sun here. A lot of people have gotten special glasses to safely look at the eclipse. But the American Astronomical Society says , "counterfeit and fake eclipse glasses are polluting the marketplace." Some of the counterfeit glasses appear to be safe, the society says, but others are fakes that are no more effective than sunglasses. One of the counterfeits they describe matches the glasses someone gave me. I don't know where she got them, and she's not someone I'd trust to perform adequate due diligence. I just got over an eye injury and I don't need another one--I'll try the pinhole method instead to see crescents during the eclipse if it's not too cloudy. Picture from Pexels . Heart Centered Probiotic I started getting scary heart palpitations several years ago

Pain, Pain, Go Away!

Search This Blog