FDA’s Rx for Brewers: Head>Desk>Hit>Repeat.

Your federal tax dollars at work.

Protecting innocent farmers and their livestock from the dangers lurking in…wait for it…spent grains.

 

“Breweries would be required to dry and package spent grain before it could be given or sold to farmers to use as feed.” -According to Elizabeth Nolan Brown at Reason.com.”

 

All made possible due to:

The FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), the most sweeping reform of our food safety laws in more than 70 years, [which] was signed into law by President Obama on January 4, 2011. It aims to ensure the U.S. food supply is safe by shifting the focus from responding to contamination to preventing it. – FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) website

Well obviously some busybody at FDA got a wild hair and came up with the, “FSMA Proposed Rule to Establish Current Good Manufacturing Practice and Hazard Analysis and Risk-Based Preventive Controls for Food for Animals.” yes as unbelievable as it sounds the FDA has decided that a practice that has been going on for three or four decades could be dangerous, mon dieu! Heaven forbid! Furthermore, I don’t feel that if this went through I would be any safer. In fact, after seeing this proposed regulation I’m in danger of losing my lunch.

I could be wrong, after all I have been wrong before, but this strikes me as first rate bureaucrat-shit-crazy.  It’s a big fucking deal, to paraphrase VP Joe Biden.

Consider, Shipyard, Maine’s largest brewer. It produces 400-600 tons of spent grain per week during times of peak production.

This may be worth writing to your Congresscritter and expressing your disappointment in how your tax dollars or being spent.

Further reading:

FDA moves to stop sharing between beer makers and farmers
http://reason.com/blog/2014/03/28/fda-new-rules-on-spent-grains-for-farms

A rule change proposed by the FDA could jeopardize a relationship between farmers and brewers.
http://portland.wcsh6.com/news/news/1165073-rule-change-proposed-fda-could-jeopardize-relationship-between-farmers-and-brewers

FDA rules make it nearly impossible for beer makers to give their grain to farmers for feed
http://boingboing.net/2014/03/28/fda-rules-make-it-nearly-impos.html

Sustainable Uses of Spent Grain
http://www.craftbeer.com/craft-beer-muses/sustainable-uses-of-spent-grain

FSMA Proposed Rule to Establish Current Good Manufacturing Practice and Hazard Analysis and Risk-Based Preventive Controls for Food for Animals
http://www.fda.gov/Food/GuidanceRegulation/FSMA/ucm366510.htmwho

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