Ice cream is a wonderful summertime treat, and as we've learned from Jamie Oliver, simple ice cream is a much better choice than a complicated list of ingredients.
This story is about a local ice cream maker whose brief ice cream career is in jeopardy thanks to burdensome state regulations.
Full disclosure: I have tried the ice cream and I know one of the journalists who wrote the story in the Chicago Tribune.
This particular battle pits Kris Swanberg, a former school teacher, against the Illinois Department of Public Health over a "dairy license."
From the Chicago Tribune:
Swanberg says that the IDPH officer who visited told her that her ice cream probably wouldn't pass the bacteria tests if she continued to use fresh strawberries. Instead the officer suggested she use "strawberry syrup," Swanberg said.
IDPH spokesperson Melanie Arnold said that it isn’t illegal to use real strawberries but that IDPH "does not encourage it simply because when you try and clean a strawberry to make sure it doesn’t have any bacteria, it kind of deteriorates."
So the governmental agency discourages real fruit such as strawberries with full vitamins and fiber and taste in favor of "strawberry syrup," which almost certainly has high-fructose corn syrup and artificial flavors and colors.
The article noted that other ice cream producers use irradiated strawberries.
Swanberg could continue to work without a license, (department’s Dairy Equipment Specialist, Don) Wilding said, if she used a premade ice cream mix that is usually formulated with stabilizers and other additives — the kind of thing typically used at Dairy Queens, Wilding noted.
Again, the artificial version is preferred by the government over the natural process.
At this point, some of my conservative readers might be asking, “Aren't you always bitching about how the government needs to have more regulations on the food supply?”
Yes, I do complain about the efforts of the federal government against factory farms and large conglomerate companies. How Monsanto, Archer Daniels Midland, and Cargill have more rights than other companies and actual people. How consumers can be tricked in numerous ways on food labels. How our cattle and chickens are treated so deplorably in our food system.
What we see is government agencies being more concerned about smaller, more natural companies and organizations and people, even where there is no smoke, much less fire. Ask anyone harassed over raw milk what they think about government intervention on food.
Common sense, dare we say, should rule, something where liberals and conservatives could even hold hands, even if they don't agree on what they think is common sense.
We do need food rules and regulations. Unfortunately, our rules and regulations help huge farms and companies who are only focused on the bottom line, and hurt small food companies that are focused on quality. In the spirit of “Freaky Friday” or “The Change-Up,” the governments should switch their emphasis and see what happens to our food supply. Unlike those movies, life and food will be better once the switch is made.
