Beer Price Crisis On the Horizon

Rambo Tribble (1273454) writes "The aficionados of beer and distilled spirits could be in for a major price-shock, if proposals by the Food and Drug Administration come to pass. Currently, breweries are allowed to sell unprocessed brewing by-products to feed farm animals. Farmers prize the nutritious, low-cost feed. But, new rules proposed by the FDA could force brewers to implement costly processing facilities or dump the by-products as waste. As one brewer put it, "Beer prices would go up for everybody to cover the cost of the equipment and installation.""

Comments

So - who's in love with the government again?

[Penguinisto]

No, really... this is getting nuts.

I get the whole general protection of the average citizen from crimes, but we really need to shrink the reach and scope of these bastards.

Re:So - who's in love with the government again?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's pretty difficult to argue with them when they haven't provided a reason for why we need to keep a safe, nutritious, low-cost food out of the hands of farmers.

Re:So - who's in love with the government again?

[Attila Dimedici]

You make an interesting complaint but you provide no argument or evidence that the government doesn't have a good reason to propose this rule.

But you see that is exactly his point, he should not have to present anything in order to prevent the government enacting a new rule. It should be up to the government to present an argument or evidence that this proposed rule is not only a good idea, but necessary. When the government proposes a new rule, the first reaction of a free people should be, "Not until you convince me that it is necessary for this branch of government to implement this rule."

Re:So - who's in love with the government again?

[rolfwind]

Reading this on ethanol made me lose any hope in the government being anything but Oligarchy run:
http://www.mossmotors.com/Site...

AFAIK, putting 10% ethanol in gas drops the mpg of cars more than 10%. At least according to a Consumer Reports article I read years ago and they went by rule experience. Basically it means that if they took all the ethanol out of the gas, and gave you 0.9 gallons pure gas instead of 1 gallon adulterated, you as a driver would be better off.

So the entire industry is completely taxpayer supported bullshit. We're carrying an industry that has no use. And this in an era where water table is decreasing (corn is unbelievably thirsty), food prices and meat rising astronomically, etc.

I have friends in the corn states. The corn farmers (and usually farm corps) are well off... at the expense of everyone else.

And there are hundreds of other examples like that. For every 1 good thing the government does, it seems there are 4-5 examples of overreach which costs everyone and only benefits a small segment.

Re:So - who's in love with the government again?

[MouseTheLuckyDog]

Uhm. According to the article brewers and farmers have been doing this for a 100 years. If this was inherently unsafe, we would know by now.

Re:So - who's in love with the government again?

[jopsen]

It's pretty difficult to argue with them when they haven't provided a reason for why we need to keep a safe, nutritious, low-cost food out of the hands of farmers.

From TFA it seems you might in fact be right.. Quote:

“We don’t know of any problems,” McChesney said. “But we’re trying to get to a preventative mode.”

But that quote could in fact be a misrepresentation... More so, it seems from TFA that they are talking about ending an exception for breweries. IMO it is important to be able to trace food poisoning to their sources. All other components in the industrialized food chain can be traced. It certainly seems unreasonable that large breweries, to which is would incur little cost, doesn't have proper testing and tracking.


Cry freedom all you want, but when something goes bad in the industrialized food chain, millions of innocent people are affected. And if there is no trace, fixing the problem may take months or years.

Either way, I suspect slashdotters aren't experts in risk analysis for this field, so maybe we should just leave it to the experts. It's just proposed, farmers and breweries still have a say.

Re:So - who's in love with the government again?

[sjames]

What contamination? The grain is heated to 170F long enough to kill anything harmful in it. There has never been a case of this causing a single problem anywhere. Even the FDA admits it doesn't know of any incident that would have been prevented by this proposal. It's like mandatory testing for antimatter contamination in coffee. It never happens.

Perhaps the FDA should focus it's resources on things that have been a problem like fungal contamination in drugs.

Re:So - who's in love with the government again?

[Predius]

You're assuming they can dispose of the material for $0 per ton instead. I believe that you'll find is not the case.

Milk/Beef prices as well?

[lagomorpha2]

Wouldn't eliminating a source of cheap feed also increase milk and beef prices?

Re:Don't worry Americans...

[jklovanc]

Guess you have not been to Canada in the past 20 years.
Swans
Spinnakers
Canoe Club
Philips Beer
Vancouver Island Brewing
Moon Under Water
Lighthouse Brewing
Hoyne Brewing
That is just in Victoria BC a small city of 300k. There are many more across Canada. By the way the craft brewing trend started in Canada and spread to the US. American craft beers have improved over the last ten years as have Canadian craft beers. Lets not get into a pissing match. That could be a long battle with all the beer involved.