Sticky rice - Can you believe this.

[sun burn]

The council (cairns/port douglas) has banned the sale of sticky rice sweets at the markets. Does this not sound like madness.

Can anyone understand it? Of course i have written to complain about it.

[JoH]

Rice in itself is actually grows bacteria very well so I guess it might have something to do with that and not being referated potentially could carry "food bourne illness".....Makes you wonder how half the world survive without all of the restrictions and government interventions "protecting" our saftey. They would probably be able to make a substitute that is processed to within an inch of its life and saturated in corn syrup then packaged into individual little plastic wrappers and then they will claim that that is better for you!! Yes, the world is going mad!

[sun burn]

If there is this potential, you'd think that people would have known more about it and that it would have happened but i've never heard of this. Have you. In the fridge, my cooked rice always gets covered in mould within a couple of days.

I am really fed up. The other one that gets my goat is not being allowed to sell eggs. I read that about 1 in 30 000 eggs may be poisoned from salmonella.

Then, although it doesn't affect, there is the whole cheese thing. Not to mention the milk think. it goes on and f-cking on and that's only food. I told them there was more freedom in the soviety union.

[Fernando Pessoa]

Two easy ways around this are sell you milk as a beauty product ie bathing milk ala cleopatra,lots of people I know buy raw milk in this fashion and drink it themselves.The eggs and everything else can be sold from your house as a hobby,incomes from "hobbies"are tax exempt up to 20,000 dollars.By issuing a basic safety warming like please wash all your eggs and vegetables thoroughly before eating,you will be exercising basic due dillegence.As long as your yard and animal system is up to standard I don't see any problem for you.
We are either under or over regulated,under if you are a major corporation over if you are a citizen,it's our fault because like lunatics in the asylum we practice the same behaviour over and over again in the hope that the result will differ.
Best wishes fernando

[pebble]

I do agree that things are being over-regulated. The problem is that there are people who want to make money from Farmer's markets and such but who don't actually have the skills and knowledge and experience to do so safely. In the past, people learnt traditional food preparation from people who knew how to do it well (family often, where there is a big incentive to not give people food poisoning). Now people are often learning from books, the internet, figuring it out for themselves, which is important but it's a different thing than what happened in the past.

I buy raw milk from farmers that I know and trust. I'm not going to buy it from someone I don't know, for very good reasons.

[sun burn]

Back to the sticky rice. To be able to sell food at hte market you have to have your kitchen inspected by the council. These women have obviously passed inspection because they are still selling other cakes at hte markest. Its just that they are not allowed to sell sticky rice.

I am sure that most of the people who are selling food at the farmers's markets are perfectly capable of finding out how to prepare food safely. People who have market stalls are not stupid. they are often very diligient types.

As to the customer washing their eggs, this will not prevent poisoning. It requires the producer to clean the eggs when they are collected and then to store them appropriately. I don't wash my eggs because that washes of the protective membrane on the egg. I read that you should wipe them but its better to prevent them gettign dirty in the first place by having your hen house set up properly so that the eggs can't be shat on and don't hang about on the ground.

It is illegal to sell eggs for human consumption. Its not about tax. Of course you can do similar to what you suggest and sell them as dog food.

[Speedy]

Imagine if these sort of STUPID regulations , suposedly in the name of food safety and also fear of litigation
(assuming that's what the sticky rice ban is about) had been around when humans started proessing foods
there'd be no such thing as smoked or salted meats, bread, beer, wine, all the wonderful cheeses, tempe, tape, fish sauce , shrimp paste etc etc etc.
the list of banned foods would fill a 1000 pages.
or more to the point these foods would never be allowed to be discovered in the first place.

It shits me when this sort of stuff is imposed on people when I see some of the crap served up in the the likes of fast 'food' 'restaurants' as being 'ok' cause it was done under 'hygenic conditions' and passed by the food inspector.

I do understand, as most people dealing with food do,
safety and hygeine around food is important,
and there are some places I probably wouldn't buy food from, but i'd like to make a choice.

this all seems like just more of the ridiculous widespread hygiene hypercondria that seems to be overtaking the world.

yeah right, wash yer kids in Dettol cause they just got some dirt on them...
antibacterial this an that in the kitchen ...
and kill all those nasty lil invisible germies (or 99.99% of them as they say) in the toilet too
just in case they decide to creep out and get you while you're asleep...


when I saw this I just needed to have a bit of a rant

Ok, I've calmed down now...

[JoH]

I think that the immnity issue is a worry too Speedy. You need germs to make antibodies. Please dont get me wrong. I am not advocating poor heigeine however I do have concerns about all the antibacterial products around. I would love to know A) how long after you wash your hands in dettol it takes for the bacteria to re multiply to pre - washing levels (not long I am sure). B) if we are making more strains of "bad bugs" resistant. 3) What the effect long term on children's ammunity and allergy levels surare from being bubble wrapped and disinfected. 4) If you bought a street kid from india to live in the west - would they be healthier than a "sterilised" western child. 5) what is the effect on the soils, water systems etc of the waste water mixed with antibacterial soaps and cleaners. The marketing companies are doing such a great job because so many people buy them.

[pebble]

I can't find anything online about the sticky rice ban. Do you have a link sun burn?

[sun burn]

ban is not really the correct term. What is it is that you have to have a license to produce it. The stallholders at the markets who were making and selling it didn't have a license but they had had their kitchens inspected and so continue to produce other types of cakes.

Rice is considered not a low risk food because it can harbour microbes and cause food poisoning like chicken etc. Apparenlty there's been cases of people getting sick from rice dishes. ... And then i go yes but that would be unlikely to happen with a sticky rice sweet sold at the markets. Its just that the authorities don't make a disctinction.

Here at hte markets the stallholders have been selling sticky rice sweets for years. It seems some inspector came around recently and told them they couldn't sell it now.