Product Description

Drawing upon 40 years’ experience as an ecological farmer and marketer, Joel Salatin explains with humor and passion why Americans do not have the freedom to choose the food they purchase and eat. From child labor regulations to food inspection, bureaucrats provide themselves sole discretion over what food is available in the local marketplace. Their system favors industrial, global corporate food systems and discourages community-based food commerce, resulting in homogenized selection, mediocre quality, and exposure to non-organic farming practices. Salatin’s expert insight explains why local food is expensive and difficult to find and will illuminate for the reader a deeper understanding of the industrial food complex.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #22590 in Books
• Published on: 2007-09-17
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

About the Author
Called “the high priest of the pasture” by The New York Times, Joel Salatin likes to refer to himself as a “Christian-libertarianenvironmentalist-lunatic farmer.” He lives with his family on Polyface Farm in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.

Customer Reviews

This Guy is a Nut!
Salatin is a nut, but a very interesting nut. Now, this book is titled "Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal" and so I should expect complaining. But, this book was over the top. He justs rants. In his view, no one but him can figure anything out. He will argue for a position in one chapter but against it in another. For instance, he says chicken should be tested based upon the birds health levels, not how the bird is taken care of. But when government inspectors show up at his farm to test his birds for bird flu, he feels he is being persecuted. He makes some interesting points, but he also gets some basic facts wrong (e.g. he says the VFW database was recently hacked into, but it was the Department of Veterans Affairs - the former is a private organization, the later is public). Also, more than complaining about how what he wants to do is illegal, he just complains. It seems that everyone is dumber than he is. He complains that regulations hurt him, but ignore the fact that there are many businees out there that would do even less without the regulations. His theory that the market will work itself out assumes that everyone cares as much as him. Dispite all this though, the book is an entertaining read.

Great Book
Well written, humorous stories from an independent small farmer detailing his struggles with government oversight and inspection. The role of the USDA in particular and government regulators as presented by Salatin is to make things as difficult as possible for the independent farmer.

Most of the health problems in the US directly arise from the industrial food system. Local, independent food is the answer!

Everything I want to do is illegal
Joel Salatin is a pionner. He is opening the way for all of us in tomorrow's world of good food coming from self sustaining farm. I highly recommend this book if you are interested in your future.