By Steve MacDonald with Granite Grok.com

The Vermont Department of Health is still promoting the CDC’s childhood vaccination schedule, suggesting a COVID-19 shot for children as early as six months. Children were neither at risk nor a vector and effectively immune until we started jabbing them.

It says pregnant moms should get one, too, absent comprehensive or accurate and complete informed consent (ignoring the risk and violating the state’s constitutional amendment in defense of Reproductive freedom). Pregnant moms who get the jab risk not becoming moms, and infants and children who are jabbed risk not living long enough to become reproductive adults. Are you informing them of this risk?

I bring it up because that same Department of Health, which blindly supported masks, distancing, lockdowns, and a long list of unscientific measures that have proven unhealthy, now requires home kitchens to put warning labels on their products.

A new Vermont Department of Health rule requires food producers who work out of a home kitchen to put a safety disclaimer onto their products — raising concerns among some purveyors that the state is taking too firm a hand in regulating such small businesses. 

The rule applies, in part, to certain small food manufacturers — also known as “cottage” food producers — who bring in less than $10,000 in annual gross sales, or, if they’re a baker, less than $6,500 in annual gross sales. Under existing policies, these producers are generally exempt from licensing and inspection by the state’s health department.

Starting this month, though, the department will require these producers to add new text to their product labels that reads: “Made in a home kitchen not inspected by the Vermont Department of Health.” 

The assumption is that such inspection is proof of something guaranteeing a better public health outcome when there’s no evidence that this is the case. The COVID debacle aside, State and Local departments of Health combined with national standards have failed to stop every instance of commercial food poisoning or death.

I’m not suggesting that we abandon public Health in this area, but there is no reason to believe that an inspected kitchen is more likely to produce safe, quality foods than one that is not. I have worked in restaurants of all types for many years. Everyone involved was keen on not making customers sick and maintaining cleanliness and proper food handling practices to ensure that. Anything else is bad for business. 

There will always be exceptions, but public health officials are like everyone else: imperfect and as likely to fail someone for personal reasons as pass them. It can all appear very arbitrary. And I never saw anyone offer or accept a bribe, but I sensed that some establishments got away with things others would not.

As for the new labeling requirement, home kitchen businesses and those who sell their products seem to think this is not good for their business and is more likely to confuse consumers looking for local farm-to-table products. I agree. It is little more than the state saying people are idiot children and we must get involved.

It also adds an expense for the producer and more costs to taxpayers for enforcement. What, you don’t think they’ll be keen on enforcement? And for what? Very little or perhaps nothing, which is what big government is all about. Create burdens, get in the way, grow government, and raise costs and taxes. Why? Vermonters could do with less of all of that, but are they adequately put out to make the necessary changes to slow, stop (or Lord help us) reverse the rot?

Steve is a long-time New Hampshire resident, blogger, and a member of the Board of directors of The 603 Alliance. He is the Managing Editor and co-owner of GraniteGrok.com, a former board member of the Republican Liberty Caucus of New Hampshire, and a past contributor to the Franklin Center for Public Policy.