The State of Food Freedom

-SourcrReason- If youve read more than a handful of my six-plus years of weekly columns here you know that food freedom does not happen in a linear fashion. Laws and regulations get better in some parts of America while worsening in others. It will likely come as no surprise that international food laws reflect this same frustrating dichotomy. Theres the good which oftentimes takes the form of deregulation. In Poland for example a bill would let local farmers sell their produce directly to grocers restaurants and other food businesses. And in Quebec lawmakers recently passed a law that will legalize the service of alcohol by restaurants to customers who dont order food. (That may leave another law still on the books in CanadaBritish Columbias ban on hamburgers that arent well done which I wrote about earlier this yearas the nations dumbest.) Then theres the bad. In France for example lawmakers are pushing for mandatory GMO labeling of animal feed. And theres the truly awful. Perhaps the most unsettling recent international food-law news comes out of Hungary where the countrys anti-immigrant government is threatening to imprison people who provide food to refugees. If approved in its current form criminal penalties could be imposed on groups accused of supporting or financing illegal immigration The Independent reported recently. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban sits before addressing parliament in Budapest Hungary May 18 2018. Photo credit: BERNADETT SZABO/REUTERS/Newscom Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban sits before addressing parliament in Budapest Hungary May 18 2018. Photo credit: BERNADETT SZABO/REUTERS/Newscom The proposal is being pushed by fascistic Prime Minister Viktor Orban as part of his bizarre longstanding campaign against billionaire American financier and philanthropist George Soros. Orban accuses Soros who was born in Hungary and survived the countrys occupation by Nazi Germany and its collaborationist government of funding nonprofit groups in Hungary as part of a plot to undermine Hungarys Christian culture by flooding it with immigrants. The appalling Stop Soros measure is expected to become law soon. Some elements of this repugnant policy might feel right at home today here in the United Statesand not just because Americas own despicable president took a page from Hungarys Orban this week when he tweeted that those who oppose his immigration policies simply want illegal immigrants... to pour into and infest America. Consider that as I discuss at length in my recent book Biting the Hands that Feed Us for years now cities around the country have jailed people for nothing more than sharing food with the homeless and others in need. And as I noted in a tweet last week the USDAs awful National School Lunch Program may have been put in charge of feeding undocumented children whove been separated from their families and locked up in prison-like facilities.