HJL,
Concerning redistributing your home canned food, the new FDA regulations for packaging or repackaging foods are onerous at best. In order to be certified to pack tomatoes, you have a couple of weeks of classes to attend now. This has made it impossible for charitable private organizations, like the Mormon church, to continue many of their programs. In fact if I give away home canned goods to friends, I am technically in violation of the law now.
Personally, it means that the average two and a half tons per year of food that I was canning and distributing I can no longer do, as I am not a professional. I only began dry pack canning when I was 10 years old and my mother was called to be the regional cannery coordinator. So, I’d put my real world experience and credentials up against those government idiots any day of the week. With my forty years of experience, they say I have to take a series of classes that will take me out of work for more than month to do what the Lord has called me to do. Horse flop!
I also understand that at least in my area many common practices by farmers have come to a halt. They can no longer give away produce that is close to its expiration date, and leaving the fields open for gleaning is also being frowned upon.
Since I lived off of largess for a semester in college this personally frosts me. One of the local farmers would leave all the bad spuds for folks to glean. Many of them were fine; they just were not the perfect shape. I lived on 50 pounds of potatoes from one field, a ten pound sack of onions, two gallons of oil, and two large bottles of ketchup for an entire semester. The heck if I was going to take a handout, and by gleaning I was working in some small way for my food. My treats that semester were 10 cent boxes of jiffy corn bread and powdered milk to drink the cornbread down. 🙂
As Reagan said, the government is the problem. – H.D.