This is the Cato Daily Podcast

for Wednesday, December 1st, 2010.

I'm Caleb Brown.

The FDA will soon receive broad new powers

under a bill moving through Congress,

but it's worth considering the powers the FDA already has and how the use of those

powers threatens to undo all kinds of unique artisanal foods, kinds of foods that

aren't produced in giant factories.

Walter Olson, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute,

evaluates the FDA's current and future powers.

We spoke Monday.

The premise of the Food safety bill is that we should all be attaining the

bacteria-free levels of the most advanced factories, but not everyone wants to eat food from the most advanced

factories. We've got a world of food out there that includes old-fashioned cooks, artisans, small farms, which often have a different way and older way of doing things,

not necessarily any more dangerous than cooking the food in our own kitchen, but something that's

very hard to fit into what the FDA wants as far as parts per million or parts per billion,

regular testing and inspection,

five years worth of paperwork,

and all of the rest of the droppings.

Specifically, with the example of artisanal, the Where is that? Well, this is going on under laws that we already have on the books because the FDA already

has a lot of powers to crack down on foodmakers.

And in the state of Washington, it has rated a very small family-owned cheese-making business,

...