The Grey Areas Of Made At Home Food Laws.

A few weeks ago I attended a small meeting of local food activists put on by the Sustainable Economies Law Center. We discussed the state of food laws regarding the legality of sharing, trading, & selling homemade foods, as well as what laws we would like to see pass here in California. The SELC really has their stuff together. They have been doing research for months on laws that have passed in other states and have worked hard to come up with a plan of attack.


Legal Intern Kelly Densmore and Co-Director Janelle Orsi from the Sustainable Economies Law Center’s wrote this great article for Shareable.net that I wanted to share with you all. 


http://www.shareable.net/blog/the-shareable-food-movement-meets-the-law

"“The Underground Food Movement” has become a thing lately. It’s a foodie’s utopia in Oakland these days...But this movement goes deeper than its sheer yumminess. We thrive on food. When we share in efforts to grow, process, prepare, and serve food, we greatly enhance our abilities to eat well, provide for ourselves, and build livelihoods around food. Sharing food is particularly important during hard economic times and many small food projects develop out of unemployment.

The realm of shareable food is flourishing with community meal sharing, potlucks, gift-economy restaurants, community food growing projects, food swap events, pop-up stores, stone soup gatherings, food-buying cooperatives, goat-sharing, chicken cooperatives, events like The Big Lunch, and so on...

Now picture all of this food sharing activity on a spectrum. At the private and personal end, we eat a homemade meal with our family. At the public and commercial end, we get chicken nuggets from the drive-thru window at a chain restaurant. Somewhere in between is a point at which our society has decided to impose protections and regulations."

Read the full article here: http://www.shareable.net/blog/the-shareable-food-movement-meets-the-law