Absolutely! Think of the advertising slogans:
“Food champions are champion food!”
“Long Pig – the other, other White meat.”

Google LDS Food storage, for starters. There are massive amounts of information to be digested. Even some government sites are helpful, if you visit (just don’t subscribe to them)!!!!

Rudeness. Ridicule, sarcasm, a thoroughly bad attitude,and a laugh in their face. There’s the solution. I can barely wait till those chow commissars arrive unbidden at my door. It will be fun.

“”"”"”"I challenge you, fellow commenters, to say where today’s young families are getting this education/advice. So, if proper food management and food preparation for many families is a problem,”"”"”"”"

What you’re implying, in taking Damon’s heavily disguised bit of satire seriously, is that the family unit in the western world has been effectively decimated, so you want to roll over and cave to the very kinds of people who helped make this happen just so you would go running to them for help.

Would it not make more sense to insist on a return to sanity and common sense, and yes “family values?” I find it astonishing, baffling, and pathetic that “young families” or “young people” are so infantilized tha they can’t figure out the leftovers concept, or why it should even be considered wothwhile to waste any sociopolitical or bureaucratic energy on something as trivial as encouraging the keeping of leftovers in a society that — deep recession or not — is still one of abundance. And, by the way, I’m willing to bet a whole bunch of money that plenty of young people/families/teen trolls, whatever, are perfectly capable and economical in their food choices and food preparation, and don’t need anybody’s help, thank you very much.

It is concerned with lead and phthalates in childrens toys, clothes, shoes, etc.

Lead is well known to be bad for kids (and adults) and the scares due to chinese leaded paint on toys primed the pump for the legislation. Phthalates are suspected endocrine disruptors that are also scary to parents.

So they got banned, ok, seems reasonable so far.

Well the law mandates that all such toys and clothes be tested and any untested items are then classified as hazardous. Uh, hmmm, ok. At this point you might be sensing the potential for logistical and technical arrangements that will need to be made.

Now think about the economics of this. It requires every single piece of childrens clothing, shoes, and toys to be tested. How much inventory will be able to pass this threshold? How many retailers will be able to stock only certified lines of merchandise? How about second hand stores (speaking of leftovers)? This would destroy any recycling of useful clothing and childrens goods through such venerable institutions as Goodwill or the local church garage sale.

In fact the Consumer Products Safety Commission is now desperately trying to arrange “exemptions” to prevent the law from applying to yard sales, second hand stores, and consignment shops.

As a research chemist I can tell you that each test will be expensive, take time, and also require facilities and analytical chemists (who will need certifications…) that don’t exist yet. This will require analytical instruments capable of measuring metals (lead) and other different instruments for measuring organic semivolatiles (phthalates). These instruments, likely ICP-MS and GC-MS, cost between $100k and $250k each, without maintenance or consumables. They also require some fairly skilled personnel.

This is an extremely UNfunded mandate. Traditionally the costs are passed on to the consumers, but these burdens will destroy the retailer before they are able to market the product.

Oh by the way. There’s probably not many plastics made that won’t test positive for phthalates. I’ve done years of analytical work on GC-MS and there was phthalate contamination in every sample that ever touched a plastic surface. Phthalates provide the flexibility to the polymeric materials. They are ubiquitous in our society.

Aren’t childrens toys usually plastic….

We’ll see where this goes shortly.

There is no 1st Amendment in the U.K.