+ Nobody making food is wearing gloves or hair nets (aside from the one guy making cheese). That's probably not a requirement, but given the amount of food being made and how bad even minor contamination would be, that surprises me.
+ Any large food operation is going to require a lot of sanitation/cleanliness. They also mention they don't use "anything not natural". I wonder if that extends to bleach and commercial cleaners.
+ $150 for a discretionary fund to cover cellphone and a car is nothing. That won't cover a single car breakdown.
+ I wonder how well they will handle a serious medical cost. One person with an autoimmune disease will easily wipe out their cash on hand - as will a chainsaw accident.
It's an interesting thing to follow, but I'm happy to be merely an observer.
East Wind members share a pool of community cars, they don’t have to cover expenses like car repairs out of pocket.
East Wind’s food businesses, particularly nut butters, are of course inspected and licensed by the health department. Most of the photos you’re seeing are of food production for community consumption.
FEC communities have a self-insurance fund to cover catastrophic health costs, and seek state subsidies when available, which they often are for low-income people who live on communes.
But you’re right that chronic illnesses that need continuous expensive medical care can be a strain on community finances. The community agrees to cover those expenses.
I think a lot of people don't really grasp what that commitment really means. My twins were born three months early, and each cost about a million dollars in NICU services - and they had minimal complications. My family alone would've cost this commune 40 years worth of their current medical care spending just for the first year.
Insurer knocked down about 2/3 of that, leaving about $600k for two kids. I doubt there's any insurance company offering coverage at the $686.82/year rate cited in the article, so it seems likely they're just pooling money and paying costs out-of-pocket, which'll probably mean they're paying full rate. (There are a few religious organizations doing this formally - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/1-million-americans-pool...)
East Wind pays $180/year per person into a fund held by communities that is much like the funds cited in that article, although relatively small. It's not insurance. It's a catastrophic health savings plan. It will pay (for people fully invested 2 years in the program) their costs beyond the first $5,000 for an illness or injury.
> Nobody making food is wearing gloves or hair nets (aside from the one guy making cheese). That's probably not a requirement, but given the amount of food being made and how bad even minor contamination would be, that surprises me.
Do you wear gloves and a hair net when you cook your own food? I've been cooking my own food daily for over 10 years now, and I have yet to experience even a minor contamination. I don't see how bumping the amount of cooked food to feed ~70 people would change this.
The chance of salmonella in a dozen eggs is quite low. The chance of it in 300+ eggs is quite a bit more - even with impeccable personal cleanliness. Likewise, if I got a bit of salmonella in something I made, it would affect me and my wife - which would be unfortunate but, that's it.
If a commercial kitchen making food for 73 people gets an egg contaminated with salmonella and then spreads that to all the other dishes it's making... well, that's quite a different problem.
I also know that I wash my hands, and I sanitize every cooking surface in my kitchen daily (or more often). A kitchen with 6+ full time cooks and 70 some people helping themselves to snacks is liable to much more tracked in dirt, unwashed hands, and badly washed dishes.
One of the things I do is infuse alcohols, often in bulk for gifts. When I do this, my sanitation protocol actually changes - I pre-sanitize every vessel using bleach, and I often times do wear gloves if I'm touching anything directly.
Consider this: If you had a small cut on your hand, would you wear gloves before making yourself lunch? What if it was a stranger with a cough making your lunch, would you want them to wear gloves?
>The chance of salmonella in a dozen eggs is quite low. The chance of it in 300+ eggs is quite a bit more - even with impeccable personal cleanliness. Likewise, if I got a bit of salmonella in something I made, it would affect me and my wife - which would be unfortunate but, that's it.
Eggs are the only food that fits this narrative, and they are only (very rarely) dangerous if eaten raw. I would be more concerned about eating eggs from a holiday inn breakfast buffet.
>I also know that I wash my hands, and I sanitize every cooking surface in my kitchen daily (or more often).
I've never sanitized my cooking surface. I was taught to use vinegar as a cleaner and have never had issues (it's not a disinfectant). I haven't even had a cold in three years.
>One of the things I do is infuse alcohols, often in bulk for gifts. When I do this, my sanitation protocol actually changes - I pre-sanitize every vessel using bleach, and I often times do wear gloves if I'm touching anything directly.
A few of the things I do are brew beer, wine, kombucha, ferment vegetables, etc. I, too, used to use sanitize all of my bottles and containers. I then read The Art of Fermentation and realized that everything I was doing was moot. Lactic acid bacteria and yeasts do an excellent job of preservation, provided you give them a nurturing environment to thrive in.
>Consider this: If you had a small cut on your hand, would you wear gloves before making yourself lunch? What if it was a stranger with a cough making your lunch, would you want them to wear gloves?
The commune deserves more credit. People who abandon everything to live in a commune take personal interest in caring for one another. You're more likely to pick up something from a stranger with a cough at a restaurant, who didn't call in sick because they're still late on last month's phone bill, than someone at a commune - who could just ask another member to fill in. Keep in mind this is how society was for a long time.
Eggs, chicken, pork, even flour can be contaminated - Chipotle (a popular US fast-ish food chain) had woes upon woes until they finally gave it and started pasteurizing their flour. Dairy and meat are more susceptible of course, but even dry ingredients can come with contamination problems.
Vinegar is a decent cleaner. I use it quite a bit myself, but it's not the best choice to clean up after raw meats and some other more aggressive bacteria. You may have a good immune system, and not run into any problems - good for you, I'm glad - but that is not going to be the case for any large group of people.
> Lactic acid bacteria and yeasts do an excellent job of preservation
Preservation is not sanitation. Yeast will feed off of many things and grow, but it won't typically attack germs or viruses. Those germs will however gladly feed off of the same food you're giving the yeast. This is why aggressively sanitizing any fermenting vessel is so important - you're creating the ideal environments for bacteria to grow and you want to make sure it's only your selected bacteria that are growing.
> Keep in mind this is how society was for a long time.
That is a myth and falsehood. The work week for the average person going back thousands of years was 60+ hours. There was no vacation or sick leave. Sure, if you had a small cottage industry you might be able to ask a family member to do extra work for a day so you can rest, but for most of history children were pressed into labor at ages 8 - 10.
> People who abandon everything to live in a commune take personal interest in caring for one another
Then they should practice good sanitation and cleanliness. I'm not saying they shouldn't live in a commune, or that they're bad people - I'm saying they are not correctly practicing what we've learned in 10,000+ years of handling food stuffs for a community. If you care for your friend/neighbor/fellow commune-peer, then take a moment to wear gloves and a hair net so you don't get them sick.
>Vinegar is a decent cleaner. I use it quite a bit myself, but it's not the best choice to clean up after raw meats and some other more aggressive bacteria. You may have a good immune system, and not run into any problems - good for you, I'm glad - but that is not going to be the case for any large group of people.
Well, anything raw meats touch goes into the dishwasher. I didn't mean to construe the idea that I am re-using surfaces for raw meats.
>Preservation is not sanitation. Yeast will feed off of many things and grow, but it won't typically attack germs or viruses. Those germs will however gladly feed off of the same food you're giving the yeast. This is why aggressively sanitizing any fermenting vessel is so important - you're creating the ideal environments for bacteria to grow and you want to make sure it's only your selected bacteria that are growing.
Yeast don't preserve by attacking germs or viruses, they preserve by creating alcohol - just as LAB preserve by killing germs and viruses via ph. But yes, sanitation and preservation are different - I didn't mean to conflate them.
You don't necessarily need to bleach things to sanitize them. When we wash our hands with warm, soapy water, we aren't killing bacteria, we are reducing the viscosity of our hand oils and wiping them off. The same can be said for most cooking materials/areas.
>
vorpalhex 2 hours ago | parent | on: The Economics of a Commune in the Ozarks
Eggs, chicken, pork, even flour can be contaminated - Chipotle (a popular US fast-ish food chain) had woes upon woes until they finally gave it and started pasteurizing their flour. Dairy and meat are more susceptible of course, but even dry ingredients can come with contamination problems.
Vinegar is a decent cleaner. I use it quite a bit myself, but it's not the best choice to clean up after raw meats and some other more aggressive bacteria. You may have a good immune system, and not run into any problems - good for you, I'm glad - but that is not going to be the case for any large group of people.
> Lactic acid bacteria and yeasts do an excellent job of preservation
Preservation is not sanitation. Yeast will feed off of many things and grow, but it won't typically attack germs or viruses. Those germs will however gladly feed off of the same food you're giving the yeast. This is why aggressively sanitizing any fermenting vessel is so important - you're creating the ideal environments for bacteria to grow and you want to make sure it's only your selected bacteria that are growing.
> Keep in mind this is how society was for a long time.
That is a myth and falsehood. The work week for the average person going back thousands of years was 60+ hours. There was no vacation or sick leave. Sure, if you had a small cottage industry you might be able to ask a family member to do extra work for a day so you can rest, but for most of history children were pressed into labor at ages 8 - 10.
That's fair, I shouldn't have claimed such a broad statement. It depends which society/time-period we're looking at.
Did you know that Sandor Katz, the author of The Art of Fermentation, lived on a commune in Tennessee during much of his adulthood? The commune gave him the opportunity to write you that book and the experience that fed into how he wrote it.
If you're using a high proof liquor you typically don't need to pre-sanitize, but I typically do. You can either boil the jar for 5 minutes (timed) or rinse with bleach.
The more finely cut the fruit is, the more flavor will be absorbed.
I usually let them age for a minimum of 2 months, but up to 6 is preferred. Make sure to use ball jars with fresh wax seals and seal them while hot - once cooled, the lid should have a bit of flex to let you know the seal is unbroken. Make sure to mark contents and date on each one.
I'm most interested in doing herb tinctures (for cocktail additions) in dropper bottles. It's surprising to see that only 3 to 4 days are needed for said infusions. In your experience has this been the case? Keep in mind this would not be drank neat, but rather 3-4 drops used mostly for aroma.
I've only tried one infusion, ginger. It was grated directly into the vodka, left for ~2 weeks, and still turned out relatively flavorless. My ginger beer used about the same mount and was extremely sharp. Maybe I'll give it another go.
To add to this, end of the 1990s I worked in the kitchen of a camp for disabled adults and children in New Jersey for a summer (as a foreign student). Before that I had occasionally had kitchen duty in the German army, and before that, at about 16 at the end of the 10th grade in East Germany, I worked in a meat processing factory for a few weeks and before that in a brewery, also for a few weeks. As a student I also worked in a chocolate factory for a few weeks. I also know two people who owned or own (good!) restaurants in Germany, one of them a professional cook, one of them only "part time cook" and owner (with a professional cook on staff). Never saw gloves.
My experiences in all those places where good: It was clean, always, and I never saw anything that would have me question their methods or (food) results.
Nobody ever wore gloves though, as far as I can remember (I certainly didn't). You needed a health certificate from a doctor. I think we had hair nets in either the meat processing or the chocolate factory, or both, don't remember, and in the camp kitchen. But no gloves. I don't think they add any significant benefit. Covering the head may often be beneficial, depending on the concrete setup. You don't want hair in food even if the hair is clean, and you don't wash hair as frequently as hands (especially when preparing food).
> + I wonder how well they will handle a serious medical cost. One person with an autoimmune disease will easily wipe out their cash on hand - as will a chainsaw accident.
And BINGO! You just discovered why healthcare is so expensive. How are you supposed to get people to work for slave wages at Amazon without the looming threat of hospital bills?
Right: "Our total medical expenditure came to $50,138. This works out to $686.82 per member per year." They don't break the membership down by age, but that's a number for a young healthy group, and completely unrealistic for forward planning. Medical contingencies can be huge. One serious accident with farm equipment or a pregnancy gone sour and they're bankrupt.
And I can't find anything about insurance costs in that article. Surely accident and liability insurance is needed?
East Wind does not use health insurance. We pay out of pocket for medical expenses to the best of our ability. For extreme major medical costs we pay into a joint major medical fund with other FEC communities to distribute such costs. The cost of paying into this was included in the health care expenses.
That fund has paid out $60k for heart surgery for a Twin Oaker, and a $45k emergency helicopter ride for an East Winder.
Taking advantage of state low-income assistance, we manage to enjoy good health care for relatively little.
I am pretty confident that EW is part of the FEC PEACH catastrophic self insurance system. This is a $5K deductable plan which the community pays for up to that level and then the PEACH program takes over costs. This self insurance is available to any community in the FEC network and has been operating successfully for several decades. Powerfully, it succeeds in part based on the idea that you do not sue your own family, and thus all the moneys collected can go to direct medical costs and not to lawyers. If Obamacare is dismantled, this type of system is you best chance for affordable health care, you just have to be willing to share your income to get it.
Anyway, if so (and certainly similar communities were a thing then), some of the founders from then must be 70+ by now. Were those people eligible for Social Security when they passed age 65? i.e., after 40+ years of employment by an organization that doesn't pay FICA or file W-2's -- or do they? And if they do, why isn't that mentioned in an article on the "economics" of the organization?
East Wind, and most income-sharing communities, are 501c6 non-profits, which are organized like a monastery.
They pay income tax on the community's income, which is evenly distributed (for taxation purposes, not as actual outlays) to each member, but is not considered wage income, and thus isn't Social Security income.
Since people's taxed 501c6 income generally doesn't require Social Security payments, it's possible to not be eligible for SS at retirement age, but many people worked enough quarters before joining a community, and their SS benefits are contributed as income to the community when they retire.
+ Nobody making food is wearing gloves or hair nets (aside from the one guy making cheese). That's probably not a requirement, but given the amount of food being made and how bad even minor contamination would be, that surprises me.
+ Any large food operation is going to require a lot of sanitation/cleanliness. They also mention they don't use "anything not natural". I wonder if that extends to bleach and commercial cleaners.
+ $150 for a discretionary fund to cover cellphone and a car is nothing. That won't cover a single car breakdown.
+ I wonder how well they will handle a serious medical cost. One person with an autoimmune disease will easily wipe out their cash on hand - as will a chainsaw accident.
It's an interesting thing to follow, but I'm happy to be merely an observer.