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The “low cost” of beef….
….well, if you import it from Tasmania anyway. Our recent round-table discussion opened up a number of avenues that the “old reporter” in me couldn’t resist. One was the discovery that US Wellness, the largest marketer of grass fed beef on the Internet, was importing some of its meat from Tasmania. (Yes, I had to look on a map, too. It’s about 100 miles south of Australia.) Turns out their northern soil is practically perfect for grazing. Couple that with low wages and low land costs, throw in cheap shipping on boats returning to the States that would otherwise be empty, and you can see what American producers are up…
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What about bone marrow?
Don’t know. Certainly love what I taste when I have osso bucco. But I have never really focused on the subject until our butcher, Doug Aylestock of Blue Ridge Meats, cut up some from our latest animal to introduce us to the treat. I’ve always been really happy with the soup bones we get from our animals and so I was only mildly interested. Wooz, on the other hand, got very excited when she saw the four bags of marrow bones on the gurney. Apparently marrow bones are just the ticket if you want to make serious beef stock….waaay better than the store-bought stuff. Not only that, but apparently it’s…
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Spinach pops….
….now here’s a wonderful idea: spray vegetables with sugar so kids will eat them. No, really. A serious suggestion from the “experts” in nutrition. http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/02/18/sugar-mist-makes-veggies-more-palatable-to-kids/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+foxnews%2Fhealth+%28Internal+-+Health+-+Text%29
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Are nutritionists in the tank….
….for Big Food? You probably aren’t surprised to learn that the answer is “yes”. Again and again, though, I am stunned by the details of the unholy alliance of industry, bought-and-paid-for experts, and government that have so thoroughly corrupted our food system and devastated the health of our country. Chris Kresser, a blogger on health matters who specializes in covering holistic health issues was interviewed recently on the sell-out by the professionals we believe are protecting our well-being…and he discussed a press release on the subject: Chris Kresser: So, the press release was “Public health attorney and author Michele Simon asks: Are America’s nutrition professionals in the pocket of Big…
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Cocoa Puffs “good”….
….Aunt Matilda’s pickles “bad”! Virginia natural farm spokesman Joel Salatin has issued a blistering indictment of our commercial food system in a speech at Willamette University in Oregon. Salatin said the U.S. food system is too industrialized, too opaque and too segregated to be sustainable. Here’s the story as reported by Capital Press. “We don’t have a way for food innovation to occur on a local level because … (the USDA and Food and Drug Administration) don’t allow small-scale, embryonic innovation to come to the marketplace, unless it comes through their infrastructure and regulatory and paperwork sieve,” Salatin said. “And that sieve is prejudicial to all small-scale operations. …
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For the love of bacon…
I’ve come late to the ranks of Baconuts. Like most people I thought it was too fat. Either that, or burned to a crisp and tasteless. But then (forgive me) I tasted Thistle Hill bacon and I’ve been hooked ever since. Call me greedy, but I resent every package that we part with. Our sausages are great, too, but the bacon…. Now if you’re still worried about “too much fat”….you might read this: http://paleodietlifestyle.com/for-the-love-of-bacon/ PS: our pigs are doing fine and should be ready in the spring. Acorn fattened! Can’t wait to see the effect of that.
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Thawing frozen steaks…
…it’s a question we get asked frequently and we have always recommended thawing gradually in the refrigerator. But the Stockman Grass Farmer quotes the USDA as saying that’s best for roasts, but not necessary for steaks. USDA researchers test-thawed more than 200 one-inch thick strip steaks…some in the refrigerator, some at room temperature in constantly circulating water, and some in a water bath at 102 degrees. The conclusion was that the last, the warm water bath, was the most efficient and the steaks leaked less juice. There was no difference in tenderness. For roasts, however, room temperature thawing resulted in surface bacterial growth to occur before the center was fully thawed. Therefore,…
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“I’m cutting back on meat”….
….I don’t know how often I hear that. Just the other day, a woman was raving about the taste of Thistle Hill meat but added, just a bit apologetically, that sadly she was “cutting back” for “health reasons”. Of course, I answered that it might well be that, in fact, she might better improve her health by increasing the amount of grass fed beef she eats. A significant percentage of our customers do indeed buy our meat precisely because they have decided it’s good “for what ails them”. The biggest source of propaganda against eating red meat, of course, is our very own government. The bureaucrats are still tied to…
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Eating the baby….
A diner in England has garnered a lot of publicity by offering a “Kidz Breakfast” which they claim weighs as much as a baby. No one seems to have succeeded in polishing off the breakfast until now, which is when Robert Pinto walked in and “ate the whole thing”….9 pounds of bacon and eggs…and sausage. It prompted calls for it to be banned and had one expert warning that someone could die after eating it. But the “Kidz Breakfast”, described as weighing the same as a small child, has remained the talk of a Norfolk seaside town. Consisting of a dozen sausages, 12 bacon rashers and enough eggs to be produced…
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Gluten..or not to gluten…
has been an on-going question at our house. We’ve gone gluten-free twice and have felt the benefits. Our “daughter the doctor” supports it without reservation. But in the past we’ve just liked some breads and pasta too much to stick to it. Right now, it’s not an issue since I’ve been on a low car diet, but here’s a pretty good summary of where the science seems to be right now. http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/04/gluten-free-whether-you-need-it-or-not/?ref=science