-
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. …
-
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.
-
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,…
-
“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…
-
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…
-
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
-
A cow of a different color….
….or, “you can’t tell your Whopper without a dna test”. http://tampa.cbslocal.com/2013/02/01/burger-king-to-dna-test-its-beef-after-food-processor-used-horse-meat/ We’ve said several times that repeated studies show the most dangerous things you can consume are hamburgers and chicken. Studies also show that the top sellers in fast food restaurants, meaning in the country, are……
-
They’re trying to kill us…
…a new study offers something of a surprise: you’re more likely to wind up with food poisoning by eating leafy green vegetables than anything else. We’re assuming that’s because so much of the greens we eat are imported from countries where oversight is not as stringent as here. Not surprising is that, while food poisoning due to vegetables is certainly serious, food poisoning that kills you most often comes from chicken. That we knew. All the negative publicity centers on beef recalls but more people die from eating contaminated chicken. Twenty per cent of the deaths are blamed on chicken; just four per cent on beef. And, of course, grass…
-
The chemical arms race…
…. was going to call this post “GMO Roundup” (pun intended). But it really is chemical warfare right on the farmlands of the United States. It all started with Monsanto developing a powerful herbicide, “Roundup”. The trouble was, Roundup not only killed weeds, it killed the corn. Not to worry, then Monsanto developed Roundup-resistant seeds and today most of the major crops come from those seeds—corn, soybeans, sugar beets—in all, about 165-million acres of GMO crops. But then a new crop developed: weeds; weeds that were resistant to Roundup. Again, Monsanto was ready with the answer: more powerful Roundup. And of course, what happened was the weeds kept up with…
-
The apocalyptic threat….
It’s already happening, of course; that is, antibiotic-resistant diseases. And it is a major reason why Thistle Hill never feeds its animals, cows or pigs, antibiotics. But it’s routinely added to the feed most people use with their herds….that and the fact that most of the grains used in animal feed are genetically-modified. In England, their chief public health officer is warning that there’s a perfect storm brewing: not only are the bugs getting tougher, research on newer, stronger antibiotics has just about stopped. http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/jan/23/antibiotic-resistant-diseases-apocalyptic-threat A side note, growing out of the recent series here on labeling: many meat suppliers claim that they do not use antibiotics or drugs on…