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In an ideal world….
….this would provoke a national discussion and a “new” approach to farming. In an ideal world. Agriculture Secretary Vilsack is quoted as saying in a speech recently that rural America is fast becoming irrelevant. Now what Vlasick wants is for farmers to “get with the program” and stop bickering. Here’s the AP report: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_VILSACK_RURAL_AMERICA?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-12-08-08-24-10 In short, Vilsack apparently wants farmers to quit whining and stop resisting all those regulations that are good for them. Where to start? First, farmers are right to be suspicious of government regulations because government programs is what got them into trouble in the first place. They took the “candy” to buy tractors, and silos and…
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Better than nothing….
….at least that was my reaction to a report Fox News carried on grass fed beef. Never mind that the report was buried on Thanksgiving day when no one is watching television except football fans. About the only positive notes were that grass fed beef is leaner….and that consumption is growing. Not a word about the poisons that are poured into, onto and injected inside conventional cattle. Nothing about the diseases (cancer, heart, diabetes, etc) that have been linked to the consumption of corn…in boxes and in cows. No mention of the destruction of land and water in ordinary cattle production. Nothing about the huge consumption of energy required to…
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We’ll never learn….
…or at least the so-called experts never learn. We continue to be surprised by the number of people who tell us they’ve stopped eating meat for health reasons. Wooz still tries to set the record straight; I’ve given up. And these same people, and for health reasons, will go vegetarian, vegan or eat diet foods containing chemicals guaranteed to poison! We’re reminded of that by a blurb in Kit Pharo’s recent newsletter. Imagine you’ve got a group of men who’ve survived a heart attack. They agree to participate in a four-year-long experiment where they’re placed onto one of two diets: Diet One is a “Mediterranean Diet” high in fruits, vegetables,…
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Once more with feeling…
….we were at a party last night where, once more, someone in one of the conversation circles, announced her family “just doesn’t eat much red meat anymore”. Not a vegetarian exactly, you understand, just would rather not eat much red meat. Because I was a guest (and off-duty), I again let the remark pass. I did not tell the lady that the chicken and pork she was feeding her family was a whole lot worse for them than red meat. But still, despite all the evidence, it’s my impression that most of the experts today are still cautioning against “too much”, whatever that is, red meat. We’ve linked to various…
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The Unholy Alliance?
Sometimes I have to tell myself not to be so paranoid. As you will have figured out by now, when it comes to food and health, I’m no fan of the government, Big Ag and the drug companies. Now a writer has developed some history that indicates we need to throw Big Banks into the mix as well. There’s no question that we’re an over-weight, over-medicated nation, but I hesitate to blame it on a “grand conspiracy” put in motion 100 years ago. Nevertheless, that’s the claim. You can read and decide for yourself. http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/07/15/ellen-brown-discusses-money-system.aspx?e_cid=20120715_SNL_Art_1 When you consider today’s “insider relationships”, cronyism and the revolving door involving people at the…
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The least patriotic food in America?
That’s the headline in the Washington Post and their answer is, yes, the hamburger. The article is in four parts: the burger itself, the bun, the fixings and equality. The bottom line is that fresh, nutritious, real food has increasingly been reserved for the more affluent. The poor are left with the artificial, cheaper, processed food…dressed up with salt and flavorings, packaging, and advertising. It was a problem Thomas Jefferson worried about 200 years ago, noting that the wealthy ate vegetables and the poor did not. The major points in the article: The burger. 85% of all the burger Americans eat come from just four giant food processors. They control…
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Et tu, NIH?
One of the rewards of what we do is talking to our friends and neighbors as they get their latest grass fed beef and pork fix. There were a couple of those conversations yesterday. One about the federal study that says the low carb diet is best for losing weight after all….and another with a woman who says she depends on the perfect fats in grass fed beef to supply just the right amount of fat she needs. We’ve ranted here before about the nonsense masquerading as science that comes out of not only the government but the medical industry. Anyone for the food pyramid? Now, though, this latest study…
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Those who can’t….
….well you know the rest. And it’s certainly true in the cattle business. Some of the best-known consultants have never really successfully managed a herd, much less produced a notable cow. You can check. But here’s a Devon cow bred by a consultant, Bill Roberts of 12 Stones Grassland Beef, that would be a star in any herd. Her name is 12 Stones Maxine and she traces her roots back to the Lenoirs Creek and Lakota farms. Bill not only produces beautiful animals but does a limited amount of consulting when he can fit it in between finding grass steers for processors and running a mineral business. I hope you’ve been tracking…
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Just by coincidence…
I had barely finished writing my post below warning that grass fed farmers needed to carefully consider before shipping their animals into the commercial marketplace. My point was that designing your animals for “The Box” is what got the meat industry into trouble in the first place. It’s an easy way to sell your steers, assuming you produce them to the required size, but I wanted to point out it was possibly the proverbial “bargain with the Devil”. (Why didn’t I think of that phrase sooner?) The big food processors have been buying up the smaller organic and natural labels and inevitably, I argued, that will lead to the corruption…
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The developing grass fed beef market (Part 2)….
Bill Roberts’ dissent from the old bromide perception is reality reminded me of another: “Each man is entitled to his own opinions, but not his own facts”. It’s generally attributed to the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan but goes back a lot farther than that. And while we have some serious concerns over Bill’s article (see Part1 just below), we accept his basic fact: to meet the requirements of the commercial meat trade a steer must have a hanging weight of at least 600 pounds and that requires a live weight of more than 1,000 pounds. That’s Bill’s major concentration right now….putting together trailer-loads of grass steers…to be sent to processors. To…