Week 31: Buy local beef

My family has been very blessed over the years to receive beef as a Christmas present from my parents.  For the last 6 or 7 years, they have given us 1/2 a beef processed the way we want and it has been so wonderful.  This past year, due to the economy, they weren't able to give us a 1/2 but did give us 75 pounds of ground beef.  This, too, is much appreciated and helps our budget tremendously.

The downside of this is that we are almost out of ground beef.  We've been systematically cutting back on other cuts of beef because we would have to get them from the grocery store, but we rely on ground beef heavily.  So, we made the decision to purchase a large quantity ourselves.  On Sunday afternoon, we will be picking up 50 pounds at the meat locker where my parents purchase their meat.

There are some concessions here.  I don't personally know the farmer that raised the cattle.  Typically we have gotten one of Dad's so I know where it's been, but I know the farmer is local to the area (spanning a couple counties, but not from a big cattle lot).  I am sure that this beef has been finished on corn, most certainly GMO corn at that.  I am adamantly opposed to genetically modified foods, so this is a huge conundrum.

In an ideal world, I would meet a farmer with reasonably priced grass-fed beef and find a reputable local butcher to process the meat for me and I'd be all set.  Since the world isn't ideal, I've got two financially feasible options: 1.  go buy ground beef at Wal-Mart (or another big box type grocer).  Of course, I know that my family pack of ground beef came from several cattle that have been completely corn fed their whole lives and lived many of their days in a lot with thousands of other cattle-many of whom have been shot full of antibiotics to keep them alive during their many trips to various lots since their birth (many trips across several states).  The meat in my package has been doused with a "safe" ammonia wash to kill E-coli or other harmful bacteria and perhaps dyed red to make sure it looks pretty in the store display.  Yum!  Makes ya wanna go grab a big burger doesn't it?

Option 2 is to purchase meat from a processing plant that I've personally been to and see that it is clean and well maintained.  The meat will come from a local farmer whose cattle are on pasture but whose diet is supplemented with corn and other grains.  Antibiotics have probably been administered if the animal was ill, but not as part of routine care.  My ground beef will come from one animal, since the locker only processes one at a time and they will not process the meat if it looks questionable (that keeps the unscrupulous from bringing in animals on their deathbed to be processed so they can get some money out of them).  Since there is only one animal on the machines at a time, there is no need to "wash" my meat or dye it as they are freezing it immediately (it looks red because it is fresh!).

I suppose there is a third option of foregoing beef altogether, but I think Hubby has given up enough for this project.  No beef might just send him over the edge! LOL

So, I'm back at option 2 and I'm ok with it.  It isn't the ideal, but not much in my life is!

Week 10: Eggs

I used to get farm eggs all of the time.  A guy who worked with my father-in-law had chickens and would bring eggs into work.  Then that sort of fell through several months back and I was left purchasing grocery store eggs.  When I started reading about the living conditions of the chickens, the lesser nutritional value of the eggs and the GMO feed which the chickens were fed, I knew I needed to get something else going.

I was talking about this to one of my friends and she told me that her brother had chickens.  To him, the chickens are treated like pets and they have free reign of his few acres each day and then come back to the coup each night.  He is very particular what they eat and always has several dozen to sell.  It took a while to actually get in contact with him, but last night I got everything set up and picked up my first batch of eggs.  He sells them for only $2/dozen, which is a steal compared to what the grocery store is selling cage-free eggs for.  Plus, yesterday when I went to the store, regular eggs were $1.59/dozen.  The extra $.40 is money well spent in my opinion.

My kids now want chickens.  They fell in love when we went last night.  As we pulled up, about 15 chickens came running up from near their coup to greet us.  My son cried when we had to leave because he didn't get to hold a chicken.  Hopefully we'll get to see the chickens each month.  The guy even told me about a local animal swap where you can pick up eggs, chicks or full grown chickens.  I might have to go check it out, just because it seems like it would be an interesting afternoon!

I didn't get around to making as many whole wheat bread recipes as I wanted to, so I will be doing more of that this week, along with a few egg dishes.  I think the first will be a french toast casserole using the French bread that I made last week (the longer the bread sat the denser it got-I'll have to work on that one).

Genetically engineered foods-an agricultral armageddon?

I've just spent the last hour or so reading article after article about the genetic modification and subsequent realase of alfalfa into the commercial market.  I am overwhelmed, depressed and generally angry at both our government for putting money over the health of its citizens and for the American people who don't get involved or are generally oblivious to what is happening to our food supply.  Granted, I don't have a thriving social life, but those who do choose (or are forced) to associate with me will learn about the dangers of genetically modified food.  They just don't care or, even worse, look at me like I'm a raving Glenn Beck with all my conspiracy theories.

I feel like I'm in the movie Independence Day where the alien invader ships are hovering over the cities and the citizens are all standing on the rooftops cheering and then the giant laser beam comes shooting out of the bottom of the ship and annihilates them all.  Our alien ships, piloted by Monsanto and the United States government are shooting genetically modified foods at apathetic, clueless American citizens who will be destroyed in the end.

Maybe I'm a little over the top.  Maybe not.  Only time will tell.

WANTED:  decent sized parcel of land with access to water, in the middle of no-where so I can raise my family's food in a manner that is consistent with my values.  Electricity and running water nice, but no longer essential.  I'm thinking along the lines of Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Articles on the issue:

http://www.grist.org/article/2011-02-07-four-things-you-can-do-to-defend-organic-against-the-gmo-alfalfa

http://www.sherdog.net/forums/f54/organic-elite-whole-foods-surrenders-monsanto-what-now-1524775/

http://awaytogarden.com/why-i-called-the-white-house-the-alfalfa-crisis

Soy-Superfood or not?

This is the week of superfoods and, if you read my post yesterday, my family will not be adding soy to our diet.  For a number of years, soy was thought (and still is in many circles) to be the best plant-based source of protein available.  Many scientists, doctors and nutritionists tout soy as being the "be-all-end-all" as it has little saturated fat and no cholestorol.  Also, Asian cultures have been pointed out as having a soy-heavy diet and are in better health than Americans.  All of this is true, but here's why soy is not for my family.

Monsanto has genetically modified the soybean to be Round-up Ready.  For those of you that don't have a background in agriculture (or read way too many agriculture/food books such as myself), Round-up is a pesticide.  Monsanto, using the process of bio-technology, added a gene to the soybean seed so it can withstand the Round-up pesticide.  The farmer plants the soybeans, they sprout and as weeds begin to take root, the farmers spray their fields with Round-up.  The weeds die and the pesticide laden soybean plants remain. 

This bothers me on a few levels.  First, pesticides kill things.  I would like to limit my consumption of stuff that kills things.  It just seems like a bad idea.  Even if the pesticide isn't designed to kill me, eating it can't be all that good for you.  Second, the whole bio-technology process is really scary to me.  I think it's incredible that scientists can break the soybean down to the cellular level and add something to it and make it grow.  That's really cool.  How much testing has been done to ensure that it's safe for my children to consume?  What are the lifelong effects of eating genetically modified food?  How much testing has been done to see how the genetically modified seed mutates over its lifetime?  What are the ramifications of that?  Testing is nil.  Monsanto has the FDA, EPA and Department of Agriculture in its back pocket, and the almighty dollar rules.  The go-ahead to pronouce these foods as safe was given even though many scientists were finding evidence to the contrary.  Third, the Round-up Ready soybean is killing the small family farmer.  Farmer Joe (ficticious farmer) who has always saved his seed and planted a few hundred acres to support his family can no longer do that without Monsanto claiming that their patented Round-up Ready seeds have cross-pollinated and contaminated his field.  By saving the seeds that are in his field, Farmer Joe has committed patent infringment and can be sued by Monsanto.  We don't have to be accountants to realize that being sued by a multi-million dollar corporation like Monsanto would destroy a small family farmer.  In 2008, 92% of the soybeans that were planted were Round-up Ready.  Since, soy is in nearly every pre-packaged food, I just choose to say no, altogether.  This is the number one reason why I cook most all of our food from scratch, solely to eliminate GMO soy (and corn) from our diet.

As for the Asian diet that relies heavily on soy, a closer inspection would find that much of the soy they ingest is fermented.  The process of fermentation stops the effects of phytic acid and creates probiotics, Phytic acid inhibits absorption of nutrients and probiotics are "good" bacteria that aid in digestion.  Products such as miso, tempeh and soy sauces are fermented.  Soymilk, tofu, and all of the soy additives in processed foods are not fermented.  So, for most of us, the most readily available sources of soy are not the ones that would be beneficial to us health-wise, and could be detrimental if we relied on them as our main source of protein.

I do want to point out that organic soy does exist and there are famers that are insisting on planting non-genetically modified soybeans.  This year, it is expected for the first time since the introduction of Round-up Ready soybeans, that sales will fall.  Woo-hoo!  Perhaps I need to find myself a farmer, pick up some non-GMO soybeans and learn to ferment them!

Week 4: Sugar

I have been making many things from scratch for the past year or so and have found that I buy a lot of sugar.  Of course, I wait for the $1.69 sale on the 4 pound bag and stock up.  Or at least that's what I had been doing-until this month. 

I've been doing some reading on genetically modified organisms (GMOs), as called genetically engineered organisms (GEOs).  My conclusion is that while I'm sure this scientific process was begun with the best intentions, I think it has now become a way for corporate agricultual giants to get bigger and continue to squash the small-time farmer.  In addition to the ethical concerns I have, there are also great health concerns.  In my opinion, these genetic modifications to our food do not have the long-term testing that is needed to conclude their safety.  In light of that, I'm trying to rid our diet (as much as possible) of GMOs.

Those little buggers sneak in everywhere.  Essentially if you buy anything non-organic that has corn or soy in it, it is a GMO.  I recently learned that sugar beets and rapeseed (canola) are also genetically modified.  There goes my $1.69 bags of sugar and my regular, easy to find, canola oil.  So, first plan of attack is the sugar.  I have already plotted and planned my big bulk sugar purchase from Azure Standard, but until I can afford that, I purchased some Florida Crystals Natual Cane Sugar.  The ingredient is evaporated cane juice.  This is not the highest on the scale of health, but it isn't genetically modified.  The rapadura that I plan to purchase has been processed in a way that leaves all the minerals in tact.  That doesn't make it the ultimate health food, but does give it some nutritional value.

Next on my list to change are my canola oil and rice.  I have removed almost all of the corn and soy from the house-just a few things that we are finishing up and they won't be replaced.

This week, look for recipes featuring my new found sugar-used sparingly because it is expensive!

Here are a few links that explain GMOs.

Genetically Modified Foods: Harmful or Helpful?

Genetically Modified Organisms-Answers.com