Sausage Day

Posted on August 12, 2014 by dcarmack

All of the elements are in place for making natural pork sausage this evening when I get home.

Here is my new Stuffer. Five pounds of meat at a time are put in and then cranked down into the sausage casing. All metal, no plastic parts are going to break on me.

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We will be making our sausages with a recipe like this one. I know that we will probably be adding cheese to whatever we decide on, because my sweetie only will eat a bratwurst that has cheese in it. Won’t put any beer in my bratwurst, because I don’t believe that is what they mean by a beer bratwurst. The beer needs to be in the cooking liquid, instead. Then, when the sausages are cooked through, I reduce the cooking liquid down to a pasty sauce that I spread on the sausages. A few minutes on the grill or in the oven to brown that sauce and MAN, you got a meal. Sausages burst with flavor and juice then. Can’t wait to try my natural pork and ingredients sausages. If this works, it will be one more thing that I don’t have to buy in a box any more.

Here is a video of the process. It’s a long video, but it does show you the whole process including spicing and grinding the meat.

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Who Knows?

Posted on August 11, 2014 by dcarmack

Seventy percent of US residents are overweight.

One of the millions

One of the millions

Way back in 2008 it was estimated that obesity costed our health care system 150 billion dollars. Health care hasn’t gotten cheaper in the last six years, nor have less people become obese in that time. It’s worse now.

Doctors are not trained to counsel patients on diet or nutrition.

In a recent survey, physicians reported that fewer than 25 percent felt competent to discuss diet and exercise, and that fewer than one in eight visits included nutritional counseling. The most recent survey on nutrition education in medical schools, which is being done every five to six years, found that only 25 percent (down from 30 percent in 2006) of medical schools provided a required nutrition course, and that students received on average 19.6 hours of nutrition instruction (down from 22.3 hours in 2004).

Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/healthcare/214797-the-need-for-nutrition-education-in-med-schools#ixzz3A6O3RpSt
Follow us: @thehill on Twitter | TheHill on Facebook

Nutrition information is hindered by the drought of actual scientific study done on cause-and-effect relationship between foods, ingredients and obesity. There is no “FDA” for food, like there is and “FDA” for drugs.

Clinical nutrition continues to diminish its own credibility by insisting on denying the weaknesses in the research upon which we base our recommendations. I am too often embarrassed to have to explain why we have changed our mind about dietary recommendations (again), because we sounded so certain when we promoted the last set of recommendations. Proper nutrition research is difficult, expensive, and takes years and thousands of subjects willing and able to comply with the intervention. Most nutrition recommendations are based on observational or epidemiological research, which is easier, less expensive and can be accomplished in shorter order, but cannot establish cause and effect relationships.

Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/healthcare/214797-the-need-for-nutrition-education-in-med-schools#ixzz3A6OYoF5b
Follow us: @thehill on Twitter | TheHill on Facebook

Wait on the research if you want to. If you can’t change your weekly menu until your doctor can tell you what to eat, then keep on eating the way you are. Maybe it’s not the foods you are eating that are giving you high blood pressure or type II diabetes.

OR

You can just start shopping on the outside edge of the market. Vegetables and fruits, whole and fresh should be the first thing in the cart. Next, cruise the meat case, where you can get fish, beef, pork, chicken. On to the dairy case where you can find milk and eggs, cheese and yogurt.

Are these the items in your local grocery the absolute best, safest, healthiest choices? No. They are, however, one hundred percent healthier than the mystery foods found in bags, boxes and bottles lining every interior shelf of the market.

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Man, That Was Easy

Posted on August 8, 2014 by dcarmack

Today is not about food, nutrition or cooking.

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After a few years I have decided to replace my aging IMac, 2008 model, with a MacBook. Since I last did this little evolution, the state of the art in transferring files and programs was also found in Apple computers, with the migration assistant. I was expecting a couple of days at least in getting my system ready for the big migration.

For those of you who have never had the pleasure of getting a new Apple computer, the process was roughly like this…you would spend a day cloning your computer’s boot hard drive. This takes a day because there is a lot of data on a full 500 gigabyte drive. I would usually get this started and go to bed. Next day, I am on to step 2. The first time you boot your new Mac, after it figures out what keyboard you are using and what language you are speaking, it asks you if you want to transfer from an old computer. You say yes, and it spends however long it takes to move all of you r music, photos, email, programs, and data from the old to the new. It always takes a while. You can do this process using the old computer itself, or you can use the clone you made the day before. If you use the clone you don’t lose the use of your old computer while this is going on. After rebooting your new computer with all of your old data on it. At this point, about two days from when you started, you are safely into your new computer. Sometimes things don’t go right, but usually that is just how it happens.

Yesterday I got home and it asked me if I wanted to transfer from an old machine, and I declined. Next it asked me if I already have an apple id, and I do. I told it I have separate id’s for the Apple Store and the iCloud. I put all those credentials in. iCloud told me that it had sent invitations to all of my other machines, and if I have access to them, I can use one of them to let this new machine into my iCloud. I went to one of them and discovered that the popup on it could not be dismissed so that I could get to my password manager program to see my iCloud password.  Uh Oh. Same for my iPad, couldn’t get to 1Password. Went to my old computer and I could get to 1Password, put in my iCloud credentials and voila, my new computer had access to all of my iCloud data. In my case that meant Safari had all of my favorites and website passwords already in it, which included Facebook. Facebook also sent me a text code so that it knew the new device logging in was me. Now Facebook was all set up. Went to the Apple App Store and saw a list of every program that I have bought for either me or Karen’s computers since the App Store was born. I started installing apps from my old system that I wanted on my new system. That was not every app, mind you, so I wasn’t taking up valuable hard drive room on programs I no longer need, that I would just have to take off later. Advantage new way. After installing 1Password on the new system I opened it up and it let me know it saw my passwords all stored on the cloud, did I want to log in and use that file? Yes. Now 1Password was set up. I pointed iPhoto to my photo library (69 Gigabytes small) on my TimeCapsule, and now iPhoto was set up. I logged into my account on iTunes, turned on iTunes match and now all of my music was accessible on the cloud. No wasted duplicated data on my computer. So far I have spent about two hours on this job.

The next morning I installed and updated Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac. I had to have an external DVD for this job, because Office wasn’t available to me on the cloud when I bought it. I guess if you have Office 365, this would be pretty easy these days, but this was the hardest part of my job so far. I had to find the key that you punch in, which, fortunately was right at hand. Office updated itself and restarted four times before it said it was up to date.

All in all, I am out three hours of time to get my old computer, that was taking up about 400 Gigabytes of a 500 Gigabyte drive onto my new computer, where it is now taking up about fifty Gigabytes. I was amazed and tickled. The cloud is the shit! I have never been so sold on the idea of it until today. I have no idea if the PC people are having this kind of experience, would love to hear about it if you have any experience with this process. For my part, I have always been high on Apple, I have owned one PC, ever. I have Windows on a partition on an external drive that I can boot into with my Mac, but I never do. If you need a new computer you owe it to yourself and your family to give the Apple computers a long hard look. They have tons of material on the Apple website about how to easily convert your life from PC to Mac. I can’t say how easy or hard that is, but I bet it’s about as easy as what I just went through for the last three hours.

Tomorrow, more about my normal discussion matter, hope you didn’t mind today’s detour.

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Dont Sweat The Future

Posted on August 7, 2014 by dcarmack

A boy and a girl fighting

Boy is to girl as bee is to flower.

They are not opposites

They are complimentary…

 

You cannot have a boy without a girl

 

Any boy will do

Any girl will do

Essentially they are all the same…

 

Nature doesn’t require you to choose

 

Later in your life you will see

Getting to choose is a miracle

Granted to you by evolution…

 

Enjoy your choice

 

Every choice you didn’t make

Would have ended the same way

They are all the same…

 

As far as life is concerned

 

Although that one is prettier now

And yours has grown fat

You need to know this…

 

Someone is tired of their shit

 

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Nothing Lasts Forever

Posted on August 7, 2014 by dcarmack

I am going to die–

Could be any day.

But I am pretty sure

It’s at least a minute away.

 

I’m gonna live like crazy,

Until that minute’s passed.

Then I’m gonna live the next one

As if that were my last.

 

So if in the next minute

Things don’t go so well

No matter how bad it is

It’s not eternity in Hell.

 

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Hard Habit to Break

Posted on August 7, 2014 by dcarmack

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It’s a good thing that I am not on a diet, that I am not counting calories, that I don’t have to start my sugar-free day-counting over if I eat sugar. Since I am not counting days or ‘quitting’ anything, it’s not that big a deal that when we went camping over my birthday weekend that we bought junk food and then ate it three days straight.

On the roster for camping was the gotta-have it ‘Smores, with marshmallows, chocolate and graham crackers, potato chips, Doritos, near-beer (no real alcohol, only simulated alcohol), cookies, and brownies. Also, we got some high-dollar ginger beer and other sugar sweetened soft drinks. Add to that the half a bag of cherries that I ate…MMMM.

Nice thing is we don’t make a habit of shopping that way, and once all the crap was gone, it was gone. Now that we are back home, we are back into our good habits again. We are no worse for the wear, and because when you are camping you burn more energy than when you are at home (at least in my house) then we didn’t even splurge that much on the calorie department. It was a wonderful weekend, and I don’t regret any of the food choices we made. Since I don’t weigh myself every week I have no real idea whether or not it changed me in that way.

That being said, eating junk when I am camping is a habit. It’s a bad habit. It’s going to be a hard habit to break, because we don’t get that many chances per year to break it. What are the alternatives to junk snacking when you are staying in a tent, and the ‘refrigerator’ space is limited to a large Coleman cooler? Does it even matter how you eat for two or three days a few times per year? Why is it that it’s so hard to come up with great snacks that you can carry in a grocery sack?

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Eat Your Meat, Since You Can’t Eat Grass

Posted on August 6, 2014 by dcarmack

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Animals that eat things that we cannot should be in our diets. We cannot eat soil, so plants that can get nutrients from the soil and convert them to a form that we can digest are also in our diets. Nature’s plan is that organisms must count on one another to share the burden of converting non-living things into living things that benefit it’s neighbors in the food chain. Bees count on flowers, flowers count on bees. The relationship is visible and the benefits to the participants are obvious.

The harder ones to understand are the chemical relationships. What is the nature of the relationship between the tree root and the fungus at it’s roots, whose only visible sign is the occasional springtime mushroom that pops up? Surely the tree is bringing something, like energy from the sun down into the earth, and the fungus is doing some mysterious duty, like metabolizing leaf products into sugars, or digesting something that the root cannot. This would be much the same way that our bowel delivers milk sugars, which we can’t digest to the bacteria in us that can. Our bacteria are in our digestive system, maybe a tree’s bacterial helper is outside it’s digestive system.

One hundred years ago all of the cattle that were butchered for meat were fed grass and hay on the farm. Cattle driven to market foraged as they went on hoof in the drives of legend. There were no long-term stays at any place along the trail where juvenile cattle were fed alien foods, like corn or soy meal. When the meat got to us consumers it contained all of the ingredients put there by nature for the use of carnivores whose bodies could not create the essential oils themselves. Grass-consuming animals create oils from the grasses that we cannot create, we must eat them.

A scientific study, whose results can be found HERE, showed that long term or short term grain feeding regimens before slaughter significantly increased the amount of omega 6 found in beef, no matter which cut. Omega 3 could be found in significant quantities in pastured beef.

Only grass-fed beef reached the target of more than 30mg of long chain n-3 FA/100 g muscle as recommended by Food Standard Australia and New Zealand for a food to be considered a source of omega-3 fatty acids.

Naturally raised meat animals will provide us with the elements that nature intends. We don’t need to find exotic oils to take, far-flung species of fish to eat. We need to find a local source of naturally raised meats and dairy products from those meats.

My own favorite source is a local meat locker north of Smithville lake, in Trimble Missouri. This weekend I went there and purchased a Boston Butt roast, processed from meat from a locally grown hog. I am confident that this meat will provide me with the proper ratio of essential oils that I need. I will be making this meat into sausages that will contain only the additives that I put in. My ingredient list will be short and won’t contain a single item meant to make my sausages last a month on the shelf. What I don’t eat right away I will freeze and vacuum pack for later on. Five pounds of sausages might cost me as much as twenty dollars if I bought the commercial brands. This meat cost me a little bit less per pound than that, but there is a bone in my roast. What I got was priced fairly, what I will make will cost me much less than eating the grain fed and confinement pork

Sometime this week I will be writing about the experience of making these sausages, since I have never made sausages before. I got a sausage stuffer for my birthday, and I am just dying to try it out. If you have any sausage making tips, please help us all out, by dropping a comment in the comment box.

 

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Fertilizer Kills Lakes and Rivers

Posted on August 5, 2014 by dcarmack

Lake Erie is enjoying a terrific growing season …for algae.

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Toledo, Ohio had to stop making drinking water recently, because of the ‘bloom’ of a form of algae that gives off a toxic waste product, which can’t easily be gotten out of the water by the water treatment plants. This algae is blooming because of phosphorus from farms in the Midwest. The phosphorus runoff is greatest from conventional farming, but also occurs from no-till farming, where fertilizer and herbicides are sprayed right on the ground and not mixed into the soil by tilling. Not having to till the soil saves the farmer from making expensive passes on the farm with his tractor, but no matter what, rainstorms in the spring can cause some of the chemicals to wash into the rivers and lakes.

These algae blooms are becoming a problem all over the Midwest.

But while there is talk of action — and particularly in Ohio, real action — there also is widespread agreement that efforts to address the problem have fallen woefully short. And the troubles are not restricted to the Great Lakes. Poisonous algae are found in polluted inland lakes from Minnesota to Nebraska to California, and even in the glacial-era kettle ponds of Cape Cod in Massachusetts.

Five years ago the EPA put out a report that called for urgent action to bend the curve on phosphorus runoff. In their report they analyzed the sources of nitrogen and phosphorus found in the Gulf of Mexico. Eighty percent of the phosphorus was from farming. Seventy percent of the biological nitrogen was from farming. The algae bloom in Lake Erie and in our nation’s lakes and rivers are likewise directly related to modern industrial farming practices. From the report:

In contrast to the 18 million tons of human fecal material treated annually (based on Freitas Jr. 1999; MERCK 2007) at POTWs, animal agriculture production results in the generation of more than 1 billion tons of manure each year (based on Brodie 1974; Chastain et al. 2003; USDA 2009a; USDA 2009b; USDA 2009c; USDA 2009f). This manure results in over 8 million pounds per day of nitrogen and 3 million pounds per day of phosphorus. Much of the manure is applied to farmland as organic fertilizer for crops. Some of the nutrients in this applied manure end up in harvested plant tissue, but significant portions end up in our nation’s waters.

This report went on to list the existing ways that using the existing laws the problem of phosphorus and nitrogen runoff can be controlled. None of this looks promising, especially considering that to increase enforcement would increase government expense to do so. Spending more government money on this might be a terrific investment in our national future, but you have to convince at least ten Republican Senators to vote this way. Let’s discuss other, more realistic options…

Growing nothing but corn and soybeans, mostly to feed our feedlot meat supply, is killing us in numerous ways. Greenhouse gases are created by the animals, by making their feed, by making the fertilizer to make their feed. The warming atmosphere and torrential rains from the changing environment wash the fertilizers into the water supply, where it is converted by dangerous algae into toxins that are difficult to remove from the water. Algae kills the fish in the ponds and lakes by consuming all of the oxygen in the water as it decomposes when it dies. The toxins kill us.

The sad thing is, we don’t need all of that corn and soy. Producing so much of it has the effect of keeping it’s price low. The low price makes it a desirable food supply for feedlot animals, in fact makes feedlots possible in the first place. Feeding the animals corn is not good for them, or good for us. Growing so many plants so close together is not good for them or good for us. The question then is, “Why do they do it?” The answer is “it’s cheaper”. If money were the only issue, then I would say, save money, but money is not the only issue. There are all of these external costs. Just last month how many articles did I get to write on the costs of industrial foods compared to their prices? Industrial agriculture is killing fish, making people fat, causing liver damage, killing bees, killing butterflies, killing lakes and streams. The only benefit of all of this damage is a one dollar meal at McDonald’s, instead of a two dollar meal. You get to buy a Big Gulp at 7-11 for sixty nine cents instead of for two dollars. Broccoli costs more than Hamburger Helper.

I wish we could all just turn away from the foods that are causing the problems. I can and have, but I know maybe your home economics and time limits may make you think you can’t do what I have done. I wish you would challenge yourself to try. Just staying on the outside walls of your grocery store will save you money and might just save your life. It’s a start, and it’s way easier than getting the same results out of the government.

Edited to account for the actual order of problems with phosphorus runoff. Tilling is worse than no-till. Both end up with chemicals running off.

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Sounds Like a Plan

Posted on August 2, 2014 by dcarmack

Today in my town there are farmers who have gotten up extra early, packed the products of their fields into their trucks and drove to town. They set up tables at the farmer's market, and wait for me to arrive. I bring my little red wagon, shopping bags and a good portion of my grocery money for the week. I will buy at least seven quarts worth of whatever they are selling fresh. Today it is probably green beens.

When I get home I will ferment them, like they discuss in this Slate.com article. According to slate, you should also involve your kids in the process of fermenting the bounty of the field. They give four reasons, but I really think there is one best reason, that they don't mention. Your kids should learn that there is nothing magical about making really good food. Your fermented green beens will turn out really good. You will be amazed at how much better something that starts out fresh and ripe will be than whatever that is that you dump out of the green been can. I can only really speak for myself here, but I grew up thinking that the reason we ate out of cans and bottles so much was that there must be some really hard and mysterious process that created these things.

My granddaughter and I make peanut butter at home. I don't start from raw peanut that I got from the farmer's market, I buy Planter's Spanish Peanuts already cooked and salted. I tried from raw one time and it wasn't better or easier. From before she was old enough to help she has watched me doing something really simple, and making something really delicious. She eats store bought peanut butter, but when she is here she demands real home made peanut butter. If we don't have any then she helps me make it. We peel the red skins off of the nuts, fill the food processor, wait four minutes, put the product in a one pint spring top jar, lick the bowl…the lesson for her is that there isn't anything about making peanut butter that requires us to get it ready made. She knows that it only takes thirty minutes to make, no cooking.

Fermenting foods is the same way. Your kids (or you for that matter) may think that they bottle cucumbers for you because making pickles yourself is a delicate, dangerous process. You may think that if you foul this up that you will kill yourself with botulism. It's like they have convinced us that we aren't competent to rot food safely. This process is as easy as falling to sleep at night. The product is as remarkable as the raw ingredients you put into the jars. So far this season I have made sauerkraut from cabbage, pickled beets, kimchi, pickles, pickled peppers and kombucha. I have never had to throw a batch out. I have never gotten sick eating any of these things.

You will need bottles to ferment in, I use quart or half gallon mason jars. I use beer-making fermentation locks to keep bugs and mold out. I put brine and vegetbles in, I take out pickles. I refrigerate a quart or two of it, the rest goes in a storage room in the basement. This year I may actually can some of these things for long-term storage, which kills the probiotic bacteria in it that some say is the beneficial point. I think the beneficial point is that when I eat it, probiotic or no, I will know exactly what is in it. The only preservative will be salt and heat. The food will be pure and unadulterated. My kids and grandkids will see that it is fun and easy. They will learn to set todays bounty aside for later. Our planet and our neighborhood will benefit from our attentions. It is a small thing, and the world may not notice, but the world that I can see will. My universe revolves around the things I can see. Paying attention to my food, giving it the honor that it deserves, turning it into things that are created with my entire mind is the highest honor I can give to these plants that lived for me. Passing that devotion on to my grandchildren is the best thing I can do for them.

 

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“Meets All FDA Requirements”

Posted on August 1, 2014 by dcarmack

“Meets all FDA requirements” is probably one of the most meaningless statements that you can read, when it comes to food ingredients. Here is a quote from yesterday’s news:

Although the Great Value ice cream doesn’t quite melt, the ingredients meet all FDA requirements and and have less fat, too.

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I guess that if you set a Walmart brand ice cream sandwich out in the sun for a while it still looks like an ice cream sandwich. When other brands melt like you would expect, the Great Value brand is still ready to eat, when you are ready to eat it. Don’t worry though, with the FDA’s blessing on all of it’s ingredients, that scientifically improved ice cream will behave just like the other, more traditional ones do once they are in your body. That FDA seal of approval means you have nothing to fear! This is from the FDA, itself:

FDA approves additives in food for people.

FDA field investigators inspect food companies, examine food shipments from abroad, and collect samples. Laboratory scientists analyze samples. Compliance officers recommend legal action and follow through on enforcement issues. What undergoes premarket approval? New food additives and color additives must be approved before they can be used in foods. These additives are considered food under the law.

New food additives, including substances added intentionally to food and substances that may migrate to food because they contact food (e.g., food packaging) must be shown to be safe to FDA’s satisfaction before companies can market them.

Companies that want to add new additives to food bear the responsibility of providing FDA with information demonstrating that the additives are safe. FDA experts review the results of appropriate tests done by companies to ensure that the additive is safe for its intended use.

An approved food additive must be used in compliance with its approved uses, specifications, and restrictions. Certain food ingredients, such as those with a long history of safe use in food, do not require premarket approval.

So, whoever makes Walmart’s ice cream wants it to maintain it’s shape, even if it gets warmer than ice cream normally should, like on the steamer from China to the US, if the air conditioning goes out. All that ice cream will still look and feel and taste like ice cream, so that when the freezer does come back on, nobody will have to throw anything away. Efficiency! Reduced Waste! Safe for human consumption (your results may vary). Another advantage is for campers. You know how if you get ice cream it will melt in your camping cooler? No more! This stuff will still be cool and edible when every other brand of ice cream is turned back into custard. Win-Win! Plus, it’s verified safe for human consumption by the manufacturer providing to FDA ‘information’ demonstrating that all of it’s ingredients are ‘safe’.

What a wonderful country! No wonder our taxes are so low in the US. If only they would let the airlines just provide the FAA with ‘information’ that their airplanes are safe, or drug manufacturers to provide FDA with claims that their drugs are safe. The savings could be passed directly to the consumer. Prices would go down, even though ‘costs’ in lives, safety and health might go up. Oh well, if you can’t afford Haagen Daaz ice cream then your health doesn’t matter to our elected officials, I suppose.

Well, as far as I am concerned, since these ice cream sandwiches come in a box, I am covered. If I were to eat one offered to me as a treat at a friend’s house I wouldn’t worry that it would hurt me right away. That is what FDA approval really means. In actuality, there is no real difference between today’s subject food and any other processed food sold in the US. All processed foods should be suspect in your mind. If you stick to the outside walls of your grocer your chances of being tricked into eating something that is ‘declared safe’ are vastly lower. That is my plan.

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