If what we eat is produced in inhumane, unethical ways that strip the food of its nutrition, how does it then nourish our bodies and souls?
Food Inc. rends the veil of secrecy that hides the ugly part of America’s food supply from consumers. It’s like that cliche, "You don’t want to see how sausages are made.." Or your chicken sandwiches, or beef. Or anything made with corn–which is just about everything we consume.
Food Inc. shows how our food is the end product of a highly mechanized system, where workers are expendable, where 80% of the production of our meat is in the hands of four major companies, where chicken farmers are simply sharecroppers raising leased chicks for slaughter, where the rise of eColi can be directly traced to poor handling of meat and the overfeeding of animals with corn.
In the case of cows with eColi, it’s pointed out that simply by feeding cows grass for a several weeks, the deadly eColi bacteria is greatly reduced in their digestive system (and we get a really gross view of their digestive system when a factory farm scientist reaches into a live cow’s gut to test it for E.coli.
But what is Beef Product Incorporation’s answer to E.coli contamination? Processing ground beef with ammonia, creating:
94% lean, frozen beef product in the form of small IQF (Individually Quick Frozen) chips or 60-pounds of chips compressed in to block. BPI products are a quality and economical replacement for a portion of lean boneless beef in most product formulations.
BPI hopes that one day soon its ammonia-treated beef product will be in all ground beef dishes.
It’s shocking to see that healthy vegetables and fruits cost more than fast food–a result of farming practices which have turned our country’s arable land into corn fields where the crops are sold below production prices and feed lots where the corn is consumed by animals (and now fish!) not meant to eat the grain.
While industrial food producers try to convince us that their mechanized methods are the best way to feed the world, this self-serving statement is disproved by Joel Salatin from Polyface Farms who rotates his animals and grasslands, raising chickens with a lower bacterial count than factory farmed birds and earning more per acre than his neighbors who factory farm. Gary Hirshberg, whose Stoneybrook Farms is the third largest yogurt producer in the country also practices sustainable, ethical production methods. These two voices show alternatives to the grotesque factories.
Robert Kenner’s direction contrasts bucolic farms–our food fantasties–with the megalotic monstrosities of where out food really comes from. At times brutal –the animals parts were really hard to take–Food Inc is a one of the most important documentaries about taking personal charge of our welfare and the welfare of our fellows and of the planet.
Food, Inc. – Companion Book here
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As usual, please stay on topic, which tonight is Food, Inc–factory farming, E.Coli, exploitation of meat processing plant workers, the consolidation of our food suppliers, the dangers of mono-species, reality that ethical farming is just as productive and waaay healthier….
And also from a philosophical point of view, it feels really wrong to take sustenance from products that are so corrupt, that do some much harm to our fellows and the planet.
I’m here and ready for questions
I admot, I love the comfort of fast food fries. her ein LA we hve In & Out Burgers, fresh ground meat, fries cut right in the place…family owned company. Granted they do have Bible verse printed on the bottom of their cups, but it’s slight;y les corporate than Mickey D
One of the things that soo grose dme out in Food Inc…the ammonia treated beef product. Robbie–did making this movie change your eating habits?
Hey Lisa – I shoo’d out the chickens and kicked the hogs off the front stoop.
Eric said good things about In N Out Burger in Fast Food Nation, just try to eat one less burger a week, better for you and the planet
Good Evening Robert. We are all interested in food food here at the lake.
Eating industrial food just does not taste the same. It’s not only the hamburger but the lettuce and tomatoes too. Travelling is a bitch, hard to find good food
Also, I was shocked ot learn from Food INc that the very peopel hired for oversight are lobbyist and former employees of the compnaies they are supposed ot be oversing..apologies for my typing btw
try a fishing rod
for me one of the shocking things in food inc is how a few corporations control thw food we’re eating and how connected those corporations are with government
Robert – you might want to get someone to call the local Cooperative Extensions on your route and find places with farmers markets that are open when you get there; that might be a help in terms of getting local food..
It ws so eye opnieng and painful to see the cost of vegetables vs fast food. A friend once id “I dont consider myself rich, I can just buy what I ant at the market.” a lot of Americans dont have that luxury. Due no doubt because arable land i takne up for corn and feed lots…
Robert – I have not had a chance to see the movie yet(and with my luck here, we won’t get it either), but I think something we need to recognize is that the connections between Big Ag, the oil companies, the companies that use the oil to produce Ag products like fertilizers, and the Federal Dept. of Agriculture are all one giant revolving door.
This sounds like the most important movie of the year, or the past several decades for that matter.
How on earth can we discuss health care and not discuss this absolutely evil, disease-inducing aspect of how we live?
Last night I had grass fed beef raised 4 miles from my house. Tonight I had free range chicken raised 6 miles from my house, and beets from the same farm. Local farmers’ market is alive & well in New Paltz, NY.
It’s really expensive though. $20 for a 5 pound chicken. Ordinary families can’t afford to eat that way.
But it does taste yummy.
In a couple of weeks the local bee keeped is going to bring over a hive for me. He’ll maintain it, unless I get interesting in learning how, in which case he’ll teach me. Hopefully I’ll have my own honey next year.
I saw the movie yesterday at a loal art house, at oon on Sunday it wa svery full, and afterwards peopel were walkng out saying what a great mvie it is–thank you Robert
Corn in its corporate guise seems to be a real villain here
unfortunately now we are subsidizing food that is making us sick. we need to create an even playing field where good and healthy food can come down in cost
I’ve been concerned about food since learning of GMO’s while in college (1999).
Whenever I broach the subject with others, I don’t see them alarmed as I am at the quality of our food.
I hear excuses of how expensive organic food is vs conventional…but then the same folks will spend large amounts on clothing, cars, houses, you name it.
I just don’t get the disconnect. I mean, this is your FOOD.
Do you cover this apathy in the film?
eCAHN…if you have a decent summer with flowers, etc., that hive will be able to produce a lot THIS year and that beekeeper just might give you some as your ‘rent’. Learning to keep bees is not hard work. If you keep an eye on them and make sure to keep the supers changed over, you can produce a lot of honey.
Yes. Corn is King in this country and frankly, it’s killing us.
However, for a large party I was able to buy biodegradable plates, forks and cups made form corn, and i was gratefu for that, but feed corn to fish!? freaky
thanks for your comments but we need more people to get to the theaters and help grow the movement for our movie and for the whole food movement. when we met with vilsack he said “if you have a movement we will follow”
Robert – is there a schedule on your site showing dates, times and places for showings?
Apparently there’s a new program in NYC this year to bring fresh fruits and vegies to poor neighborhoods, where fast food restaurants outnumber grocery stores by some multiple. The local farmers’ markets are thriving in the city, but they are in places where upper income people would shop.
In Santa Rosa, Ca the theater,The Rialto playing the movie is also having an opening night panel with people from the farmers markets and other food activist.
Could you talk about the checklist a bit and how people can implement change?
What would happen if our tax dollar stopped subsidizing corn? And granted McDonalds employs a lot of people and buys a lot of corn based food (from beef to sweets) but do we NEED the really?
absolutely cover the apathy. for me one of the most shopcking things was when i went to a hearing about whether we should label cloned meat and a representative of athe meat industry said that to label this food isn’t in the interest of the consumer, it would just confuse them. agribusiness does not want us to know how our food is grown and what’s in it. they spend billions to keep us from thinking about our food. when we start to know how unsafe it is that apathy will disappear
What can we do to help get the word out?
Yes, eCAHN..I saw an article in the Times, I believe, where the city is supporting ‘green carts’ in the neighborhoods and people are just going crazy to have fresh fruits and veggies close to them where they can get to them. That is a huge problem; in many places, low income people can’t GET TO good food — it’s in the suburbs at big supermarkets..not in their local bodegas where it costs the earth.
go to the official food inc site or to magnolia pictures website for opening information. we’ll hit 45 more theaters next week, currently open in NY, LA and San Fran. get your friends out to see it!
to get the word out email everyone, your friends, family, send them the link to the site. let them know the theaters it’s playing in. it will be so helpful, thanks very much
He did a site inspection yesterday. He loved the fact that I have many gigantic weeping willows. The winter is harsh on the hive and willows flower early in the spring when they need to bulk up quickly.
He’s hard to get to do what you want him to do. So when he sez a couple of weeks, I expect a month or longer. So the hive may not get established soon enough to produce this year.
I eat venison from my own property, and the beekeeper wants to hunt here too, so I’ll have even more. (My quid pro quo is that I get venison in exchange for permission to hunt.)
Robert – if people actually knew that their food was not only killing them, but was killing the environment and killing the people who were used to produce it, too, there would be a big outcry.
As a technical note, there’s a reply button at the bottom of each comments. If you use it, the conversation will be clearer.
The treatment of workers, of the animals, the farmers..it’s obscene
we address the issue of getting good food, many areas do not have access and it’s going to cost not only them but all of us a lot of money. this bad food is going to bankrupt the healthcare system. go to takepart.com for more suggestions, we need to change the school lunch program so they have good food and make it okay for local farmer’s markets to take food stamps
People don’t really eat dead animals from the land or sea? It has been known to be toxic for decades, 2 generations at least? Unbelievable. What a primitive world.
Sounds like an interesting film.. Thank goodness it’s available on netflix.
Got it, Robert. thank you. Is there any way for local groups to get a showing? Do we actually need a theatre or would a high school auditorium do?
Robert – my elder daughter works for the county cooperative extension and she is trying to get local foods into the schools.
REALLY???? Woohoo#$
the fact is, not only the animals but the workers, the earth, and the people eating this food are all being exploited. this is a system that can’t go on. it is really only 40 years old but it is failing already.
Robert, I’m wondering about the Oprah beef lawsuit, etc .. haven’t they almost successfully criminalized speaking truth about food? Could you talk about this vis-a-vis making your movie?
Food Inc. official site also has links to petitions and ideas on how to take action
hopefully we can cut down on our meat consumption, better for us and the planet. but really all industrial food is bad, that goes for the lettuce and tomatoes. when you walk in the strawberry fields and see men in space suits you know something is wrong
Answer is not easy to estimate. There are negatives like reorienting all the people who benefit from the corn based economy. But then there are positives, like all the medical bills that would be saved if people ate healthier food.
Robert, with all the info coming out now about the connection between the H1N1 swine flu and commercial factory hog farms in North Carolina (and it spreading to other states in the US and into Mexico), it’s not just that factory farms produce food that is unhealthy; factory farms produce diseases that can kill a whole lot of people and fly around the world in days.
i spent more on legal fees for this film than i did on my past 15 films. i had no idea that this subject was such a litigious subject. who would have thought that food could be so subversive?
wow. I’ll see if I can find the exact quote – but that is pretty much Teddy Roosevelt’s initial response to Sinclair beseeching him about ‘The Jungle’
Thank you for the film Mr Kenner – and for helping to advance the conversation along -
Robert — remember..to a whole lot of people who have a whole lot of lawyers working for them..you are a dangerous man. We won’t even discuss how people feel about Joel Salatin.
The LA Times just had an article on the wheat crops world wide being infectd wiht rust fungus–corporate answer: create a new wheat
we spend less on food than at any time in history but it comes with many unseen costs. when i was a kid we spent 18% of our income on food, today we spend about 9%. but when i was a kid we spent about 5% on healthcare and today we spend about 18%.
it was pretty chilling, talking numbers ot see how few corps control so much of our food–very dangerous on so many levels
i think they will start to change food ssafety laws this year. again we changed tobacco, i really think we’ll be able to make big changes in this food movement. eric schlosser said that when he wrote fast food nation there was not much happening and today it’s incredible how much has happened
Folks; here are some organizations that are working in the same areas as Robert is that you might find useful to contact(depending on what your specific interest is):
Alliance for a Healthier Generaation
http://www.healthiergeneration.org
American Community Garding Assoc
.communitygarden.org
American Corn Growers Assoc ACGA
http://www.acga.org
Calif Center for Public Health Advocacy
http://www.publichealthadvocacy.org
The Center for Ecoliteracy
http://www.ecoliteracy.org
Center for Foodborne Illness Research & Prevention
http://foodbornillness.org
community supported agriculture:
http://www.localharvest.org/csa/
Center for food safety
http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org
Center for science in the public interest
http://www.cspinet.org /about/index.html
coalition for immokalee workers
http://www.ciw-online.org
Community food security coalition
http://www.foodsecurity.org
consumer federation of america
http://www.consumerfed.org
cool foods campaign
http://coolfoodscampaign.org
council for responsible genetics
http://www.gene-watch.org
ecological farming assoc
http://www.eco-farming.org
factoryfarm.org
farm to school
http://www.farmtoschool.org
to me this film really goes beyond food. it’s as much about anti-trust and first amendment issues than anything else. i had no idea that would be the case when i started
Tobacco was replace by those chicken :farms” they arent even frms really–just sharecroppers
we rely on too few crops, we’re becoming very vulnerable
I think the peanut processing plant/botulism thing really hit people pretty hard. The worst part of it is that we had the same sort of problem less than five years ago but of course under the Bush Admin., it was more than Ok to have people poisoned and killed by their food.
amazed how vulnerable these people are to the corporate interests that control them. carol, the woman in our film, was very brave to talk to us and she paid the price.
Indeed..it’s actually an issue of national security to have a safer and more diverse food supply
The only thing more subversive than food is hair. (Think 70s.) You have not only the profit motive from existing producers, but all kinds of weird emotions of the customers. Besides the consumers are working all hours of the day & night, and need to have food preparation take as little time as possible.
with all our science unfortunately our food has actually become more dangerous. it amazed me that our regulatory agencies do not have the power to recall food that is making us sick
i agree
Robert…an interesting thing is happening here in Upstate NY – there are organic farmers returning to growing grain in a big way, something that sort of went by the boards when all the big grain growing started in the Midwest. of course we can’t grow the same varieties in NY, but before the Midwest, Upstate NY was the breadbasket of the East. It will be interesting to see how that unfolds.
Well, I’m sure as heck glad you made it.
But just damn, I mean, Oprah said something like “I don’t wanna eat another hamburger” and suddenly she’s sued like crazy .. or maybe just cuz she’s so prominent/famous and has such a big megaphone .. a shot across the bow maybe, trying to make sure people like you wouldn’t make movies like Food Inc?
Robert, you beautifully transposed the images of bucolic farming with factory farms–and then brought us back to earth wiht Polyface and Stoneybrook..Food Inc is so dynamic in its visuals..what else have you made and what will you be working on in the future
we should all go to farmer’s markets and cook meals with our families and friends, would make for a better world
i have time for two more questions
The beekeeper told me that the demise of the honey bee is mostly owing to monoculture. His analogy was: if you were pregant and ate only bread (or whatever single food), you wouldn’t produce a very healthy infant. Agriculture in this country is thousands of acres of the same crop and the bees’ diets are not healthy.
(Then there’s all the other stuff like insecticides, etc.)
Do you think that the whole Michael Moore documentary effect really has made corporate America really sensitized to trying to protect themselves from small indie film makers?
there’s great farmers in ny state, i’m so impressed. very jealous of what’s happening in the hudson valley, wish i could be there to eat some of that food. maybe with global warming it will be part of the bread basket again
Robert why do you think Tyson refused ot let you into the chicken houses?
Well, if you want to come farther upstate, give me a jingle; I can set you up.
Yes, I regret not having done that before I retired, when my son was little. But then I had a job on Wall St., including travel, and was a single mom. So cooking & eating with my son just wasn’t in the cards.
perhaps, though unlike michael moore i did not set out to make this film with a preconceived point of view. i had really hoped to create a dialogue as to where our food comes from. i was very disappointed that so many of these corporations were unwilling to talk.
thanks all so much, i wouldn’t end here but i need to do a q&a at a screening that is about to end. spread the word!
And what is farmer who allowed you in doing now that Perdue yanked her lease for not buildng the windowles houses they wanted?
More organizations;
feeding america
http://feedingamerica.org
FoodFirst informaiton and action network FIAN
http://www.fian.org
food & water watch
http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org
the food trust
http://www.thefoodtrust.org
heifer international
http://www.heifer.org
humanie society of the united states
http://www.hsus.org
institute for food and developement policy / food first
http://www.foodfirst.org
land institute
http://www.landinstitute.org
local harvest
http://www.localharvest.org
national campaign for sustainable agriculture
http://www.sustainableagriculture.net
Organic comsumers assoc
http://www.organicconsumers.org
oxfam international
http://www.oxfam.org
participant media, inc
http://www.participantmedia.com
pesticide action network north america PANNA
http://www.panna.org
Pew commission on industrial farm animal production PCIFAP
http://www.ncipaf.org
polyface farms
http://www.polyfacefarms.com
Robert wood johnson foundation
http://www.rwjf.org
seed savers exchange
http://www.seedsavers.org
slow food usa
http://www.slowfoodusa.org
the small planet institute
http://www.smallplanet.org
sustainable agriculture research and education
http://www.sare.org
sustainable table
http://www.sustainabletable.org
transfair usa and fair trade certified
http://www.transfairusa.org
united farm workers
http://www.ufw.org
united food and commercial workers international union
http://www.ufcw.org
world hunger year
http://www.worldhungeryear.org
Thanks Robert for joining us! Please come back!
That people don’t know where their food comes from does not surprise me. Most residents of NYC don’t know where their water comes from.
Though Robert is leaving us, we’re continuing the discussion on food, sustainable faming, organic farming and related issues. Toby has a lot of expeeince in these matters…
So let’s keep the questions coming
How many people here grow any thing they eat (I have an orange tree and lemon and a pomegranate)
i also shop at a farmers market and buy locally grown food at my supermarket (they lable place of origin)
One of the things that I think clouds this whole issue is the business that ‘conventional food is cheap; organic is too expensive’. People forget that with all the Big Ag subsidies, they are paying for that conventional food twice already before it even gets to the store
I wont’ respond to that one because everyone knows my secrets…
It’s strawberry season, and my skin is starting to turn red from all the consumption. Also, I didn’t have my freezer last year during fruit seasons, so I’m stocking up for the winter.
Lisa..let’s go even farther, which is to ask folks a) if there are farmers’ markets in their county, b)where they are located and c)what the days and times are? If they do not, then a call to their local cooperative extension would be a good start.
You too? We spend the entire weekend wallowing in freezing, canning, baking and turning strawberries into wine. Definite ‘grasshopper and the ant’ weekend.
That was one thing that was cler in Food Inc–a family was interviewed and because of costs, they would buy fast food almost eveyr night They had a choice of 2 pears for a dollar or a burger…even broccolli was too expensive they said. THe dad was on 2 diabetes medication, which cost about $200 a month, so for them it’s a choice between better food or dand’s Rxs
Heh.. I live 40 / 50 miles from Tyson HQ. They are very serious about keeping folks out of their operations. From what I’ve heard all meat plants are like that.
When I had my house, I grew organic tomatoes, peppers, red potatoes, sugar snap peas, and some basil using compost for fertilizer and marigolds to keep the bugs at bay.
I shop at a Farmer’s Market here.
As I mentioned, I grow my own venison, and I don’t pay a cent for it, as there are some who will do it for me for the pleasure of hunting.
I also have a small orchard (2 cherry, 2 apple, 1 peach, 1 pear). But it’s young & hasn’t yielded yet. One of the reasons I’m getting the beehive. Although the beekeeper pointed out all the wild honeybees harvesting pollan from my clover.
I would like to replace my lawn with clover or thyme. I dont care for grass
The really sad thing is that if they got onto fresh fruits and veggies and cut out the corn based diet, their father’s inflammatory disease based diebetes would reduce and they’d have $200 extra a month to eat better food. Lower income folks eat what is cheap, which tends to be corn and grain based items which are very inflammatory — and inflammatory diseases include diabetes, Crones Disease, Celiac Disase, arteriosclerosis..the list goes on and on and on. When you eat meat from animals that are fed corn, the fatty acid relationships are all off balance, which is very very bad for us. The phrase ‘you are what you eat’ is not exactly true; it’s ‘you are what was eaten by what you eat”.
My problem is, I’m single. I had company for the complicated dessert, but this week I’ve made strawberry soup, which takes me days to eat, even if I have it for lunch & dinner. My frozen strawberry souffles, in the 3/4 cup ramekins, are way to big for dessert. I’m gonna buy smaller ramekins for the future.
Strawberry wine sounds too sweet to me. I like only dry wines. I am making tutti fruiti, though: brandy, sugar, and whatever fruit is in season. So the stawberries are in, and I guess the next season is cherries, soon.
Figures tell us that 70% of the pollination is taking place from wild bees and other pollinators; a small note. Things in the UK have gotten so bad that they are reimporting wild bumblebees from New Zealand that they sent down there in the 19th Century to help with their pasture developments.
I planted mint around my roses and around parts of my house to keep way ants (ant farm aphids which eat the roses). I admt to haivng an exterminator as well, but he uses rosemary oil instead of chemical spray –it’s used in restuants and food warehouses. I tunre dmy neighbors on it as well. All my rose are underplanted with herbs..freaks out “real” rose growers, but my plants are healtny and happy
You can make ‘Maneschewitz’ grade strawberry wine…and you can make Riesling grade strawberry wine. it depends on the yeast you use and the amount of sugar already in the fruit and how much sugar you actually put into it. The DH has an instrument he puts into the fruit to measure the sugar; we like Riesling grade fruit wines…
Well, up here, we will get pie and sweet cherries early in July. Then raspberries and then late in July blueberries(which will last through September with the late ones). Peaches will be out in the Finger Lakes in late August, with grapes in September and then we will see all the apples which will carry us through November.
With all the talk about growing food, is there a recommended way to cook the veggies / meat that is better??
Are you referring to grass fed meats vs. conventional meats? If you are, then the difference is the whole fatty acid ratio business which requires ‘low and slow’ for grassfed and ‘much higher’ for conventional. Omega 6 fatty acids will liquify at a much higher heat than Omega 3s do. With grass fed, if you cook it at the same temps as you do for conventional, you get something resembling shoes. For veggies, steaming and light saute is always better on maintaining vitamins than boiling the crap out of them.
Lisa @ 99 (reply not working)–I had not heard of mint. Thanks for the tip. I had a rosebush at my old house, too, but I knew better than to mess with it. I had two previous bushes that I killed off. This bush thrived without me doing a thing to it. Beautiful deep pink flowers.
Oh, and if anyone has been avoiding potatoes for the whole carb/glycemic index thing, I read a piece of research this week that said that if you cook potatoes(and this is anything other than the Idaho Russets for some reason .. must be the sort of starch that makes them such good bakers) until they are just fork tender and then chill them (as if you are making potato salad), the potatoes set up a sort of indigestible starch that not only will not pass into the gut, it will also coat the inside of the gut and prevent other starches from passing as well. So, if you want your potatoes but not the glycemic index, go with potato salad. it’s like half of mashed potatoes in terms of GI,.
That would explain the difference in how meats end up. I always steam, light saute veggies, staying as close raw as I can. Thanks,
Here’s an easy recipe, works with any soft fruit: (all organic if possible–berries, pitted cherries, ston fruit, or you can use thinly sliced apples or pears)
2 cups fruit (if frozen thaw)
2 cups flour (i use a combo of white and brown and substitute in 1/4 of a cup of almond meal at times for flour)
2 tbs flax seed
1/4 ts salt
2 tsp baking POWDER
1 cup sugar
1 cup milk
almond extract and vanilla extract (optiona;, ot tast, you can use liquor instead)
1 stick of butter
Pre heat oven to 375,
melt butter in square pan
sift together all dry ingredients except sugar,
Add milk and sugar, stir
add extracts/liquor to fruit
pour batter into pan with melted butter
dump fruit into batter
bake about 45 mins
I have a friend who is a rock climber and also regularly jogs around the carriage road at the base of the cliffs. Last year he told me when the wild blueberries, which grow in profusion, were ripe and I picked about a quart. It’s pretty labor intensive, though, as the berries are small. Someone told me there’s a blueberry harvesting rake, but I haven’t checked it out yet.
I have made bison stew with pomegranate juice instead of wine..they have it at my farmers market and I did notice the “how to cook” directions were different because they are grass fed..thanks for explaning why, Toby!
Coming late to this thread – sorry I missed most of it. Food Inc. looks interesting – will definitely seek it out on Netflix.
In answer to your question, I grow most of my own veggies – have kept a summer garden for years with the typical greens and herbs, can tomatoes in the fall; and the last few years have intensified my root crops and am working on my root cellaring techniques. I have just finished eating last years onions and beets.
Additionally, I watched a PETA expose of the meat industry a couple years back, and have never purchased or knowingly eaten another bite of industrially raised meat or poultry since. Any meat or poultry I do purchase comes from our local Vermont farms, grass fed, and generally organic.
I so agree with what was stated above – it makes for painful viewing, but if people could see how horrific the conditions are at industrial factory farms, they would never eat another bite.
Works the same way with grilling, Lisa — get your grill going and then rake the coals to the edges of the grill(if you have a round one like a Weber kettle) so that the center has no coals under it. When you can hold your hand over that spot and it’s hot but not burning to you, then you put the meat on, use a thermometer or a probe, turn frequently and don’t let it burn. Then grass fed grilled meat tastes realllly good.
I wonder if ammonia in the meat is carcinogenic?
I don’t believe ammonia is one of our natural foods…or drinks…we mostly don’t drink urine…
Carolyn – for me it is not just the cruelty and horrific conditions that the animals and the people who are exploited to care and process them go through; it is also a huge public health hazard in terms of pollution and the generation and spread of diseases such as H1N1.
Thanks.
I found a recipe for a great cobbler topping that has pecans in it. Had made it on top of nectarines (don’t even need to peel them) and pear & ginger. Planning to do same for strawberries as soon as I work thru my frozen strawberry soufles. Also make 2 at once & freeze the second one before baking.
Food Inc has a great section visiting Polyface farms (who we also saw in Fresh last month). He slaughter his chickens himself outside…FDA tried to shut him down until he had a lab test his bird for bactria and compare it factory farmed chicken fomr the market. His had 133 parts per whatever–the store bought 3600 parts per whatever
I agree. It’s horrible, literally sickening. What a bizarre world, when this is our approach to growing and eating food.
Saw the film Saturday night at an art house in Los Angeles. Nearly full house, which is rare. Great film, generated much enthusiasm.
The beets I bought Sunday from the organic farmer has a really nice earthy taste (in addition to the usual beet flavor).
Lisa – part of what makes it work for Joel Salatin is that he is not pushing hundreds of thousands of birds through mechanized equipment running on a slaughter line. There is no way to do that and not end up with contamination all over the place. And considering that the ‘bird of choice’ of broiler battery raisers these days is a man-created dinosaur called the Cornish Cross, which has the uncanny ability to grow to monstrous size in mere weeks (and also thereby has disease issues, heart disease etc.), the chicken that people are getting to eat is not only contaminated, but has no more connection with true chickens than does a Barbie doll to real human beings.
How did you cook them, eCAHN – I’ve gone strickly to roasting beets now, though my latest veggie fav is chard, which is in the same family.
As a vegetarian (who also eats almost exclusively organic), I hope this movie changes lives. I could not, in good conscience, continue to eat meat after really thinking about where it comes from and how the life that gave us that meat was treated.
I don’t know how anyone can.
I’m even having a hard time justifying my vegetarianism and will likely switch to a vegan lifestyle. There’s just too much suffering going on so that people can satisfy their taste buds, suffering we can end very simply – by not supporting it with our stomachs.
I’m growing chard for the first time this year – I understand you can leave it in the garden right through the first snowfalls, and just dig down under the snow to harvest. Have that from one of Dick Raymond’s books – Vegetable Garden Know-How, just full of old time garden techniques.
Baked them in the oven, wrapped in aluminum foil. My favorite, as they don’t lose a thing. And I was roasting the chicken, so oven was already on.
Then I made a Harvard beet sauce: vinegar, sugar, orange zest, thickener. I made some blackberrie vinegar a couple of months ago, and now I’m looking for ways to use it. It’s a little too heavy to make salad dressing, but it worked on the beets, and I also marinated the beef using it as one of the ingredients.
The thing is, once you make food, you have to eat it. I can cook a lot faster than I eat, so I have to make sure I use up all the stuff I make. Still have a lot of soup in my freezer. Went a little nuts the first year of owning one & not being sure how much I’d consume.
Can I just say that there is special satisfaction in growing root vegetables? I feel connection to my Irish and Polish ancestors – nearly broke into Gaelic when I dug my first potatoes.
I like to steam beets cool them, peel them and toss them while warm wiht lime juice and honey, then when cool add chopped mint (if you add while warm the mint will discolor)
Yes, chard is very hardy – you can keep kale going under the snow as well and both of them are very very nutritious things to eat.
Getting pressured to get off the computer by my son. School work – the nerve!
there is nothing that gets kids into gardening faster than digging up ‘buried treasure’…
That sounds really yummy. A keeper. As I said, I’m looking for ways of using my blackberry vinegar, which is why I honed in on that recipe.
I love beets. I think it’s the color. My niece tried to get me to try the orange ones, but they don’t do it for me.
I have voluteer tomatoes in the back yard, no idea where they came from!
If you got compost from a public facility or something like that, tomato seeds will live forever.
myabe I planted them like when we moved in 5 yrs ago…
If anyone is thinking about starting a garden, you can still put in things like lettuce, green beans, summer squash and zucchini, that sort of thing. You will need to make sure there is plenty of compost in the hole and throw a gallon of water into every hole you make for things like tomatoes, peppers, eggplants and so on. You can also start seed for fall things like winter lettuces, chard, kale, etc. but you really need to make sure that it’s watered well and regularly and if the sun is very direct, you need to cover it with … old sheer curtains, row cover etc.
Lisa – I’ve even seen volunteer tomatoes grown from sludge that has come out of municipal sewage treatment plants – and that stuff was heated way up to kill all the bacteria. Tomato seeds can last a very long time.
we are winding down. Toby thank you so much for being here to help out! And pups, you rock! eat smartly, eat safely and eat well!