Jolt Country

There's a lot of talk here about prepared meals, but not much in regards to the quality of ingredients.

I've been trying to buy higher quality of food for the family, and have been trying out organically grown meats over the last few months. What's the difference between organically grown meats and conventional meats?

At a conventional animal farm, animals are pumped full of antibiotics and growth hormones. They spend their lives in cramped pens, eating grain (if they're lucky) and a variety of totally disgusting things that I won't mention.

Organic animal farms let the animals graze on the land. They hang out in pastures. They aren't given any antibiotics or growth hormones. In short, they live as nature meant them to live.

What's the benefit? Well, aside from the fact that you're eating meats that don't have all sorts of chemicals in them, and aside from the moral issues one might feel eating animals that spent their lives in miserable conditions, organic meat tastes a hell of a lot better. Is it due to what they eat? The fact that they live happier lives? The fact that they run around in fields and get excersize? I dunno. All I can say is that we've had organic beef (Angus beef no less), chicken, beef hot dogs, and pork (including some amazingly good pork breakfast sausage), and it's all really delicious. Oh, and there's no chance of getting mad cow disease from this meat.

So where does one get organic meat? If you're lucky, your local supermarket may sell it. Wegman's has their "Food You Feel Good About" selections of meats. Smaller health-oriented food stores may have some as well. Also, if you're lucky, there may be some local organic farms in the area that sell directly to the customers. There are a number in the Rochester area that make trips into the city once a week to deliver food. You place the order with them, and the customers hook up with them at a pre-arranged location. Kinda cool to actually KNOW the people who grow your food.

Is it expensive? Oh fuck yes....you'll probably pay double what you pay for regular meat. Is it worth it? I think so....aside from taste, it's just plain healthier. I can't see myself feeding my 4 year old anything else.

And as a side note, if you want to try some really amazingly good cheese or butter, try Organic Valley's butter and cheddar cheeses (especially their sharp raw cheddar)....they've won numerous awards in competition. Both are considered the best in the country. And yes, they're expensive (~$5/lb. for cheese, ~$6.50/lb. for butter). Splurge a little you bastards, it's amazing stuff.

Since I started my job, I've been working with people who farm on the side. Not only are the eggs better than any store eggs, but I've heard the meat is restaurant quality, so 2 days ago I put an order in to a coworker, for...

...a QUARTER COW.

I am now eloquent on hanging weights, feed, slaughter houses, mad cow disease, silage, etc. etc. I can't wait for my cow. It'll be ready in October. She grazes naturally, no feed lots, and uses no antibiotics, though she will treat a single cow for a single disease or infection, just nothing as a matter of course.

where the hell are ya gonna put it??

My freezer would hold about a 1/118th of a cow.

Gee, talk about a cow orker!

Jack Straw wrote:where the hell are ya gonna put it??

My freezer would hold about a 1/118th of a cow.

You buy a separate chest freezer large enough to store it. The cost per pound of buying meat by the side is so much less than buying individual packages in the store that it pays for the freezer.

I bet if I put a NY Strip Steak from a cow that was raised in a production cattle farm next a NY Strip Steak from a cow that was raised organically - subjected you to a blind taste test - you probably won't be able to tell the difference.

nessman wrote:I bet if I put a NY Strip Steak from a cow that was raised in a production cattle farm next a NY Strip Steak from a cow that was raised organically - subjected you to a blind taste test - you probably won't be able to tell the difference.

Having recently eaten a NY Strip that came from a pasture raised cow, I can tell you unequivocably that it was the best strip steak I've ever had. Nice and tender with a lot of flavor, and all I did to it was put a little seasoning on it before it hit the grill.

But if you want to feed me two strip steaks, who am I to argue?

What's wrong with chemicals? Chemicals keep pests away and stop disease. I love chemicals in my food because that means it's not crawling with heartworm.

Hey, if the Reptile Rescue used more chemicals there would not have been a bunch of crickets hidden in the towel that the last snake came in.

(Though! Tho, the crickets were delicious with a mild cream sauce.)

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:What's wrong with chemicals? Chemicals keep pests away and stop disease. I love chemicals in my food because that means it's not crawling with heartworm.

It's easy to dismiss the effects today's chemicals (be they insecticides sprayed on foods, or steroids pumped into animals, or the chemicals in the plastic food containers we use that leech into the food, or whatnot). However, we don't know what long term health effects a lot of these things will have. It makes sense to avoid them when possible, as we have no idea if something commonly used today will prove to be a real health hazard (like DDT, or lead, or asbestos, or anything else that used to be "safe").

If you spend some time Googling on the subject, you'll find that there's a lot of weird crap being put into our food supply these days, and almost nobody knows about it. I'll warn you now though...once you start educating yourself about this stuff, you may very well not like what you find. Consider yourself warned.

Scientific studies have proven that if you eat meat with chemicals in it, you will die someday.

Okay, DDT ruined the lining of your eggs... as an Internet Male I luckily don't have anything like that. I mean, I suppose I could cry croc tears for the Internet Females but they have about a million other things floating around out there that is worse for them and provides more heartache than soft eggs. For a while there I was wrapping up in some of those DDT-soaked jimmies in order to make sure that version 2.0 BETA of me didn't get released before it's time.

I will grant you Agent Orange POSSIBLY... but I really can't stand two things in my grain: locusts and the Vietnamese. They both crawl around and skulk and they both make me sick if I think that they were anywhere near my Wheaties (you can imagine how difficult it was for me when Vijay Singh was on the cover of said Wheaties*). So it's not all bad.

* Apparently, upon further research, Vijay is not Vietnamese but something else altogether, so this doesn't make any sense. Oh, well.

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:I will grant you Agent Orange POSSIBLY... but I really can't stand two things in my grain: locusts and the Vietnamese.

Agent Orange put my old man in his grave 20 yrs ago... nasty shit. But it's used as a defoliant, not as an insecticide.

* Apparently, upon further research, Vijay is not Vietnamese but something else altogether, so this doesn't make any sense. Oh, well.

He's Indian (as in Apu - not Chief Running Bull).

nessman wrote:

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:I will grant you Agent Orange POSSIBLY... but I really can't stand two things in my grain: locusts and the Vietnamese.

Agent Orange put my old man in his grave 20 yrs ago... nasty shit. But it's used as a defoliant, not as an insecticide.

If your dad was a tree... what kind would he be?

I worked with the Organic program for the honey industry for 5 years. It was the biggest goddman joke I've ever seen in my life. Organic is just a way to slap another $2 on the price tag. The USDA website has the guidelines posted for Organic food and you have to have it (your methods)certified by the government to be "officially" Organic. The same government that can't secure a border etc. is somehow pretending they can keep an eye on thousands of farms and the whereabouts of every animal from cows to bees.
Read the guidlines for Organic products. There is absolutley no way in hell you can buy an organic product and have confidence that those guidlines were followed. If you want meat that is pure, buy a fucking cow and hand feed him cornmeal.

More on this when I go to lunch today.... Some of us have fucking work to do.

Knuckles the CLown wrote:Read the guidlines for Organic products. There is absolutley no way in hell you can buy an organic product and have confidence that those guidlines were followed. If you want meat that is pure, buy a fucking cow and hand feed him cornmeal.

The USDA organic guidlines are only one method of "certifying" something as organic, and it's generally agreed upon that their guidelines are weak. However, there are also a number of organizations that existed before the USDA guidelines that certify products as organic, and you'll often see their certifications on products as well.

Also, the organic community is pretty good about policing itself and warning when somebody isn't following the rules. Do a Google on "Horizon Dairy", and you'll see what I mean.

"Organic" is a racket. The government must "certify" stuff as organic, but of course, they charge a nontrivial fee for their troubles. So the farms pay the government more, the distributors pay the farms more, and WE, the LITTLE PEOPLE, get jammed in the end.

FUCK YOU, organic food industry!

Show me the chemicals.

chris wrote:
The USDA organic guidlines are only one method of "certifying" something as organic, and it's generally agreed upon that their guidelines are weak. However, there are also a number of organizations that existed before the USDA guidelines that certify products as organic, and you'll often see their certifications on products as well.

Also, the organic community is pretty good about policing itself and warning when somebody isn't following the rules. Do a Google on "Horizon Dairy", and you'll see what I mean.

Currently it is illegal for any company not approved by the USDA to certify anything as Organic. The government stepped in because everybody just put organic on anything they wanted to. So if you buy something Organic, it supposedly is deemed organic by following the prescribed methods of the USDA.

The Organic community sucks when it comes to policing itself. Unless you call bitter in-fighting and inconsistency "policing". If you are one the approved companies to certify then you have to have the ability to certify EVERY agricultural and livestock product. I would call these places up and ask if they certify honey and they would say no, you can't. They were right you can't it is impossible, just like it is for every other product, but Honey is on the list as a product that can be labeled Organic and there are guidelines to follow. It is asinine.

The whole Organic "process" is a method for hippies to think they are eating good and a way for people selling organic crap to charge ridiculous sums of money for food.
I know- I dealt the idiots making it and the idiots making the rules!

Anonymous wrote:I would call these places up and ask if they certify honey and they would say no, you can't. They were right you can't it is impossible, just like it is for every other product, but Honey is on the list as a product that can be labeled Organic and there are guidelines to follow. It is asinine.

In the case of honey, I can see why you might consider "organic" honey to be ridiculous. Technically, you can call your honey organic if your hives are 4 miles away from any cultivated land. As long as they're surrounded by natural plant growth or organic fields, the honey is technically "organic" and can be labeled as such. There are undoubtedly other foods that can be labeled as organic, although they don't differ from their non-organic counterparts in any significant way.

However, there's a much greater difference in how other foods are grown, and the organic standards really DO mean something. Given the choice between eating genetically modified vegetables that have been sprayed with RoundUp 40 times during the growing season, and non-GMO vegetables that have not been subjected to any chemicals, the choice (at least in my opinion) is clear.

The whole Organic "process" is a method for hippies to think they are eating good and a way for people selling organic crap to charge ridiculous sums of money for food.
I know- I dealt the idiots making it and the idiots making the rules!

With all due respect, you dealt with one very small segment of what's becoming a very large industry. To make a blanket statement about organic food as a whole based on that experience wouldn't be fair. It would be like a stranger stumbling into JC, reading one of the thousands of messages posted by Pinback, and concluding that he's a thoughtful, insightful, intelligent guy.

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