Speaking out of both sides of the mouth

The most important opportunity to affect the control the Corporate Agribusiness has over our foods is Proposition 37 on the California ballot in November. Prop. 37 is the Right to Know (what's in our food), mandating GMO labelling.

All Proposition 37 does is require clear labels letting consumers know if foods are genetically modified. We already have food labels showing nutrition, allergy information and other facts consumers want to know. This measure simply adds information telling us if food is produced using genetic engineering, which is when food is modified in a laboratory by adding DNA from other plants, animals, bacteria or viruses.    

I think the California vote on Prop. 37 is perhaps even more important that the Presidential vote. After all, no matter who is elected President, he will still have 535 Voting Members of Congress to deal with anything he wants to change or accomplish. However, if Prop. 37 passes, it will ultimately inform every one of us in the U.S. who purchases food because it will be too costly and cumbersome for corporations to have different food labels for foods sold in different states.

Most of us imagine that anything "organic" (by Law non-GMO) would automatically be on the side to defeat the proposition, yet many large corporations that produce or market organic foods have helped put over $26 MILLION into the war chest to defeat the initiative. How can these corporations market some foods as good for us, yet refuse to label what's in the other foods they market?

        Kellogg’s (Kashi, Bear Naked, Morningstar Farms);
        General Mills (Muir Glen, Cascadian Farm, Larabar);
        Dean Foods (Horizon, Silk, White Wave);
        Smucker’s (R.W. Knudsen, Santa Cruz Organic);
        Coca-Cola (Honest Tea, Odwalla);
        Safeway (‘O’ Organics);
        Kraft (Boca Burgers and Back to Nature);
        Con-Agra (Orville Redenbacher’s Organic, Hunt’s Organic, Lightlife); and
        PepsiCo (Naked Juice, Tostito’s Organic, Tropicana Organic).

On the other hand, there are many smaller organic leaders supporting the Proposition. By enlarging the poster above, you can see the companies donating to the cause. Please support them and their products when possible!  

The current Administration has deregulated more genetically modified foods than ever. From plums to alfalfa and even sugar beets. But it's not just that so many crops are modified (93% of all soy, 86% of corn, and 93% of canola seeds are now genetically modified) it's that there's currently no labeling system in place so that we know what we're buying. 

We are one of the few industrialized nations that doesn't require labeling of GMO foods. In the past year alone 19 U.S. states have attempted to pass GMO labeling laws, but each time Monsanto and biotech lobbyists have threatened to sue. Only Alaska, with its huge wild salmon industry, has passed a biotech seafood labeling law.

Most of us would like to believe that our foods come from nature, but that's far from the case. In 40 countries, including Australia, Japan and all European Union nations, there are significant restrictions or outright bans on the production of GMOs because they are not considered proven safe.

Update: Giant pesticide and big food companies have so far donated more than $37 million to defeat Yes on 37 to label GMOs in California. Earlier this spring, the Grocery Manufacturers of America (GMA), of which Monsanto is a leading partner, declared that defeating Prop 37 was its single highest priority for 2012.

Monsanto just funneled another $2.9 million dollars to defeat California’s Prop 37 to label genetically engineered foods. This comes on top of their $4.2 million dollar pledge only weeks ago and brings Monsanto’s combined total to more than $7.1 million dollars!  That’s a huge pile of cash and it’s dedicated to only one thing – denying us the Right to Know what’s in our food.

My Question: Did Monsanto just kick in more $$ because they are concerned the People might actually WIN??

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Homegrown Spirituality, and Core Beliefs

I need to get this "religion and manners" thing off my chest, so please ignore reading it if you are so inclined.

I was raised in Southern Baptist churches, although I quit them 40 years ago thanks to a differing belief in prejudice, compassion, understanding and caring. Since then I have explored many of the world's religions, and none entirely fit the bill. So for many years, my spirituality has been homegrown, taking in bits and pieces that resonated from diverse world religions.

I'm quite content with the beliefs and serenity I have found, for they sustain me.

However, my point in this post is NOT about a belief system, but actions by the people and institutions that profess them, and how (or not) they act on them. 

In the common urge of mankind to want to meet like-minded people, I recently decided that I'd explore the local Universalist Unitarian Church because they accept and honor people of all faiths, and individually they practice (much as I do) in adopting bits and pieces of each.

However, I've now given some thought to the experience of the UU church I attended recently, and whether my experience was just limited to church. The very few (less than a dozen) congregation members there on a holiday weekend seemed to know each other to some degree, and surely my face was unfamiliar to all of them, and stood out in such a small gatherting. Yet not a single person came up to me with a smile and an introduction, or thanks for being here, or please come back... yada, yada... NADA. (Nor was there any recognition of visitors during the service.)

How can people make us feel like pariahs (or at least feel invisible) when they've never even spoken to us, and yet acclaim they are open and accepting?


Do you think it was my werewolf costume? (Just kidding!)


In the churches of my youth, no visitor would have gone without being greeted and acknowledged, but was that because of the actual beliefs of the congregation, or simply how people acted back then?

I don't know if all my core beliefs about behavior are based solely on my spiritual beliefs, but I don't know that I could separate them, either. Many are just how I was raised. They are all a part of who I am.

My question is: Does this recent experience speak of a general (global) trend away from being friendly and welcoming to folks we don't know (in our houses of worship, in our community, in our immediate neighborhood, and in public gatherings)? Have we become so frightened of Strangers? And, am I guilty too, on some level? Are we truly living in a society so self-absorbed that nobody cares?

I was living in this house I now call home for 2 years before a neighbor brought a (welcoming?) gift of some home-canned tomato juice, and I think that was only because I had left some cut flowers on her doorstep 2 weeks before. The only neighbors I know well have never invited me to share a meal, even on holidays like Thanksgiving when they knew I was living alone with no family nearby (before my sis and her grown kid arrived), and they always had gobs of family AND friends coming off and on all day for the feast. 

When I moved here, I really expected that despite being rural (or maybe because of it) in the first 1-3 months of being here, someone would stop by with a casserole or a pie and welcome me to the neighborhood, since there are almost never any newcomers. It never happened.

I've hosted many a Thanksgiving dinner where I invited all the strays I knew, whether college students who couldn't go home for the holiday when I lived in Boone, or single people with no family when I lived in Atlanta. It always made me feel good to share.

What has happened to us?

Eat Carbon Credits or Carbon-based Foods?

We all have read or heard about Carbon Credits, and other Environmental Credits accruing to Big Business... but I don't really understand all the logic in them. If an industrial plant produces too many greenhouse gases, it seems they can simply buy carbon credits from someone doing a better job for the environment, and continue polluting. I think partly it's just another shell game in financial manipulation, because it surely hasn't improved the air quality, ozone layer, global warming and greenhouse gases that I can see. 

There's a lot of talk encouraging us all to reduce our "carbon footprint" (and some of us do) but somehow I don't think we will run out of carbon based fuels (wood, oil, coal and natural gas) before mankind makes it almost impossible to grow anything edible on this lovely blue planet. Human beings are carbon-based, and our foods are carbon-based. How does buying and selling carbon credits help us grow more and healthier foods and live a healthier life?

On the other hand, burying small bits of carbon (natural charcoal, NOT charcoal briquettes) in my garden certainly improves the health of the soil, and lately I see many more earthworms and other visible organisms. (I can't see the gazillion others without a microscope.) I'm also beginning to see more and healthier production in the very earliest beds I amended with biochar 5 years ago, and I finally feel like I'm getting to be a better steward. Bits of carbon in the soil sequester carbon dioxide, which plants need to grow and produce fruit, grain or flowers. Sometime back, I wrote a piece on Biochar for DavesGarden.com. Reading it will give you some background if biochar is unfamiliar to you.

Our nearby land grant university got a grant of several million dollars to build a pyrolysis unit to burn factory (CAFO) chicken house waste into biochar about 3-4 years ago. The problem for me is that the biochar they made was such fine powder that most of it blew away during the demonstration I saw, long before it could be incorporated into the topsoil (even on a day with very little breeze). Plus, it was dirty and nasty to breathe that black dust while it was being applied.

I have a wood burning stove as my back-up emergency heat, although I seldom need it much. The small bits of charred wood left among the ashes are filtered out later and scattered across my garden. (I break them up with a hammer if they are larger than a walnut, but it's dirty work.) Since I don't till anymore, I cover the bits with a thick layer of compost and within a year or two it all becomes part of the soil, loose and fertile. Eventually that soil will be many inches deep, rather than the scant layer of topsoil that hasn't washed into the creek over many, many years! I don't walk on much of my garden, so it's not compacted other than on the paths.

Rice Cowpeas

Another newbie in my 2012 garden: rice cowpeas (click the link to see a photo of them after drying and shelling.) I've never grown any cowpeas, aka Southern Peas before, so how they grow off the top of the stems was a big surprise to me!

I bought the seeds because the dried tiny white cowpeas aren't much larger than rice, and said to cook in 40 minutes. I think this might be a nice quick-cooking staple for the pantry.

The cowpea (Vinga ungulculata) is considered nutritious with a protein content of about 23%, fat 1.8%, carbs 67%, and water 8-9%. As in most legumes, the amino acid profile complements cereal grains.

Cowpeas are fun to grow, tasty and a great choice for novice, expert and children gardeners!

  

Winter squash 2012

Winter Squash 2012

This year I grew a couple of winter squash varieties that are new to me, Red Kuri (also known as the French Potimaron squash), and Spaghetti squash. It was a bad year for my garden, between the drought and high summer temps, so I'm okay with the scant harvest.  The vines are all cut down now (except one) so this is the sum total of my winter squash.

The orange squash in the photo are Red Kuri and the long white one is a spaghetti squash. I only got 2 spaghetti squash off 4 plants, and one of those split and got buggy. Even with just one edible squash, the price of the seed packet was less than half of the price of one spaghetti squash in the stores.

Also in the wheelbarrow are what I didn't plant, and they are not volunteers either, since they were in new garden areas.

On the right are 2 white acorn squash, and there's still one on the vine. They are not seeds I ordered, so they must have been in a mislabeled or mixed seeds packet. The two pale yellow orbs at the bottom of the photo are unknown but look more like a melon of some sort to me, althogh it has been suggested they could also be immature spaghetti squash. They possibly came from the same mis-marked or mixed seed packet. All came from a reputable heirloom seed supplier.

The spaghetti squash is not a long-keeper in the root cellar, but the Red Kuri and the Acorns should keep for several months. Plenty of squash for just me!

Great Truths

Thinking about The Oath Keepers

I'm slightly aware of this group, but truthfully I know nothing about them except their stated premise of keeping their oath to the Constitution despite whatever other commands they are given. I've simply run across them in researching survival stuff a few years back. I'd like to think what they say is exactly what they mean, and not a guise for yet another paramilitary group.

With the increasing turmoil in the US, and our governmental making laws distancing itself from the Constitution, I've wondered a lot lately about the oath our military men and women take, and what it really means to them deep in their inner core. 

"Oath Keepers is a non-partisan association of currently serving military, reserves, National Guard, peace officers, and veterans who swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic … and meant it.

Our oath is to the Constitution, not to the politicians, and that oath will be kept. We won’t “just follow orders." Source

There are detailed specifications of what the Oath Keepers have sworn NOT do to the American people, fully spelled out on the source page above. It's rather interesting.

I've wondered if we might ever have to depend on the Oath Keepers someday. Would my 3 brothers and 1 sister, all who were in the US military and swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign AND domestic, actually defend the Constitution in the face of peril?

I remember that US military troops were armed and told to shoot citizens if necessary during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. No, I'm not talking about criminal looters or thieves during that time, but shooting citizens who refused the confiscation of weapons. Seizing weapons was a violation of the right to bear arms, the Second Amendment, and lack of protection against unlawful search and seizure was a violation of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments.

I don't remember how bad it got at the time, but I do remember reading later the conflicting emotions of the soldiers involved. All of them obeyed their orders, but none felt at ease "making war" on American citizens.

But, they didn't stand up... will The Oath Keepers actually stand up?

My Cherokee "Trail of Tears" beans

I'm a believer in saving seeds, and keeping the heirloom varieties going. We have lost so much genetic diversity with "modern agriculture". This year I decided to grow the Cherokee 'Trail of Tears' bean.

My harvest will be smaller than I hoped, because a man doing some weedeating for me managed to cut the pole beans off at their base! Fortunately most were far enough along that they should dry on the vines; I'll add those to the pods that dried sooner. I should have enough for a pot of soup beans and still save a few beans to replant next year.

The pods start out green

and then turn purple

This variety has been given a ticket on Slow Food USA's Ark of Taste.The Ark of Taste is a catalog of over 200 delicious foods recognized as of cultural and culinary significance as well as being in danger of extinction. By promoting and eating Ark products, we help ensure they remain in production and on our plates.

The Cherokee Trail of Tears bean memorializes the forced relocation of the Cherokee Indians in the infamous winter death march of Cherokees from Georgia, North Carolina, northeastern Alabama, and Tennessee to what is now Oklahoma (1838-1839). They carried this bean throughout this infamous walk, which became the death march for thousands of Cherokees; hence the ‘Trail of Tears.’

In the face of its poignantly dismal history, the shiny, jet-black seeds are used with pride in many traditional American Indian dishes. The seeds are encased in six-inch, greenish-purple pods. These small attractive beans are often dried before being consumed, and have a delicious rich flavor.

This bean was first offered to the SSE (Seed Savers Exchange) back in 1977 by the late Dr. John Wyche of Hugo, Oklahoma. He shared that his Cherokee ancestors carried the beans over the infamous "Trail of Tears" in the winter of 1838.

The vines reach about eight feet producing six inch green pods with purple shading.  The seeds are a shiny, jet-black color.  They can be used when young and tender as green snap beans or left to maturing for dry beans. seeds

Sharon's Natural Gardens (Delmar, Delaware) had this to say:
"The fresh beans have a real bean flavor missing in modern beans. It is very resistant to any insect damage and has no disease problems. It also makes a good soup bean. We like to grow it on a fence, interplanted with cherry tomatoes and heirloom cucumbers."

The Red Wing Farm is a market garden and homestead in the Swannanoa Valley (near Asheville, NC). They grow this bean, and had this to say about growing it:

"A Cherokee man in Oklahoma donated seeds from this bean variety to the Seed Savers Exchange and so we are able to bring a few back to the mountains to plant in our river valley, where Cherokee people and their ancestors lived for thousands of years before the arrival of Europeans.

The Cherokee people, and the other peoples of the decimated cultures that remained after the European invasion of the Americas, saved the seeds that had been planted by their ancestors: corn, squash, herbs and flowers, grains. And beans: hundreds, maybe thousands of ancient varieties of beans.

How do we retrace the steps of these ancestors and recover the intimacy with the natural world that was at the core of their systems of living? By planting a bean, covering it with dirt, giving it water and sun. By encouraging all of the life in the soil and air and water that nurtures the seed: worms, beneficial insects, microscopic life forms. By cultivating intimate relationships with the plants that feed us and the earth, air, water, and light that feed them. By preserving the seeds that sustain human life for another generation.

Nurturing the small bean plants in my garden, I honor the lost, forgotten, fragmented, and violated cultures and people that stand at the beginning of an unbroken chain of life between the tiny green plants in my garden and the plants grown by peoples of the Americas before European invasion.

Harvesting the beans in the fall, I invoke and offer gratitude to the people who stewarded, protected, and cultivated the bean-ancestors of my garden plants. I say a prayer to the earth for the restoration of human relationships with the natural world. Planting beans in my garden, I give thanks."

Seed Sources
Seed Savers Exchange
Victory Seed Company

Or find Producers on LocalHarvest

Happy Holiday weekend!

I'm sure in this jobless economy most people don't remember WHY we have this holiday. Labor Day is an American Federal holiday observed on the first Monday in September (September 3 in 2012) that celebrates the economic and social contributions of workers, but it only came about with a lot of contention, particularly amongst the trade unions and the government. See this link for detailed information.

Labor Day is supposed to pay tribute to the contributions and achievements of American workers. It also symbolizes the end of summer for many Americans, and is now only celebrated with parties, parades and athletic events totally unrelated to the original reason.

Have a safe and fun-filled long holiday weekend. 

See y'all next week!

The're doing it again: "Raw" Almonds

http://www.flickr.com/photos/healthaliciousness/5604663581/

Many years ago, raw almonds were part of my daily diet. Adele Davis advised 3 raw almonds daily to avoid cancer. (Almonds contain laetril, a cancer-fighting agent.) In the outbreak of salmonella in raw almonds a few years back, thirty-three people became ill, but no one died. (Contrast that to the thousands of deaths caused by prescription drugs each year!)

"Almonds have tremendous health benefits. They are an excellent source of manganese, copper, and vitamin B2 (all of which are important for the body’s energy production). Almonds are rich in magnesium, phosphorus, zinc and vitamin E, and high in health-promoting monounsaturated fatty acids and many other nutrients.

Raw almonds (with no heat applied) are particularly healthy. According to USDA data, raw almonds have more calcium, iron, potassium, fiber, manganese, and vitamin E. By insisting that raw almonds be “sterilized,” USDA is trying to take an extremely healthy food sound scary—something the public needs to be “protected” from, when actually the public may be more at risk from the chemical used to treat the nuts. Raw, organic almonds are not scary. As we point out in our brief, no salmonella outbreaks have been associated with organic almonds because they follow higher-quality processing controls. Therefore, organic raw almonds should not have been subject to the mandate in the first place." Source
 

So now all US raw almonds are being sterilized "for our safety" but the problem is HOW, and the effects of different methods, plus lack of labeling to tell us which method was used. Over 68% of US almonds are treated with PPO.

"Imported almonds are not subject to the almond rule (how is that for logic?)—so if consumers want real raw almonds, they will have to buy the imported ones. What a tragedy that our public policy is deliberately hurting the domestic market—especially small organic farmers, who need every sale they can get!

According to the Almond Board, five methods of “pasteurization” are permitted: oil roasting, dry roasting, blanching, steam processing, and the use of propylene oxide (PPO). A sixth method involved irradiating the almonds, and this was used for a number of years, but now the Almond Board states that “Almond pasteurization does not include irradiation.”

What is PPO you ask?

PPO is an extremely volatile liquid used in the production of polyurethane plastics. It was once used as a racing fuel, but was banned by both the National Hot Rod and American Motorcycle Racing Associations for being too dangerous—it’s so volatile that it is used in fuel–air bombs.

The material safety data sheet for PPO warns:
"Causes gastrointestinal irritation with nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. May cause central nervous system depression, characterized by excitement, followed by headache, dizziness, drowsiness, and nausea. Advanced stages may cause collapse, unconsciousness, coma and possible death due to respiratory failure. Aspiration of material into the lungs may cause chemical pneumonitis, which may be fatal…. May cause reproductive and fetal effects. Laboratory experiments have resulted in mutagenic effects. May cause heritable genetic damage."

According to the EPA, acute (short-term) exposure to PPO has caused eye and respiratory tract irritation, and skin irritation and necrosis. It’s also a mild central nervous system depressant and causes inflammatory lesions of the nasal cavity, trachea, and lungs. In animal studies, PPO causes neurological effects and tumors, leading EPA to classify it as a class B2 carcinogen, and California, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, and Massachusetts to list it on their state right-to-know registries as a known carcinogen.

Certainly the first three methods completely cook the nuts, so they are no longer raw. Of the last two, steam causes a marked reduction in nutrient content and partially cooks the nuts, and PPO is, according to the EPA, a “probable human carcinogen.”

So for raw almonds, your choice is to either cook them or make them potentially toxic. Steam treatments are running up to $2.5 million, whereas PPO starts at $500,000. Which do you think most farmers choose?

The “pasteurization” rule was introduced in 2007 in response to a string of salmonella outbreaks linked to large almond processing plants in 2001 and 2004. California’s Almond Board colluded with the USDA to propose mandatory “sterilization” across the industry, and the USDA agreed to implement and enforce the new rule.

Raw organic almonds not treated with PPO may be heat pasteurized with steam. But heat may oxidize the omega 3 fatty acids in almonds, potentially turning them rancid and producing free radicals, which are believed to play a role in the development of cancer and other degenerative diseases.

Even worse, there is no labeling requirement to show that almonds have been steamed or treated with PPO, so consumers are misled into thinking they are eating truly natural raw almonds when in fact they are not. Labeling is an absolute necessity for consumers to make an informed choice.

When the rule was instituted, raw and organic almond farmers were outraged and pushed back. They fought the USDA, and in 2010 a federal appeals court ruled they could challenge USDA’s almond regulation.

Now ANH-USA has submitted an Amicus Curiae brief in support of the plaintiffs (an amicus curiae, Latin for “friend of the court,” is an outsider who provides information to assist the court in making its decision). Our brief will allow ANH-USA to raise issues that may not be brought up by the plaintiffs during regular trial proceedings. It will also let us take a stand against the USDA and call attention to the public policy and public health implications of the almond rule.

Besides the aforementioned problems with the “pasteurization” process, there are serious legal concerns about the rule-making process. USDA did not go through the normal, open public hearing and comment process when issuing the almond rule. The agency contacted only 115 select almond growers and handlers—out of a total of over 6,000—to invite them to comment on the proposed rule, and consumers and retailers were almost universally unaware of the proposed rule. Only eighteen public comments were received from the entire country.

ANH-USA sees the almond rule as a slippery slope, because for the first time USDA is establishing minimum “standards” for how farm products are processed, setting a dangerous precedent for the potential sterilization of other organic agricultural products. Will they try to irradiate spinach, or will they realize the process will actually destroy the delicate product? We argue in our brief that the USDA is not a food safety agency and thus such decisions are not within their mandate.

The lack of labeling is arguably a violation of Section 5 of the FTC Act, which declares unfair or deceptive acts or practices to be unlawful. A “deceptive act” includes a “misleading omission.” Labeling steam-heated almonds as raw is intentionally misleading; and we would argue that not disclosing the fact that almonds are being treated with PPO, when the public, if they knew of the practice, would surely refuse to buy them, is extraordinarily deceptive.
Source

The Body's Microbial Garden

I have posted often about the importance of microbes in our soil gardens, and now want to post some thoughts on the microbial gardens in our bodies.

There are estimated to be 100 trillion microbes that call our human body "home", known as the microbiome, and we have waged war on them with antibiotics for more than a century. According to Julie Segre, a senior investigator at the National Human Genome Research Institute. “It [waging war] does a disservice to all the bacteria that have co-evolved with us and are maintaining the health of our bodies.”

This new approach to health is known as medical ecology. Rather than conducting indiscriminate slaughter, Dr. Segre and like-minded scientists want to be microbial wildlife managers.

No one wants to abandon antibiotics outright. But by nurturing the invisible ecosystem in and on our bodies, doctors may be able to find other ways to fight infectious diseases, and with less harmful side effects. Tending the microbiome may also help in the treatment of disorders that may not seem to have anything to do with bacteria, including obesity and diabetes. Source

Then while I was looking again at many reasons why lacto-ferments are so good for us, I came across this quote from Sally Fallon:

"Scientists and doctors today are mystified by the proliferation of new viruses--not only the deadly AIDS virus but the whole gamut of human viruses that seem to be associated with everything from chronic fatigue to cancer and arthritis. They are equally mystified by recent increases in the incidence of intestinal parasites and pathogenic yeasts, even among those whose sanitary practices are faultless. 

Could it be that in abandoning the ancient practice of lacto-fermentation and in our insistence on a diet in which everything has been pasteurized, we have compromised the health of our intestinal flora and made ourselves vulnerable to legions of pathogenic microorganisms? If so, the cure for these diseases will be found not in vaccinations, drugs or antibiotics but in a restored partnership with the many varieties of lactobacilli, our symbionts of the microscopic world."
Source: Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats by Sally Fallon with Mary G. Enig, PhD. © 1999. All Rights Reserved.

I also think the current compulsion to NOT let kids get dirty, and to "sanitize our body's exterior" with chemical hand wipes everywhere we go, has reduced some of our immunity. We naturally have enough lactobacilli on our skin to make a loaf of sourdough bread, yet we don't just wash our skin with soap, we wash it with antibacterial soaps to kill anything that might be on our skin.

I don't think it's quite that simple, but I do believe all these things are factors. We can improve our gut health, which increases the overall health of our bodies, with probiotics like yogurt with active cultures, and lacto-fermented vegetables and fruits. And quit being such germaphobes.

New, Improved Egg Separator

One of my friends sent me this short video and it fascinates me! Don't worry that you don't understand the language because it isn't necessary. The pictures tell it all.

 

Do you wonder what ever made someone try this in the first place? LOL

Canning Bacon

I had no clue bacon could be canned! However, I found the process several places online and decided to try it. It would be nice to have bacon available in an extended power outage instead of it spoiling in the freezer from no power!

Bacon (raw or partially cooked) can be canned by laying the strips on parchment paper, covering them with a second piece of paper, rolling it tightly and packing it into a jar.  If the bacon is longer than the jar you’re using, you can cut the strips in half to make them shorter, or fold the whole thing over before you roll it.

I used raw bacon and natural unbleached parchment paper, so you can't actually see the bacon through the paper in the photo above. Sorry I didn't take any photos of the process, but there are photos in the links below. Those 3 jars above contain about half a pound in each jar, my trial run. The next batch will be strips cut in half, to fit in wide-mouth pint jars.

Here are some links to check out. The first link below, and the maple syrup link, both have good photos of the process, and I like that they use food grade parchment paper, not brown paper bags others used that may contain chemicals.

Canning Bacon Links
http://texascookin.blogspot.com/2012/08/putting-up-canned-bacon.html
http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/gay127.html
http://www.rural-revolution.com/2011/01/canning-bacon.html
http://akhomesteaders.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=foodcache&action=display&thread=289

Maple Syrup or Tabasco flavored Bacon

RuralSpin read and tried the various ways online to can bacon, finding fault with most of them. She details what she didn't like, and then she experimented to come up with her own hybrid version. She says, "You can consider other flavorings for your bacon besides just maple syrup or Tabasco sauce, including brown sugar, chili powder, cayenne pepper, dried thyme, dried basil, cinnamon, or a mixture. For dried herbs and spices, just sprinkle them liberally over your bacon before rolling." 

One of the best lunches away from home that I've had in years was Shrimp and Cheese Grits. The generous garnish over the whole dish included hickory-smoked bacon laced with maple syrup. I think I could make that bacon with RuralSpin's technique, so I'm trying her method next!

More Medical Tests

I'm trying to get some updates on my garden production this year (poor), and food preservation written and posted, but then I have several more medical tests scheduled the 2nd week of September at UVa Medical Center up in Charlottesville. I'll be gone a few days, so there will be another lull in posts. Sorry.

Some of my scheduled tests are just long-overdue but routine updates, like a bone density scan. Others, like an overnight sleep study, are new to me. I didn't know that sleep disorders can raise the risk for heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke, and other medical conditions. However, thinking about oxygen levels in the blood, it makes sense. I also know I snore, which often accompanies or at least indicates there may be a sleep apnea problem. Now that I've seen all the equipment they use, I wonder how anyone can sleep hooked up like that!

Drawing from the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute here

"Sticky patches with sensors (electrodes) are placed on the scalp, face, chest, limbs, and a finger. During sleep, these sensors record the brain activity, eye movements, heart rate and rhythm, blood pressure, and the amount of oxygen in the blood.

Elastic belts are placed around the chest and belly. They measure chest movements and the strength and duration of inhaled and exhaled breaths.

Wires attached to the sensors transmit the data to a computer in the next room. The wires are very thin and flexible and they are bundled together so they don't restrict movement, disrupt sleep, or cause other discomfort." Source

Sound like fun?

Vacuum Sealing Dry Foods in Mason Jars

Set-up to seal jars. Vacuum tube attaches to a port on top of my sealer, just behind the tubing.

I've had a vacuum sealer for several years and I love it! I bought it because I was tired of freezer-burn on the meats in the freezer, and for sealing veggies in bags to freeze... but I haven't been using of all the functions... like vacuum sealing dry goods in mason jars.

Inside of the sealing cap, and 15 bean soup mix.

Vacuum lid attached to seal jar, be sure metal jar lid is centered.

I hadn't thought much about vacuum sealing jars of purchased dried goods or home dehydrated fruits, vegetables, jerky and even mushrooms, because in my pantry they generally stay crisp, partly due to the dry heat from the furnace in winter. However, lately I cooked some stored dried beans that took forever to cook to a soft, edible stage. 

So now I'm wondering if vacuum sealing keeps moisture out, can it also keep the minimal amount of moisture (like in beans) in? It's sure worth a try since I already store most of those items in jars.

FoodSaver makes a Universal lid, but I couldn't get it to work on Rock Candy. Guess I need a wide-mouth lid sealer cap.

I'm also looking at vacuum sealing items that become rancid from exposure to oxygen, like flour and cornmeal, which I usually keep in the freezer. (One of my goals is to reduce dependence on the freezer.) Sugar and salt that are vacuum sealed won't become hard bricks either, and herbs and spices will have a much longer shelf life.

Another benefit of vacuum sealing dry goods in jars is that the lids can be re-used over and over, unlike the lids on home canned foods. For example, if you open a jar of thyme, you can take out what you need, and immediately re-seal the jar. (I just got a big bag of French Thyme from Penzey's, it's far tastier than what I grow in my garden. I'd hate for it to lose all flavor before I use it up, so it will get vacuum sealed in a pint canning jar.)

But what if there's no electricity? It's cheap and easy to make a hand cranked pump to seal jars. The pump is an automotive vacuum pump (I believe it's used to bleed brake lines), and the jar cap is made for use with electric vacuum sealers.

Wendy Dewitt has some great food storage videos on Youtube. Wendy has taught food storage for years; she's a Mormon, and the Mormon church recommends every member stores a year's supply of food. The video I watched was quite long, but she covers a lot of ground in it, including vacuum sealing jars of dried foods, where to store what, and rotation of stored goods. Her other videos are shorter segments, and more manageable if you only have a few minutes at a time to watch them.

Stocking the Pantry

I've kept a somewhat decently stocked pantry for many years, at first because I grew up in hurricane country, and now because I live miles from any grocery stores. Actually, I live more than 2 hours from stores that carry anything more than minimal fare. So I have come to rely on my 2 freezers for any abundance from my garden, and for grass-fed meats in quantity when available and less expensive.

However, relying on freezers is always iffy. A friend just 200 miles away lost the contents of a huge chest freezer during an 8 day power outage due to a fierce summer storm. I've been fortunate that the only extended power outage I've had here happened in a freezing winter, and I lost nothing from the freezers. But I can't count on always being that lucky. If an extended power outage happened in warm weather, I'm not sure I could make a wood fire (and keep it going for days) to cook everything in my freezers before the contents spoiled. Sure couldn't use the electric stove to cook during a power outage!

To remedy reliance on my freezers, I'm going through them and beginning to can some of the meats I have stored in them. My mother always canned beef, pork and chicken, although they froze the trout they raised because it tasted more like fresh-caught when thawed and broiled later on.

Here's a little bit of the pork shoulder I canned. The liquid is from the pork itself. The venison I canned 2 days ago was already on the pantry shelves before I thought to take any photos.

Lard and Tallow, hot and just out of the canner

Lard and Tallow, after cooling. Jar on the far right is chicken schmaltz, don't know why it didn't solidify.

I'm also rendering and canning all the pork and beef fat, salt pork, bacon, and sausage patties. Rendered pork lard and beef tallow don't really need to be canned if you store it in a cool, dark place, but the heat of this summer has shown me I need to do something else. It keeps better anyway if canned, to keep out the oxygen that causes it to turn rancid.

Canned salt pork chunks. The 2 jars on the left are trotters.

More canned salt pork. The small jars have cured and smoked salt pork with some herbs added. They will be great in a mess of greens or beans.

I already have a small pantry of home canned fruits and veggies, chicken stock, jellies and such, but not much in the way of protein, so the canned meats will be a bonus insurance policy. I know beans are a decent source of protein, but my body doesn't digest then very well, so I look to meat and eggs for protein. I've canned a few soups and stews with bits of chicken or beef, but not a lot. As a treat, I always can any bits of meat left on the bones as pet food when I make stock.

I'll have a separate post on canning bacon. YUM!

Lacto Fermented Swiss Chard Ribs

I've been busy canning but decided to lacto-ferment a few things to have some crunch available. The first was Swiss chard ribs, shown above. They were just starting to ferment when I took the photo, and although it's not visible, there is a weighted cap inside the jars to keep the ribs under the brine. My standard brine is 1 tablespoon of non-iodized salt plus 4 tablespoons of whey per quart of spring water.

I also started some fermented summer squash with sliced onions.

Some cauliflower with garlic, black peppercorns and red pepper flakes made 4 weeks ago. I've eaten half of one jar, and gave the other jar away. YUM!

More lacto ferments to come as the garden winds down, especially some sauerkraut if my neighbor has extra cabbage. Lacto-ferments will keep all winter in my root cellar.

If you are not too familiar with lacto-fermenting, here are a few posts I made over the last couple of years:

Pickles, Lacto- Fermentation or Old-Time Fermentation

Eating Lacto-Fermented Vegetables

Fido Jar Fermenting Basics

It's Pickle Time!

Pickled garlic buds and scapes

Broccoli and Friends

Uses for Whey





 

A Front Yard Garden Victory!

I recently posted about the gorgeous but doomed to be destroyed front yard vegetable garden of a couple in Quebec here.

I'm happy to report not only a victory for them, but a change in the city's new guidelines for urban gardens!

Over 30,000 gardeners took action over the past three weeks in support of the food garden cause. The first and most important was the Drummondville front yard garden case which attracted over 30,000 petition signatures and significant international media. Earlier this week, the Drummondville Municipal Council announced that henceforth front yard kitchen gardens will be allowed, and have even invited the gardeners, Josée Landry and Michel Beauchamp, to help shape the city's new guidelines for urban food gardens. You can see the news story translated here.

It's nice to win one, but a pain in the arse for what we have to do to enable our basic rights.

 

Fined for Hosting a Small Birthday Party?

This is simply outrageous, and unacceptable.

"In April, Fauquier County, Virginia threatened Martha Boneta, owner of a small farm in Paris, VA, with thousands of dollars in fines for a series of alleged violations, including hosting "an event" on her farm without obtaining a special events permit.

The event? A small birthday party for the 10-year old daughter of a close friend, Robin Verity.

Martha was also cited for selling produce directly to consumers from her farm without a license. But Ms. Boneta paid for and received a county-approved business license for a "retail farm shop" in June, 2011. However, just one month later, the county Board of Supervisors approved an amendment that restricted "farm sales", and began issuing citations to farmers in the area.

Farmers in the area believe this is a violation of Virginia's "Right to Farm Act", which bars governments from restricting the rights of farmers from earning a living, so they orchestrated a protest during Martha's Board of Zoning Appeals hearing on August 2nd, 2012. (She lost the Appeal, btw.)

Increasing economic freedom matters to people like Martha. But it also matters to consumers everywhere who should be free to choose the foods they want and buy directly from the farm that produced them." Source

Growing Yuppie Chow

 Photo By ilovebutter

Photo by Phillie Casablanca

Yep, I guess I'm guilty of growing "Yuppie Chow".

Yuppie Chow is that stuff Foodies buy from upscale natural foods stores and farmer's markets, such as heirloom slicing tomatoes, garlic scapes, mesclun salad mixes, baby carrots and tiny squash, haricot verts, bok choy and such -- you know, expensive things, but not the bulk of one's calories. Yuppie Chow.

I'm currently rethinking what I can grow because if there's a food crisis, I don't grow enough to feed myself adequately without outside additions. In an extended crisis there will be NO food on the grocery shelves, and perhaps no gas to get there anyway. I'm open to growing food suggestions if you have any! 

Of course, Yuppie Chow is not all I grow. The heirloom tomatoes, various herbs, asparagus, and bulbing fennel are considered Yuppie Chow, but I also grow enough garlic, shallots, leeks, onions, and long-keeping winter squash to last through winter. The winter squash, of course, provide lots of calories. The other things simply add more flavor than calories. I hate insipid-tasting food.

I don't raise any meat animals or have chickens for eggs, so I'd be low on protein. My few small nut trees wouldn't produce 2 ounces of oils even if I could press them, so I'd be short on the essential fatty acids that come from meats and oils. Tubers don't do well for me here (other than Jerusalem artichokes), too many tunneling rodents that get to them first.

I'm looking to grow things that can flesh out my pantry in an extended crisis, both perennials, and annuals where I can save seeds for the next year. Currently, I only plant a few things where I save seed, like tomatoes and beans. I need to learn how to save seed from things like summer squash and cole crops because in an extended crisis, there may be no available seeds.

My fruit trees are small and won't bear for a few more years so I only have some perishable berries for fruits right now.

I'm thinking to try growing oyster mushrooms because they contain around 15% protein, as well as adding complex flavors to cooked foods, but I guess that might be considered more Yuppie Chow...

The Missing Word in our Society

HOW did we lose or misplace a word in our lives and in our vocabulary? Importantly, what have we really misplaced/lost?

The word (and the concept of) "Integrity" has ceased to exist in many places in our world, notably in politics, government agencies, and corporations. If you follow the scandals in the Catholic church (but also found in other denominations) it has ceased to exist in religion as well.

Cheating in school is acceptable to the students, and cheating on tax returns is acceptable to many people, perhaps due to an unfair tax system, but they cheat nonetheless. Getting too much change at the grocery store is often not returned even though the minimum-wage clerk has to pay any shortage at closing, and no one ever complains when a product rings up as less than the shelf-posted price.

We make written contracts because a man's word or handshake no longer has value. Marriages dissolve over unkept promises of fidelity. I'm not even gonna touch on crimes of theft, rape and murder, much less child-abuse and selling children and women into sexual slavery.

What has happened to us? Don't we even look in the mirror anymore?

The War on American Soil

Yes, there really IS a war on American soil, and it's about our Rights to real food... and being force-fed adulterated and nutritionally unhealthy foods instead. This war on our right to control what we eat could grow into a major conflict, and the Feds have already brandished guns on food raids.

I ended up being admitted to my local hospital 2 weeks ago, with what they thought were cardiac problems. Immediately they put me on a "heart-healthy, low-sodium diet", and if I had been there long enough I might have starved. It wasn't the lack of salt on the foods, but that most of the foods were inferior to the point of absurdity. In fact, one meal had canned green beans (commercially canned) that were so full of sodium I couldn't eat them. So much for a low-sodium diet. The only exception was a cup of fresh sliced apples with a few grapes for contrast. The other cooked fruit dishes (and juice cups) were so high in sugar (or some kind of sweetener) I gagged. No wonder we have an obesity epidemic, and skyrocketing diabetes.

The "butter" for my hospital wonderbread toast was Promise®, which is 60% GMO vegetable oils, water, whey from milk, with some chemicals and chemical vitamins added. How healthy is that? They gave me a list of foods to avoid, like processed cheese and hot dogs. Hell, I already avoid all those foods, and most intelligent people know they are not "real food".

I've been thinking about the control the government is trying to take on all of our foods. What started as a "war on drugs" 40 years ago has mushroomed into the government believing it has the authority to control everything we put into our bodies. (They only control alcoholic beverages and cigarettes to collect tax on it, not how much anyone consumes.) The war on drugs isn't being won either, and they are putting more pressure on controlling foods and supplements. Their propaganda machine (the CDC, Center for Disease Control, government owned and operated) has been working overtime, to the extent that almost everyone "buys" it, even doctors. "If the CDC says it's so, then it must be."

I do understand the need for some controls for food safety, like imported supplements of unknown safety, and particularly those foods that come from factory farms like milk, beef, pork, eggs and chicken. Some of those facilities are so foul that I won't eat anything from there no matter how safe they try to make it.

No milk comes from a factory farm that isn't pasteurized by law (cooked to destroy all pathogens but the cooking also destroys healthy nutrients like essential fatty-acids, enzymes and vitamins). The CDC says raw milk is unhealthy, but their own data from 1993-2006 shows on average 76,000,000 food-borne illnesses per year and only 116 of those were from raw milk.

A presidential election is coming in the fall, and I'll bet my last fiat dollar that food rights are never mentioned. I'll also bet that sooner or later, mothers are going to wise-up about nutrition and wage war on the government control of real food.