I just finished reading a book called The Omnivore’s Dilemma (http://www.michaelpollan.com/omnivore.php), and if you eat American produced food, it’s scary. As an aside, while I was reading it there was a story on CBS Evening news about Red Dye #2. An example they gave was the McDonald’s Strawberry Parfait. In the US, the red color comes from Red Dye #2, in the UK the red colour comes from…strawberrys.
Now I know why I buy butter imported from Ireland.
I had a BLT, as we watched the news. The top story was tomatoes with salmonella poisoning. Great!
Last summer it was spinach with e. coli, we eat a lot of spinach and couldn’t find it anywhere. This summer it will be tomatoes. I usually grow tomatoes for the summer so we won’t be craving them as we did the spinach last year.
Quick! We better all develop photosynthesis pronto!
One of the lead researchers from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, that shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore, actually got up in front of a committee in Congress and said, “and I think a vegetarian diet is a good idea”, or something to that effect. I remember that on C-Span, he also defended the idea based on an energy usage standpoint- it is much more efficient to make a calorie of plant material and feed it to humans than to feed it to animals, then feed the animal to humans.
If you look at the cost of how much meats such as chicken has gone up, alot of it is due to rising oil prices and demand for corn-based fuel. The human population is also increasing and may eventually reach 10 billion people. The price of wheat is also going up. Even in Italy they have had problems with food supplies, and some supermarkets in certain US cities have delt with rice rationing. It’s not something to panic over at this point but it is something that governments should look into, and indeed groups such as the G8 and UN are investigating solutions. Popular political will is clearly also needed as well.
I think mycoproteins/mushrooms/fungi cultures, sea vegetables, and plant proteins such as processed soy protein, substituting for meat, could eventually feed a larger number of people far more economicly and less energy intensively. It is a question of political will or individual altruism, though.
BTW, depending on where you buy it from, soy milk now costs about the same as regular milk, even cheaper sometimes… at least in Florida. This used to not be the case. I have no real explanation for that, since I haven’t been following the dairy industry at all, not my area. Maybe the cost of wheat and feed has gone up?
Probably yet another effect of fuel cost trickle down. That milk has to be trucked, so… there ya go.
I’ve been seriously considering one of those DIY kits to convert my car into a water (actually, hydrogen from water electrolysis)/gas hybrid. I might have to find some cheap used econo-box for under a thousand to tinker with it. I’ve got a PDF file that takes you step by step through the process, but it requires some machining ability, and circuit board soldering. Maybe something to spread over a year’s worth of weekends. It’s a self-contained kit, so if I were to get an old junk car to work with it, I’d be able to transfer it to my main car, no problem. Plus it’s completely reversible, so nothing permanent is done to the car.
-D4
Butter from Ireland and buttcheese (as Tisha calls it) from Androtics - lol! 
I haven’t read this book, Jim, but I’ve read similar books and books by four of the five reviewers. 
Three of the five are authorities, on the cutting edge, of the culinary field…local/organic/sustainable farming techniques, etc…the whole enchilada.
Even the packaging is scary…coating candy wrappers with a non-stick substance that is a noted carcinogen…plastic containers…
Red food dye? Don’t get me freakin’ started on the FDA. At least some foods are naturally red…*but blue?..blue FOOD? Christ, ya can’t smoke in a bar/restaurant…but that sht, among a plethora of other chemicals, is okie dokie in your food…mkay…somebody…stop…me…
So far as I know…still not feedin’ their cows bovine growth hormones.
So many problems with heath, unbeknownst to many, stem from these chemicals. The body has no f’ing idea how to process these invaders to get rid of them. Therefore they’re stored in the body reeking, all manner of, havoc…allergies and other illnesses. People often think they have “food” allergies/sensitivities when it’s really the additives that are the problem. It’s a crime. Shut up Bella and move on to the gardening part…
You’re not kidding. 
It’s frightening.
Wolf ‘n me are talkin’ 'bout getting a couple of cold frames for the winter. Fug 'em. I’ll grow my own. In summer we grow all sorts of organic veggies. It’s great, it’s work, but I don’t mind…the benefits are extremely pleasurable. …and yummy. I love my garden.
Then there’s my Japanese friend…she says organic produce is too expensive…tells me, “Eat and die anyway”. LOL. I bring her fresh veggies all summer long. She loves them as long as she doesn’t have to buy them.
That’s a possibility, although Central Florida (esp. the northern area) actually has alot of dairy and cattle. I wonder how cows stay cool with a heat index of over 110? In fact the town I live in used to actually have cowboys of sorts, once upon a time. At any rate, I think the price of animal feed is more of an issue, since oil is often an energy input for production of crops (and a good reason why we don’t want to run out of oil any time soon).
As for Frakenfoods: artificial colors/flavors, genetic-engineering? Organic? Not worth worying about, at least for me. I’d much rather worry about getting enough calories and nutrients cheaply than having to blow my budget on organic food (or we could wind up like certain West African countries where people spend 70 percent of their buget on food… then where would the money for pheromones be?) That probably makes a little rare among vegetarians, though. Certain forms of genetic engineering of crops might be beneficial as well, in dealing with problems such as malnutrition in the third world (so-called “Golden Rice”- rice crossed with carrots).
Cheap, high quality protein will be a need in the future, esp. as the scientific evidence is increasing that people living sedentary lifestyles do better on diets higher in vegetables, fats and proteins, than diets higher in starches and lower in fats and proteins (look up the South Beach Diet some time as an example of a higher-protein/lower-glycemic diet, that incidentally can be vegetarian as well… recently the American Diabetes Assosciation acknowledge that “low glycemic” diets may be beneficial for controlling diabetes).
Gotta have someone to give the zucchini to. LOL
I grew up gardening, my mom canned and froze just about everything we ate herself. It’s a habit I’ll never lose though I don’t go near the extent she did. One summer she even made ketchup. It was horrible, I wanted the bright red stuff then, badly. 
As for affording organics, it’s much easier if the boxed, premade, junk and cans never make it in to the cart. Though even my husband is starting to make faces at the price of my half gallon organic milk. I won’t give it up and neither of us drink milk, it’s purely for cooking and my sisters kiddos.
We’re also lucky to be able to hop on the expressway and find dirt roads, real farms, with little old famers selling their goods right from the garden all summer long. Winter sends us back to the grocery.
You don’t even want to bring up what goes in to animal feed. It’s bad. I think it was an epi of Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe that showed pig farmers feeding their animals the contents from dumpsters in Vegas. They left most of the garbage in the “food”. And even that is probably better quality than what the processed feeds are. As for cracked corn, it gets rinsed and re-fed after it’s been through a digestive tract already. Enjoy!
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As for affording organics, it’s much easier if the boxed, premade, junk and cans never make it in to the cart.\quote]
True, particularly since the worse the “food” is for you, the cheaper it is.
Ah, yes “animal feed”. They feed corn to cattle, but have to give them medication to prevent them from getting ill since the cattle were designed to eat grasses not corn. A cheap way of fattening them up quickly. Then they have to supplement that with ground up cattle parts, the waste parts. Cannibalism! There were certain south Pacific islanders that were “ceremonial Cannibals” that ate the brains of loved ones to capture their spirits. They also suffered a staggering number of cases of the human form of “Mad Cow Disease” until they finally gave up cannibalism in the 1960’s. A number of tests show that cattle finished on grass have less saturated fat, more Omega 3, a better ratio of Omega 3 to 6’s, and are all around healthier.
The salmonella outbreak in tomatoes in interesting in that the acid in tomatoes should kill it. Completely a result of poor farming practices. One interesting tidbit I read about artificial fertilizers. The U. S. Government started pushing their use in the mid 1950’s because they had a huge supply of explosives (ammonium nitrate) left over from World War II and needed a way to get rid of it. This led to over planting that eventually led to worn out soil. Tests today indicate that organic vegies, grown in soil that has the natural ingredients of healthy soils added are actually more nutritious than “regular” vegies, said to because of the worn out mineral lacking soils they grow in.
There are riots in South Korea today that might bring down the government. The cause, the government said they were going to allow the importation of American beef. Meanwhile there are protests in France over the importation of American chickens. They don’t want them, they say they taste “bland” and are unhealthy. Having tasted French chicken, I have to agree.
Today 65% of corn in America is genetically modified (GMO), and unlabeled. In most of Africa, Asia and Europe GMO’s must be labeled, giving people a choice. In the U. S., the lobbyists from Monsanto, Archer Danial Midlands and the other mega factory farmers pressured congress to ban the labeling of GMO’s because the factory farmers were afraid if the people knew, they wouldn’t eat them.
But we’re 'mericans we’re tough and we’ll go our own way!!!
Or corn, precisely the point.
Cows/cattle can actually eat paper/phonebooks (and in fact, do sometimes eat recycle paper as part of the diet that farmers feed them). They have a quite sophisticated digestive system compared to people.
I’m sure there are a coupled hundred million humans that wish they could eat phonebooks and get some kind of caloric energy out of the deal. Not to get preachy, but I’d rather have frakenfoods than starve to death.
It sort of reminds me of a couple years ago when the US military dropped food aid on Afghanistan. Some French newspapers mocked the US efforts because the relief packages contain peanut butter, of all things. To some Europeans, peanut butter is inedible/disgusting. There are no doubt some Afghan kids out there alive because they ate some “disgusting” food.
You can eat anything, really, assuming your finances or ethics allow it (and it’s not poisonous). Pull up a clump of grass and look at the white stuff (actually it’s a fungal body of Fusarium venetatum) that sometimes infests sod or underbrush… I’ve eaten that, though not in a raw form (when it’s grown industrially, it looks like a doughy mass, and tastes vaguely like mushrooms or chicken when processed into Quorn… everything in nature tastes like chicken, apparrently). Plus casava/yuca/tapioca is notoriously toxic when uncooked, yet it’s a staple food in many African/Hispanic/Asian cultures.
It’s a scam. I promise. Any in car electrolysis won’t be powerful enough to produce sufficient hydrogen to supplement for gasoline. The water weight alone would cause a problem, then physics steps into play.
It would actually break the laws of conservation of energy unless there is a secondary power source that is not the engine of the car. It would need an ultra efficient solar cell, wind generator, or fuel generator. It would be a perpetual motion machine of sorts. They don’t exist because of friction.
If you want to do something realistic hook up a diesel turbine engine to a generator, then to a bank of capacitor batteries, and attach that to a throttle activated electric motor with sufficient power capacity. There is a 500 hp hummer that gets over 50 mpg with this setup. Scaled down it could be super efficient. Well over 100 mpg. The turbine engine kicks on to charge the battery/capacitor bank, then shuts down until the charge is sufficiently depleted.
Your point? I know you KNOW that feeding garbage and phone books isn’t the proper diet for a cow or a pig. I know you HAVE to, somewhere in your thoughts KNOW this is wrong. Just as you know that it is horrible that people are starving, and no they don’t wish for phone book sandwiches, they wish for food. Good food that will nourish, sustain and have their children THRIVING, not merely alive. Let’s not be foolish.
-D4
Pigs have been eating refuse for centuries, scraps that people wouldn’t want to eat. I’m sure you know the old country joke about the best way to feed two pigs. If you don’t, well let’s just say it’s gross…
I see feeding cows, pigs, and chickens the “proper”, squeaky clean food, as raising the price of poultry, pork, etc. and taking millet and corn away from hungry people in the Carribean, South America, or in Africa. The same is true of biofuels, there is no free lunch.
BTW, people can eat millet- I have. Although the stuff sold in the US is usually fairly low culinary quality, more bred for animal feed than for people intending to eat them. The same is true with the soybeans, they have been bred more for animal feed than for traditional Asian culinary tastes, though they are perfectly acceptable as human food, they just have more protein and oil than the traditional Asian soybean.
Cows eat grass, corn is bad for them. Then you let the chickens follow 2 days later eating the larvae of the bugs that grow in the cow pies left behind. Feed the pigs the whey left over from making cheese from the cow’s milk.
That’s how it “should” work (sustainable agriculture)… if there weren’t 300 million Americans mostly all wanting cheap hamburgers, chicken wings, etc. Not to mention the billion or so Chinese that have suddenly discovered a new love for pork. Sustainable agriculture just can’t feed billions and billions of people, unfortunately, and do it cheaply. Perhaps more novel agriculture methods such as permaculture or hydroponics could make a dent in it, but still you’ve got issues of energy usage, land usage, and so on.
BTW, I like eating good food too, occasionally (recently I’ve acquired a taste for truffles and truffle oil- at least the white truffles which aren’t too expensive). I just am not too picky about my food My grandma cured me of that really fast with stories of how people really ate during the depression. It wasn’t uncommon for people to eat rotting/molding foods, cutting away the rotting bits, etc. My great aunt lived off of nut and fruit trees near her house for practically a whole year, only supplemented with a little bit of other foods (this was the dust bowl days).