foodmuseumblog

The French Eat Horses, Don't They?

Yes, but who knew they were gobbling up our own Amurrican horseflesh? Apparently there are three foreign-owned horsemeat factories in the U.S., two in Texas and one in Illinois.  And former "10" heartthrob  Bo Derek, horse lover, is on a campaign to close them down. The House of Representatives recently passed the American Horse Slaughter Act but it's doubtful that the Senate will join them anytime soon.

Much on their plates, as it were--like 73 American soldiers killed in Iraq this month.

Just in case any legislators want to label Ms. Derek a lily-livered lentil eater, she  is quick to announce her loyalty to meat:

"Derek says, "I am not a member of any animal rights organization. I am a big red-meat eater. I live in cattle country. I rope; I brand." To Derek, this is all just about horses."

According to the Washington Post piece, 90,000 horses are slaughtered each year. They represent 26 million pounds of flesh for export to customers in Belgium, Japan, the Netherlands and, of course, France.

American horse breeder Anne Russek says, appalled, that the horses are killed just like cows--and horses, she claims are "smarter" than cows.  Pigs are smarter than either, right? How's that bacon taste, Anne?

No one has yet figured out how to "properly" kill an animal, has he/she? We don't do terribly well at sending off Death Row prisoners either, not that we're planning to eat them, of course.

(  For what it's worth, I had a whip smart hen once, with a brain the size of a pea, I guess, and she died a natural death in my husband's arms.)

The US Equine  Sanctuary and Rescue website spells everything out in grisly detail.

(Pictured above, horsemeat from China, courtesy Qingdao Century-Light Industry Co., Ltd.)

Scary Veg News Keeps Coming

Researchers in our own state of New Mexico have found E. coli in a bag of Dole spinach, according to a report in today's Washington Post.   And concerns are being raised regarding the safety of all fresh leafy greens sold in bags.  People who quit eating burgers for two days after a similar scare with beef will probably ditch salad greens for the rest of their lives.

Meanwhile, tainted rice made the news as well today. In August long grain rice marketed abroad from the U.S. was rejected by the Japanese as well as a handful of European countries after bio tech grains of rice were found among them. The bio product, developed by Bayer, was removed from the commercial scene in 2001. Deemed "safe," in any event, the gene-altered rice is illegal in countries of the European Commission.

Farmers are waiting to see if their sales to Mexico and  to Central American countries who buy the most U.S.-grown rice will be affected by these events.

(AP photo by Rich Pedroncelli--long, medium and short grained rice.)

USDA Has Beef With Too Much Testing

What started out as mild interest by Foodie in a tiny beef story, is now a consuming desire to know more about the USDA denying slaughterhouses the right to test their own cattle for mad cow disease. Here's where it began.

USA Today reported recently that chef David Burke,  owner of davidburke & donatella in New York, and David Burke's Primehouse in Chicago, now owns, along with investors, a $250,000 Angus bull, the better to insure the quality of the beef that will turn up at his restaurants, presumably.

The bull hangs out at Creekstone Farms in Kentucky, from which Burke has bought beef for some time. ( Creekstone's steaks and roasts carry the Certified Humane Raised & Handled Label. )

While the bull story caught our attention, of far greater interest was this. Foodie discovered that Creekstone had made news two years ago by deciding to  set up its own mad cow testing unit, in part to assure its Japanese customers. ( The company slaughters over 300,000 animals a year.)

An LA Times story ( April 20, 2004) reported this:

"According to the Washington Post, Creekstone invested $500,000 to build the first mad cow testing lab in a U.S. slaughterhouse and hired chemists and biologists to staff the operation. The only thing it needed was testing kits. That's where the company ran into trouble. By law, the Department of Agriculture controls the sale of the kits, and it refused to sell Creekstone enough to test all of its cows. The USDA said that allowing even a small meatpacking company like Creekstone to test every cow it slaughtered would undermine the agency's official position that random testing was scientifically adequate to assure safety.  ( Emphasis Foodie's.)

What it didn't say was that the rest of the meatpacking industry was adamantly opposed to such testing, which is expensive, and had no desire to compete with Creekstone's fully certified beef. "If testing is allowed at Creekstone . ," the president of the National Cattlemen's Beef Assn. told the Post, "we think it would become the international standard and the domestic standard, too."

On March 23, 2006 Creekstone finally filed suit against the USDA. " Creekstone has sued USDA for refusing to allow the company to voluntarily test cattle for Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) at its Arkansas City, Kansas facility." Read the company press release in full.

"No one in the USDA or the meat industry will admit it, but there is only one real reason for banning private testing: more mad cows will be found. All the other excuses are just rationalizations." Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber, authors, Mad Cow USA. 

( Photo of Texas Black Angus Bull from www.deercreekangus.com)

Whither the Peruvian Anchovy

Peruvian conservationist Dr. Patricia Majluf has just received the UK's prestigious Whitley Gold environmental prize for her campaign against "the impact of anchovy fishing" and her efforts to preserve coastal ecosystems.

According to a BBC News report, 

" We hope the award will help [Dr Majluf] in her fight to bring an end to unsustainable fishing practices along this globally important coastline," said Edward Whitley, founder and chairman of the Whitley Fund for Nature.

The Peruvian anchovy fishery is the largest single species fishery in the world.

Much of the catch is processed into feed for fish farms in the developed world.

Some populations of sea-birds have fallen by 95%, thought to be principally down to a lack of anchovies to eat.

"The decline in the anchovy populations to put fish on our tables has at the same time reduced the ability of their predators, sea-birds and cetaceans, to survive," said Mr Whitley. "

Curiously, back in 2000, the Peruvian government, backed by the FAO, began a campaign to encourage Peruvians to eat more anchovies, a highly nutritious food possibly wasted on the fish at the fish farms of the world. The campaign faced some hurdles--first, many Peruvians negatively associated the fish with the poor. Secondly, improper handling of the small fish had caused many who did eat them to fall ill. Thirdly, even though the FAO deemed the anchovy population "plentiful", weren't they all going to the fish farms?

It is unclear how Dr. Majluf's campaign and that of the Peruvian government will dovetail.

( Anchovy processing photo by K. Iversen.)

Meatrix II--They're BAAACK!

So many people have emailed Foodie the latest re Meatrix that she succumbed and clicked on Play Movie 2, hoping her antique Windows 98 system would bring it forth. ( Movie 1, keyed off the film The Matrix, was perfectly timed.)

It worked---Meatrix II ( still keyed to the now passe Matrix films,) is a short punchy on-line animation about the horrors of factory farming, in particular, dairy farming.

"The Meatrix is a product of the first-ever Free Range Flash Activism Grant. In February 2003, Free Range Graphics, a cutting-edge design company, invited hundreds of non-profit organizations to apply for a grant that included production of a free Flash movie. After carefully reviewing more than 50 applications, the grant was awarded to GRACE’s Sustainable Table program. "

And the Meatrix project is derived from : "Sustainable Table ,  a consumer campaign developed by the Global Resource Action Center for the Environment (GRACE). It was launched to help fill in the gaps in the sustainable food movement, and to help direct consumers to the leading organizations who are working on the issue. Instead of becoming overwhelmed by all the problems surrounding our food supply, Sustainable Table celebrates the joy of food and eating."

One of the best aspects of Sustainable Table's on-line presence is its Eat Well Guide to places in the US and Canada where you can buy  and eat sustainably raised food. The Guide was first developed by the Minneapolis-based Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy as a search engine for consumers looking for meat raised without antibiotics. The IATP supports "resilient family farms."

And Sustainable Table is an offshoot of:  "GRACE,  a nonprofit organization that works with research, policy and grassroots communities to raise public awareness and promote solutions to preserve the planet for future generations."

All intertwined, these organizations are chipping away at the mountain that is public and private apathy about food sources, eating, environmental issues, child obesity et al.

Cloned Milk with That?

Evidently there are thousands of American cloned farm animals hanging around waiting for the go-ahead to breed ( the usual way) and for their offspring to be slaughtered and sold to consumers. Cloned cows, too, await a marketing outlet for their milk from the FDA.

Justin Gillis reports in the Washington Post that many consumers think drinking "cloned" milk or eating cloned animals' progeny is way too yucky--in a poll done by the International Food Information Council, 63 % of respondents said they would not buy meat, eggs or milk from cloned animals, even if such was declared to be safe by the FDA.

The article says studies show that clone-derived food is indeed safe, "although work is not complete and researchers say that clones do suffer subtle genetic abnormalities."

We wonder what  "subtle genetic abnormalities" really means.

( Cloned piglet pic courtesy www.c-science.com)

Mad Cows and Englishmen ( The Blokes Who Test Them)

' "There is no risk whatsoever," he ( Mike Johanns, US Secretary of Agriculture) told reporters in a hastily organized conference call Friday night. '  One always releases bad news to the distracted American public on Friday night, as they happily head home  focussed on weekend plans or this month fixated on Michael Jackson's fate...The story, reported by Alexei Barrionuevo, appeared in the NYTimes Saturday, June 11.

Yes, Virginia, we have  a mad cow or two or three or more  in the USA. 

"The beef cow, which was nine years old and could not stand, was first tested last November and passed three initial tests. Then the Agriculture Department's inspector general, in reviewing the department's mad cow testing program, requested that the cow and two other previously suspect animals be tested again with a different technology that is used in Europe. The one cow tested positive on Friday.

Agriculture Department officials said they did not yet know which state the cow came from.
A sample of the animal's brain tissue will be sent to a laboratory in Weybridge, England, and results should be available in a few days, a spokesman said."

There is no risk, absolutely none, dig into your prime rib, but we, uh, the government, have no clue as to where the latest damned maddening cow came from.

Blame Canada! ( Can we?)

( Cow pictured is not known to be mad, and appears content to be near its fodder, if not its mudder. As for its udder, well...)

People, People Eating People...And Then Dog Eats Dino

Okay, we missed this blood-drenched  story back in January.  And yesterday I was avidly reading about dinosaur soft-tissue, pondering grilled leg of T Rex, oblivious to what scientists now strongly believe the Aztecs were doing way back when, in the name of religion.

We all studied in school the heart-removing actions of some Aztec priests, right? But now it appears that not only did they rip out beating hearts, they roasted young children,  and most probably ate other folks sacrified to appease the God of Death. Archaeologist Louis Manuel Gamboa and others have been exploring ruins at Ecatepec,  north of Mexico City,  that include "pictorials" of cooking pots containing human limbs, with diners bellying up to the pots.  Researchers have found evidence of such pots at the dig, along with human bones broken into odd pieces, similar to the fowl bones one might find in the trash at Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Anyway--The Aztecs were not alone in the sacrificing and eating of people biz--the Maya most likely did it , too.

And according to Discovery.com,  so did Europeans.

""There is now strong evidence for widespread cannibalistic practices in many prehistoric populations," commented Michael Alpers, a professor in the Center of International Health at Curtin University of Technology in Perth, Australia who has studied tribal cultures with strong ancestral links to cannibalism. "For example, (there are) telltale scratches and burn marks on Neanderthal bones and biochemical analysis of fossilized feces."

Alpers added that the individuals who conducted such human sacrifices often ate the dead as a mark of respect. There also was a more practical reason, particularly in areas where coveted land space was in short supply and soils were rocky. Alpers said "it was a way of disposing the body." "

And back to the dinosaur age, seems that the Los Angeles Times reported last month that  Chinese paleontologists found the perfectly preserved remains of a parrot-beaked dino inside
a 130 million year old mammal that greatly resembles a dog.

Quoth the Craven Cookie Rapper...

Okay, so while we're on cookies, some of you may have missed the Denver Post piece by Electa Draper about the Durango, Colorado girls who decided to bake cookies last July and drop them off  at neighbors' houses, anonymously, just for fun. Each batch of cookies came with the words, "Have a great night."
Well-- a 49 year-old woman was so alarmed by the rapping on her door at 10:30 at night, she went into an anxiety lather and ended up in the emergency room, albeit the next morning. (??)  And then sued the girls. ( Evidently there was nothing wrong with the cookies.)
A judge awarded the woman $900 to cover her medical bills.

Hue and cry!  Hue and cry!  Pls read the Denver Post story linked to above.

Fear, people.
"  Suddenly there came a tapping,
   As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. "

Okay, so it was 10:30, not "late" to an 18 year-old,  but later than the norm for a social call. But has Poe indeed ruined us all for anything akin to "gentle rapping?"

A colleague of mine --we both served on our cozy community's civic association board--told me once that he keeps a loaded gun next to his bed, as does his adult daughter.
But why, I asked him.  "You can never be too careful with strangers," he answered.

Be Prepared to Say NO!

Those cookie girls are out selling again. Thin Mint purveyors are positioned outside our grocery stores and patrolling America's neighborhoods, and this time many customers are noting with horror the trans fat content of the old tried and true Girl Scout Cookies they used to love.  This 400 million dollar industry is taking heat not only for the trans fat thing, but also because,  well, the Scouts are selling COOKIES, not Vietnamese egg rolls or mixed greens or fruit cup. ( But we knew that, didn't we?) And our nation is on an obesity watch, people!

Scouting's Director of Communication Marian Swan sounds s bit shrill in this NYTimes piece
( March 9) by Kim Severson.  Cookies are  " a treat," she cries, but we suspect she knows full well that there are upstanding citizens everywhere who have  eaten  through half a Thin Mints box just driving home from that grocery store table wo-manned by eager Scouts.

Still, come on, it's a once a year thing, like Halloween. Chill.

Horizon Organics Challenged

The Cornucopia Institute   in Wisconsin is claiming that the nation's largest organic dairy operation, Horizon, is using the same factory farm techniques of conventional companies in denying adequate outdoor pasturage to its cows on three mega farms in Idaho, California and Colordao. On February 16 Cornucopia  filed two formal complaints with the USDA.   

Mark Kastel of Cornucopia said " both the Idaho and California operations   differ little from conventional confinement dairies other than having their   high-producing cows fed certified organic feed. Real organic   farms have made great financial investments in converting to pasture-based   production — enhancing the nutritional properties of the milk and for   enhancing animal health—while it appears that these large corporate-dominated   enterprises are happy just to pay lip service to required organic ethics."

Horizon responded to the challenge with a statement on its website.

"White Wave Foods and its Horizon Organic brand are committed to complying with the National Organic Standards and its guidelines regarding pasture for animals that are certified organic. We only operate farms and work with family farmers who adhere to the organic standards mandated by the USDA National Organic Program.  

The organic industry is still in its infancy and the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) is currently reviewing its pasture guidelines. Should the NOSB decide to revise or further clarify these guidelines, we will support them just as we always have."

You say basil and I say basil, dammit, and I'm correct....

Fellow foodies, I seek your help. In the past 10 years or so I've been baffled by the change in the American English pronunciation of the word "basil," the aromatic herb. It's derived from the Greek, basilikon, meaning kingly. In Italian, it's "basilico, with a short A, in French it's "basilic," also short A, and in English, for hundreds of years it has been "basil," short A.
And yet, most people today are saying "basil" with a long A. I resolutely continue to pronounce "basil" my way, that is, correctly... BUT---When, where and why did this change come about? Are people confusing "basil," with "basal," a word genuinely possessing that long A of pronunciation?
Please advise, fellow foodies. Thank you.

Sour No More

Michael Fitzpatrick of Aroq Ltd, UK, reports that "Researchers in Japan claim they have cracked the secret of putting the remarkable qualities of the "miracle fruit" into a GM lettuce.

Containing a unique protein, miraculin, the West African "miracle fruit" strongly stimulates the sensation of sweetness receptors on the tongue. Even sour food will taste sweet after eating the fruit.

Past attempts to re-create the protein failed after miraculin was isolated in 1994, but the Japanese have succeeded by genetically modifying lettuce plants. The researchers at the University of Tsukuba near Tokyo plan to use it in diet foods. "

The plant's botanical name is Synsepalum dulcificum. According to the Union County College ( NJ) website, if the pulp of this plant coats your tongue, anything you eat for an hour or more after that will taste sweet.

Nauseate Me!

Aaagh...Foodie went to the local $1 movie house to see "SuperSize Me!," Morgan Spurlock's prize winning fastfoodamentary, and almost lost her dal and basmati rice right there in row four, feet up.
Seeing Spurlock stuff himself for 30 days with McDonald's finest offerings is as close to a horror film as she is likely to witness these days. Eating crap, while confined to a jammed urgent care lobby with teenybop top ten hits piped in for all eternity, and nothing to read but a three year old People Magazine, would be a true Foodie hell.
Back to the film---It's better put together and more riveting than "Farenheit 911"--it has the traditional beginning, middle and end, see--and the outcome is fraught with unknowns--will formerly healthy, vigorous Spurlock go into cardiac arrest climbing the stairs to his apartment? Will his three physicians have him committed? Will his mother rush to New York from West Virginia carrying a casserole?
Stats you would rather not know, even if you have NEVER eaten a Big Mac, come hurtling your way, sometimes via funny cartoons, sometimes from "the experts," including my favorite,wise and mellow Marion Nestle of NYU.
All those young kids lined up in the school cafeteria to get garbage.......Foodie cannot go on. She needs something cold, wet, something akin to, um, a beer, maybe one of those nifty, icy New Zealand beers waiting right there in the fridge..
Almost favorite scene--at the end, Spurlock and his nutritionist sit next to a Mount Fuji of refined sugar, precisely how much Spurlock took in during his 30 days.
See this flick!

Foie Gras: Pro & Con

Ducks are increasingly being substituted for geese in production of the delicacy known as 'foie gras' or fattened liver.

Of course, few things involving food are without controversy. Here are but two examples. See this report on a battle between animal rights activists and a Sonoma CA duck farm that produces foie gras. And this news article on how a Smithsonian history of foie gras event was canceled due to pressure.

Here's a link to the Humane Society of the USA's page which takes the position that force feeding ducks and geese is is cruel and should be stopped.

The counter argument is to "Foie Gras FAQ: the liver everyone loves."

Both sites contain more links supporting their view of this controversy.