Real food? - Mini vent.

[sumi]

When my son was a baby I started reading labels on food and boy, was that an eye opener? I cannot believe the stuff we buy and ingest, thinking we're doing the right thing and eating "healthy".

Let's start with fruit juice. Yesterday I went to the supermarket and looked through the juice selection on offer. First I see 40% and 50 % fruit juice, I skipped those and looked for 100%. That produced 2 options. Only 2... I picked one bottle and looked at the label for the ingredients list. The first thing I see is "water", I didn't bother reading further. The second bottle of mixed fruit juice amazingly consists of JUICE from actual fruit! Out of all the options available there was 1 that was what it promised to be on the label: fruit juice. It makes buying a juicer and making my own juice at home seem like a very good idea.

Today we went into town again and I felt hungry so DH bought me a "pepper steak" pie. I didn't detect even a hint of pepper and half the filling was soya chunks... I ate it, but it wasn't a very enjoyable experience. And that pie was not cheap either...

Vegetables and fruit. Have you ever eaten a mandarin orange that tasted of absolutely nothing? It was like eating uniquely packaged water... I wonder what the nutrient value was? Green bananas that goes off within a day of us removing them from their carefully maintained environment in the supermarket. Tasteless sweet potatoes, watery potatoes... I can go on all day.

Eggs. After eating eggs from my own free ranged hens for a few years I cracked a battery egg into a frying pan, looked at the watery white and the half-hearted pale yellow yolk and my heart when out to the poor hen who did her best to produce that.

Red meat dyed with artificial colouring to make it look fresh? Pass. And chicken? I burst out laughing in the shop when I saw the label proudly telling me the chicken chunks comes with "special marinade" of brine, to keep the meat juicy and tender. Which is their response to the government forcing them to admit that bag contains 70% chicken and 30% brine and you pay dearly for both. I'm glad I stopped eating chicken meat.

Milk that is so watered down, I cannot believe they have the audacity to still call it "milk". I've tasted the real deal, straight from the cow. When I pour milk into my coffee and I have to fill half the cup with milk to get it to the required milky state, I dream of my own cow...

The pleasure of having REAL, undiluted food to eat must be one of the biggest plusses of self-sufficiency. I'm hoping life will send me to my own place soon, where I can grow my own fruit and veg, keep a goat or two and as many chickens as my heart desires. So I can raise my son on healthy, real food.

 

[baymule]

And the answer is.....your own small acreage, your own garden, fruit and nut trees, berries, grapes, chickens, poultry, small livestock. And if that is not where you are in life, then find someone who is and buy from them. Replace as much of the industrial crap food as you can.

We live in town on a tiny lot, but have a garden and chickens. No, it doesn't totally feed us, but it sure makes a difference. We are in the process of buying a home on 8 acres and can't wait to close and get moving!

 

[sumi]

Back to real food, DH and I went over to the next town for some errants and while we were there we visited a butchery that is known for good quality meat at decent prices. We found they had a range of venison, Kudu, Springbok, Warthog, etc. (Not unusual here, most big shops and supermarkets sell venison). Their Kudu steaks was cheap, very cheap compared to beef, so we grabbed some and DH tossed them on the BBQ last night. Were those things tender? I think I probably could've cut it with my fork!

I said to DH I'm done with that bits of cow we used to buy. The venison is way cheaper, not just the steaks, the stewing meat cost 50% less than the beef, it has an amazing flavour, it was raised naturally! Until that animal got fed a lead pill it lived it's life out there in the veld with no stress, no feed lot rubbish, no antibiotics. It's awesome And it's cheap! lol

 

[Britesea]

http://www.amazon.com/Four-Season-H...2092734&sr=1-1&keywords=four+season+gardening

I highly recommend this book! These people live in Maine and manage to grow a garden in an unheated greenhouse. A lot of it has to do with choosing the right crops, but he even has fig trees in there...

If you want to start out cheaply, try a hot bed. It's like a mini greenhouse, and you can warm it with just fresh manure.

 

[Denim Deb]

I live in one of those states where it's illegal to sell raw milk. Eventually, I want to be able to get my own milk, either from a goat or a cow. I need to find a way to taste goat's milk to be sure I like it first. I'd rather go w/a goat. They're much simpler to care for. Plus, I doubt I'd need as much milk as I'd get from a cow.

I hate getting recipes off the internet. They call for a package of this, a package of that instead of listing real ingredients!

 

[Britesea]

@Denim Deb goats milk can be delicious or nasty- it depends on the goat. I think that goat breeders have been getting better about culling the goats with bad tasting milk, but it used to be they didn't- they were just selecting for production or conformation or even color. Cows HAVE been culled for good milk flavor, so you rarely come across a cow with bad-tasting milk. The safest thing is to buy a goat in milk and insist on tasting the milk before you buy. (and DON'T feed them cabbage!) Make sure the doe gets supplemental minerals too- especially the heavy producers- as that can affect the taste of the milk.

I really don't understand why goat milk is lumped in the same regulations as cows milk. Cows milk is required to be pasteurized because cows can get brucellosis, which can be passed to humans. I don't believe there has ever been a documented case of brucellosis in a goat (but my information is 20 years old now so I may be wrong).

 

[goatgurl]

@sumi. i so agree with you, i get so tired of reading food labels and find them full of things i can't pronounce. I try really hard to produce as much of my food as i can. almost no one can raise it all but i sure as heck try. we can sell raw milk here, up to 500 gallons a year i think, and sold it myself a time or two. years ago where i lived at the time wouldn't let you sell goats milk and i had a young mom come to me and plead with me to sell her milk for her young son who had bad milk and food allergies. she told me she had to pour water over his cheerios cereal and that he had never tasted ice cream , that broke my heart. he was this little sickly, thin, pale, snot nose thing with a horrible pot belly. well i went thru the whole spiel about illegal to sell, blah, blah, blah but i sure gave her enough for her "dog" with lots left over to make cottage cheese and ice cream. with in 3 months he was a bright eyed healthy looking kid. he is now almost 30 years old and i still hear from them now and then.
@DenimDeb if you like raw cows milk you will like raw goats milk. just remember what hinotori said and keep the buck far, far away because they can make milk undrinkable. and when you produce your own milk cleanliness is truly next to Godliness.

 

[goatgurl]

@baymule the cows i milked (120 head twice a day and we were a small dairy) weren't kept in a lot but if they came in with poo on their udder we scrubbed them down with disinfectant stuff. now i will say I've been to dairys that i didn't want to drink the milk even if it had been pasteurized but their not all that way. i drank the milk from my pet cow patty, yes cow patty but i have a weird sense of humor.
@denimdeb is right, its all about controlling the masses and the best way to do that is thru food and health care. make people dependent on you and you control them. stepping quietly down off that box now.

 

[Denim Deb]

I'll be glad when I'm able to get my own place. My life would be so much easier if i didn't have to run out to the farm everyday. I'd rather just walk out my back door to feed the horses.

 

[sumi]

Britesea, at the moment he does. he enjoys being out on the farm, the freedom, the space. He enjoys the animals too. We'll have to see how he feels when grows older, but as long as he's in my care, I'm going to give him the good life.

@basschick2305 I wasn't aware so much of the "problem" with food until I tasted my home produce and just went wow... I'll never forget tasting my first carrot, from the soil. That flavour! Peas from the vine, sun ripened tomatoes, real, full cream milk. Home made jams and preserves, instead of the strange mush we buy in the shops. Look at the ingredients in "mixed fruit jam". Scary stuff! We are getting cheated and we're paying dearly for it. Call me old-fashioned, I'm enjoying my food