GMO foods and Herbicides

I honestly haven't done much research on GMO foods and their effects on health, but I generally shy away from them if possible. When given the choice, I always gravitate towards organic foods and will sometimes buy nothing if only non-organic is available.

Given just this article:

http://www.responsibletechnology.org/gmo-dangers

- it rants and raves about the horrors of GMO foods, but doesn't site any real scientific evidence. People used to say margarine was good for you and now the news is that it contains trans-fatty acids and nobody wants that. But just because I read a link on the internet saying "something is bad but I'm giving no scientific evidence to support that radical claim", I tend to dismiss it as Chicken Little Hearsay.

The article has a much more scientific-sounding PDF file attached at:

http://www.responsibletechnology.org/docs/145.pdf

- and that at least sounds like they did some research. I'd have to verify the studies they refer to to figure out if they were legitimate claims of terror or just speculation.

Most of the genetically modified crops seem to come in the way of crops that can withstand herbicides such as roundup. Monsanto is the famous culprit here. I hate when my weeds grow so out of control that I can no longer pull them by hand and must resort to herbicides. I've tried using vinegar but the weeds just laugh at it. I did however see a herbicidal flamethrower that burns the weeds rather than using herbicide, so I am saving my pennies in hopes to buy one someday. (How can you not love a flamethrower for getting rid of weeds?)

An interesting show we watched on PBS called Grow A Greener World had an episode on weedless gardens. They showed a few ways you can reduce weeds in your garden but also talked about potential problems with using manure in your garden compost. Apparently the host has horses and fed his horses hay which they then consumed and disposed of as manure. He found out the hard way that the farmer who he bought the hay from had used a "persistent herbicide" to kill weeds growing in the hay fields, then he fed the hay to his horses, the horses pooped it out as manure, and he put the manure on his garden -- and it promptly killed his vegetable seedlings. The persistent herbicide is so persistent that not only does it last year to year to prevent weeds, but it gets into the hay that the horses eat, it is digested by the horses, pooped back out of the horses, and is still strong enough to kill your plants after the fact. One, you should be scared for the health of the horses, two, you should be scared that if it made it from the hay, through the horses and onto your vegetables, you should be afraid of your health. But three, think of the enormous cascade effect. You can't get rid of this stuff. You can't wash it away. You can't digest it. It won't break down. That scared the bejeebus out of my husband and I watching the show. The host tried to remain calm and simply said "ask your farmer what herbicides he may use" but I don't think I could have been that calm.

Here's a link to the Grow A Greener World show and associated episode on persistent herbicides:

http://www.growingagreenerworld.com/weedless-gardening/

Canning Tomatoes

We started out with a huge box of tomatoes from the farmer's market. I asked Ideal Farms to bring me a box and set it aside for me. The moment I walked up to them, they looked at me, recognized me, and told me they had my tomatoes.

I could barely drag the heavy box to my car!

At home, we sorted about 1/3 of the large, reddest tomatoes to become chunks and the other 2/3 of the tomatoes to become puree.

 

A few of the mason jars were recycled and had labels on them. I took a pot of hot water and soaked the labels off and used my "food-only" paint scraper to scrape off the wet labels. Then scrub the remaining glue off with a green scrubbie. 

 

 I put a pot of water on the stove to heat the tomatoes that need to be skinned.

 A bowl full of ice water next to the hot pot of water to cool the tomatoes when they come out of the hot bath.

 Dissection station: Skins go on the left, seeds and guts in the middle, finished cut tomatoes on the right.

 

 Boil the tomatoes for just 1 to 2 minutes, just until the skins start to pop and then take them out immediately. I didn't photograph putting them in or taking them out as I can't do that and hold the camera at the same time. Go figure!

  

 I chopped the tomatoes up one by one. Find the dimple in the top of the tomato but then cut perpendicular to it. This should expose the seeds on both sides. If you cut the tomato open on the dimple line, it will just slice it down the partition and you can't get the seeds out.

Then take the tomato and cut the center stalk out of both sides. The first batch I put them in the skin/compost pile but the second batch I used the knife to cut out the stem plus most of the seeds and then put that in the second bowl.

Then I took off the skin by peeling it back with the knife.

Finally, I cut the tomato up in small pieces (depending on the chunkiness you want later) and put it in the big bowl. The chunks will still drip a lot of water so I kept pouring that back into bowl #2 when there was a lot. Bowl #2 gets sent through the KitchenAid grinder later.

 

 Finished tomato chunks.

 Preparing the KitchenAid for the puree tomatoes. We need the food grinder plus the vegetable attachment.

KitchenAid on the counter ready to be dissected too.

 Unscrew the little black knob and take out the metal plate.

 Knob unscrewed and cap removed:

 KitchenAid put together with the veggie attachments. Sorry I didn't take photos during the process but I do have a video. Again, could not photograph and put it together at the same time. I also can't photograph and run the machine because I'm covered in sticky tomato bits!

 

Once I had the kitchenAid set up for puree, I took the remaining 2/3 tomatoes and cut them into long strips so I could feed them down the tube to get crunched. The strainer will take the seeds and skins and shove them out the end chute and the tomato puree will fall out the drip. You need 2 containers to catch the debris; one for the sauce and one for the skins and seeds.

Once that's done, we take the puree and boil it down on the stove. It starts out very watery so when it's a thicker consistency, we add the tomato chunks and boil until they come to a good bubbly simmer. Then it's ready for canning.

 

 Cook a pot of clean water on the stove for the lids and any tools you use. They should be boiled in  180 degree water for about 20 minutes.

I put the glass jars in the oven and set the temperature to 200 degrees. They bake in the oven to sterilize and then turn off the oven. They should cool a little bit before you take them out with the sterilized tongs.

Scoop the hot sauce carefully into the jars using the funnel that is specially designed to fit in the jar.

 

When the jar is almost full to the top (with about an inch to spare), you pull out the blue funnel. You can't let anything spill on the lid or it won't seal right.

We take out the lid sets and dump the water out.

 Then we put the lid on the jar, placing it carefully and screw the tops on the jars hand tight. When they cool, the rubber should suck onto the glass jar and the top of the metal lid will suck in. Sometimes they create a pop noise when they are sealed which is a good sign. Check all the seals in the morning to make sure all the lids sealed properly. Now they can be stored at room temperature for a year!

Mad about Meat

I just found an interesting article today about Rancho Feeding Corp, a company that is responsible for supplying beef to places like Kroger and Walmart.

Why is everything at Walmart so cheap? Because they keep forcing their suppliers to reduce the cost of their product. How do they do that? Buy cheaper, diseased cattle and sneak them in while USDA inspectors are on break for lunch.

http://news.yahoo.com/indictments-slaughterhouse-charged-selling-cancerous-153503792.html

Some text from the aforementioned article:

The co-owner of a slaughterhouse in California has been indicted by a federal grand jury for processing and distributing cattle known to have eye cancer. According to the indictment (below), Rancho Feeding Corporation's co-owner Jesse Amaral Jr. and two of his employees Eugene Corda and Felix Cabrera knowingly purchased cattle that showed signs of eye cancer because it was cheaper. To deceive regulators, they would decapitate the sick cows and move the bodies up the inspection line next to healthy cattle heads. They would make the switch when the inspectors were on lunch breaks.

The Chicago Tribune writes that in 2012 Amaral Jr. apparently told employees to process cattle that had been "condemned by federal inspectors." Workers were asked to carve the "USDA Condemned stamps out of the carcasses." The indictment points out that between January 2013 and January 2014, Rancho Feed Corp. "processed and distributed for human consumption carcasses, carcass parts, and meat from approximately 101 condemned cattle and approximately 79 cancer eye cows."

Yet another reason to buy local products from reputable people you can trust. I really think these guys should get a much more severe sentence than they typically get. If you intentionally mess with the food people eat or the drugs they take to fix their illnesses, you should go away for a very long time, long enough for people to think twice about earning an extra $50 bucks in that paycheck.