Tag Archives: Organic Foods

Beef Is What’s For Dinner

You all know how I like to switch it up from time to time. So why should today be any different? I try to keep us on our toes around here. Notice I include myself in that statement since I never know what will motivate me to write my next post. ☺

Lately we’ve talked about the perils of GMO foods, the demise of Sting’s Broadway adventure and the rowdy antics of a certain clan named McFarland. And there’s no need to expound more on that topic.

So what’s my beef today?

Well…Beef actually.

A while back I wrote a post called, “Have It Your Way—It’s a Whopper.” It was a disturbing report on the use of Horsemeat as a substitute for Cow’s. It turned out to be a very interesting subject about our meat supply, not only here in the U.S., but in Europe, and Great Britain.

Although this isn’t our focus today, many of you had asked me to write a post about how Cattle are raised, what they are fed and the correlation with our food chain and how it affects our health.

According to the National Cattlemen’s Association, Beef is roughly a 55 Billion dollar industry. Last year, the total U.S. beef consumption alone was 25.5 billion pounds. So as you can see, our meat has become an industry.

Before factory farming, cattle were raised on family farms across the country and the process was rather simple. Calves were born in the spring, spent their first months suckling milk from their mother and grazed on sweet grass until they were weaned and turned out onto pastures.

Some cattle were given a moderate amount of grain to enhance that marbling fatty flavor until they grew to maturity and reached the market at two to three years of age. This meat was free of antibiotics, added hormones, feed additives, flavor enhancers, age-delaying gases and salt-water solutions. Mad cow disease and the deadliest strain of E. Coli didn’t exist. People were able to dine on rare steaks with little fear.

Today’s Beef grows to market weight in just one to two years, with cows that may never spend much time in an open grassy pasture. But this process reduces the nutritional value of the meat, stresses the animal out and increases the risk of bacterial infection, never mind the fact that it pollutes the environment and exposes us to a host of unwanted chemicals that include hormones and antibiotics.

Sounds wonderful right?

So what’s the answer?

Eat Grass Fed Beef.

Yet, let me take this even further.

Eat Organic Grass Fed Beef!

Why do I say Organic Grass Fed Beef?

Because cattle may now be forced to indulge in genetically modified grass.

It seems Scotts ‘Miracle-Gro, who created genetically modified RoundUp-Ready Kentucky Bluegrass, has announced that it will conduct field trials at the homes of Scotts’ employees. And they can do this without any government oversight because there are no laws that prohibit or limit the planting of GMO grass.

What this means is cattle will now graze upon GMO Kentucky Bluegrass and people will ingest the RoundUp chemicals sprayed on the cow’s favorite meal. What this means is more exposure to Glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto’s broad-spectrum herbicide, a chemical that not only has a scientific connection to breast cancer, but also to chronic kidney disease.

And that my friends is why I wrote this post. I felt it important to pass on this information. True, it’s virtually impossible to keep up with everything that goes on with our food chain these days. We can drive ourselves absolutely nuts. But if you want to bite into a juicy burger or steak, make it Organic Grass Fed Beef.

Because Beef is what’s for dinner. Or maybe not. That’s a choice you’ll have to make.

If you have time you may want to pop over to the PBS series “Take Part” for more information on this subject.

And if you want further information about healthy eating, please join me over at Lynn Kelley’s blog as she shares another “Heath and Wellness Wednesday post!”
 

So what do you think? How does this make you feel about how our food is handled? Because most of us live busy lives and the affordability of ground beef, did you find this information helpful? Do you enjoy a good, juicy steak? What healthy favorite foods make it to your family table?
 

Cheers everyone! I hope that life is treating you well. And as always, thank you so much for all your support and wonderful comments!
Karen

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Have It Your Way—It’s A Whopper!

After last week’s post I don’t know about you, but I feel invigorated. I have taken in a deep cleansing positive breathe, embraced the circle of life and released all negative thoughts.
 

Well, not exactly. I was doing great by the way until the very next day when I read an article on Yahoo about horses in Ireland and Great Britain. Oh, and it’s a whopper! I truly think that I am going to stop watching and reading the news. Things just get crazier by the minute.
 

Do y’all know about Mister Ed?
 

If not, I think you can still catch reruns on Nick at Nite or somewhere on the internet. It’s an old comedy series, but it came to mind after reading that Yahoo article. Its jingle went like this:
 

“A horse is a horse, of course, of course

And no one can talk to a horse of course

That is, of course, unless the horse is the famous Mister Ed.”
 

You’ve got to admit that’s catchy. 🙂
 

Anyway, the Golden Globe award winning television series was based on a short story written by Walter Brooks in the 1930’s called, “Ed Signs the Pledge.” Now you have to know that “Mister Ed” had an opinion for everything. If Wilber, his owner, got into a pickle about something, he always walked out to the barn and talked to “Ed”. Of course we realize that horses can’t talk, but if they could, I’d hate to think what Mister Ed would say about this.
 

Apparently, Burger King is huge in the U.K. and Ireland. In fact, they love their burgers as much as we do in the U.S., if not more. But it was announced last week that they’ve stopped using one of the firms caught up in a scandal of supplying grocers with beef that contained horse meat!? And not just a little horse meat. The hamburger contained twenty-nine percent horse meat.
 

Okay, does this…


 

Look like this…


 

No? Oh good, because I thought I was losing it for a minute!
 

I recall an incident in U.S. history when the Donner Party resorted to eating horse meat. But they were at the brink of starvation during a blizzard while crossing the Sierra Nevada mountain range in northern California in 1846. Granted, this example may be way over the top since there was a little cannibalism going on. The point is it wasn’t a pretty picture.
 

All we want is a good healthy burger. It that too much to ask? But horse meat?

Really? Are we that desperate?
 

The British food industry was rocked by this revelation—a $2.6 billion dollar scandal that has left them reeling with the aftereffects from the first major shock-waves after its discovery. Food safety experts say the horse meat posed no added health risks to consumers, but the discovery has raised concerns about the supply of our food chain and the ability to trace meat ingredients.
 

Well that’s interesting, because as you may know, the U.S. has had its own ground beef concerns with E. coli and Salmonella. Should we also be looking for horse meat in our ground beef too? Uh, this is not just a bunch of hamburger. This is a real concern, especially if you’re a beef eater, which accounts for most of the kill ‘em and grill ‘em population.
 

You see the vast majority of ground beef we purchase is from a few enormous meat-packing corporations that sell beef through gigantic supermarket chains. These meat-packing plants butcher thousands of cattle every hour. Meat and trimmings from all that cattle are combined, so any random package of commercial ground beef could include particles of meat from hundreds or even thousands of individual cattle. This, as you can imagine, makes it much more difficult to monitor the source of contamination or in this case horse meat.
 

So what can we do?
 

Well, as you know, I am into healthy and natural. Hello Sexy Kale! But, I too like a good juicy hamburger straight off the grill. Mmm, yummy!

Now that’s my kind of whopper!
 

Here’s what is suggested:
 

If you’d like to have it your way, buy food that is free of synthetic pesticides, antibiotics, hormones or other chemicals. Thus, the best approach to buying ground beef is to go directly to its source. Buy meat that is ground at the facility where you purchase the meat. That way you are assured of its quality and that the ground beef you purchase comes from one head of cattle, verses several thousand individual cattle. (And yes, that number is correct.)
 

I can’t tell you how much better organic beef is over non-organic. But this of course is a personal preference, although hubby and I have taken this one step further buying grass fed organic beef.
 

Now grass fed beef is a horse of another color. Please pardon the pun. I just couldn’t help myself. Yet, this is a subject I’d like to explore on a later post.
 

So until then, remember this:
 

“A horse is a horse, of course, of course

And no one can talk to a horse of course

That is, of course, unless the horse is the famous Mister Ed.”
 

If you want a “Whopper”, have it your way!

And that does not include eating a horse!

Of course, of course!
 

Hmm, I still wonder what Mister Ed would have said about this?
 
 

So what do you think? Do you enjoy a nice thick juicy Hamburger straight off the grill? Or do you lean towards vegetarianism? Does the safety of our food concern you? Do you grow some of your own food? What measures to you and your family take in order to eat healthy?
 
 

Thank you so much for dropping by and for all your wonderful comments!
Karen

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