Text 2146, 95 rader
Skriven 2008-02-10 14:03:00 av BOB GEARHART (1:123/140)
     Kommentar till en text av CAROL SHENKENBERGER
Ärende: Re: Chooken
===================
 Carol Shenkenberger said to Jim Weller at 02-09-08  14:34
 Subject: Re: Chooken<Carol Shenkenberger>

 >  > Old stewing hens _should_ be labelled as such.

 You wont find them anyplace but at a farmers market or specialty
 poultry market around here.  All chicken comes from the big chicken
 factory down in the Carolinas.

 > Canadian food laws are much stricter than American ones. I do not
 > trust your USDA which seems to be open to pressure from lobbyists;
 > the scientists are not in control, independent of political
 > influence.

 Not really.  The FDA says your not allowed to buy Peameal Bacon because
 it isn't properly cured.  I don't know if it's still legal, but if you
 wanted a big old Jackrabbit for cooking, you could buy it in the
 Windsor farmers market.  If you did you had to pick the lead pellets
 out of it as the guy selling them had just shot it the day before.
 It's illegal to sell any wild game in the USA.
 
 > In Canada, by law, the chicken and its food would have had to be
 > free of all synthetic chemical inputs (e.g. fertilizer, pesticides,
 > antibiotics, food additives, etc) its entire life. The food would
 > have to be grown in soil that has been chemical free for three
 > years.

 The primary chicken feed in the big poultry places is anchovies, well
 meal made from anchovies.  The big El Nino of a couple years back
 screwed up the anchovy harvest and the price of chicken went higher as
 a result.

 CS> Perhaps, but there is more of it now.  When I left, organic foods were
 CS> rare and mostly older 'free range eggs'.  Now I see all sorts of things
 CS> and whole isles of it.

 Ever see the movie "Food" shows on the Sundance Channel at times.
 Awesome.  It's a German and Danish, with a bit of Spanish producers
 thrown in.  No voice over, just the natural sounds in the food
 factories. Most astounding part is the free range chickens being raised
 by the thousands in a free ranging area almost large enough for them to
 all stand up in as food comes down a big trough.  They have their beaks
 cut off so they suck it up, at about 5 months of age they are at the
 right size and are herded into this big machine with a funnel in at
 one end and a conveyer belt at the other end where boxes of cut up
 chicken comes out.

 Fish farms will even gross you out more, and what happens in a pig
 business had me swearing off pork chops for a while.
 
 > In the old days organic farmers held certain principles and lived by
 > them; they sold directly to consumers who could verify all claims.

 We have an local chicken ranch and the yuppie store where they sell has
 higher prices for everything.  Organic, if that means the chickens are
 allowed to roam around and eat each others crap and anything else that
 falls on the ground, then I prefer mine to come from the chicken factory.

 CS> And city folks couldnt find such.
 
 > Now, certification is required. In order to certify a farm, the
 > farmer must pay fees and do a horrendous amount of paper work, which
 > increases with each new crop grown, to satisfy the USDA that he is
 > complying. The detailed record-keeping formats from planting to
 > harvest are designed for large scale operations and single crop
 > harvests.

 As a kid chicken was for Sunday dinner.  You couldn't afford to buy one
 for daily feed.  Remember FDR ran on the platform of a chicken in every
 pot.

 CS> And city folks can get them.

 We couldn't buy or eat if we followed the principles of old time farming.
 Big agra concerns are why we can have so much free time today to enjoy
 life.  Otherwise we would all be working 16 hour, 7 days jobs just to
 feed ourselves.
 
 > Some of the staunchest opponents of chemical based farming and
 > factory farming practices also oppose formal certification. They see
 > it as a way to drive small independent organic farmers out of
 > business and to undermine the quality of organic food.

 CS> The small farmer will still do well if the quality is good, but the
 CS> big city folks now can get them too even if not quite as good as the
 CS> smaller farm will make.

 I prefer my food from the agra business, where the quality is consistent
 and I know what I'm getting.   Like many catch words used to peddle stuff,
 organic is just that.  A catch word.

 Bob
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