"Where's the beef?!" * So how is your personal pandemic recovery progressing so far?

[titan]

The global pandemic has hammered more than the computer-chip auto-part. Apparently cattle don't much care for the pandemic either.



Have you found anything you used to do that the pandemic prevented you from doing, that you can now do again?

* A catch-phrase in a television commercial so popular the catch-phrase was drawn into U.S. presidential politics.

 

[sear]

t1
One way to cheer you up about how it is right now:
assure you it's going to get worse.

There. Feel better?

 

[mark mywords]

some of that meat looks like its pretty poor standard, the first one looks like the cow was killed this morning!
and they are all a very odd shape for sirloin

 

[sear]

Food in the U.S. is a bumpy road.
I find the food content disclosure labels extremely useful. One might think it not necessary, until they learn what's actually in the food. Way too much Sodium for example.

There are dyes that help make some food in the U.S. look better. But is it really?
Some of the food content concerns in the U.S. make the GMO controversy seem fairly tame.

 

[mark mywords]

I find the food content disclosure labels extremely useful.

You shouldnt, they only tell you about the stuff they dont mind you knowing about.
for example much of the milk in the US comes from cows injected with hormones not only is this not mentioned on the packaging but farmers who dont give their cows hormones are specifically banned from advertising this fact,

Genetically modified ingredients are also not mentioned.

interesting (at least I think so) eggs in Europe are not refrigerated, not in the store and not in the home they dont need to be they last for weeks just sitting on the kitchen shelf in America eggs are refrigerated because they need to be.
So why do eggs in the US need to be kept in the fridge? because in the US eggs are washed in bleach prior to sale which destroys the natural coating on the egg - they need to washed in bleach because most chickens in America have salmonella (chicken flesh in the US is chlorinated for the same reason) in Europe improved animal husbandry (NOT anti biotics) has virtually eliminated salmonella

 

[sear]

I live deeper into the forest than most of my countrymen.
Early in my tenure a neighbor / friend shared some food safety tips with me. She mentioned the eggs thing. She kept them out of direct sunlight, under the kitchen sink. She also said:

blue or green mold on cheese is OK, but brown mold on cheese or bread is bad: confine spores and discard.

My own impression about eggs:
locally purchased farm fresh eggs may be fresh, but if hard boiled can be tenaciously difficult to peel.
The store-bought variety that may have been in storage for a month or more between chicken and store shelf may be easier to eat hard boiled. I imagine if so, it's because the month old have desiccated a little, take up less room in the shell, thus peel more easily.
My work-around for this: I hack into the hard-boiled egg at the equator with the spoon handle, break the egg in two halves, & then use the spoon to remove the egg from the half-shells. To hold the idle half from rolling away, I use a bottle cap, or large machine nut or washer.

 

[mark mywords]

personally I store eggs for at least two weeks before I eat them it allows some of the water content to evaporate from the white firming it up.

as for cheese, proper (as opposed to the horrid plastic processed stuff that comes vacuum packed ) hard cheese is probably 12 to 18months old before you eat it and is absolutely coated in mold and if you look at it under a microscope it is literally crawling with cheese mites

 

[sear]

I've forgotten the ratio. But 1 acre of farm land can feed more humans on a vegetarian diet than if that acre instead feeds cattle for beef.
Insects seem to split that baby, providing protein, but without the inefficiency of cattle ranching.

Many may go squeamish over cheese mites or dust mites, vinegar eels, etc.
Yet humanity's salvation may include their increase in our diet.

Not sure why the popular realization that humans are animals is so challenged, whether it's more a failing of memory, or ego.