# freshest ingredients



## swarfrat (Aug 19, 2011)




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## ecchef (Aug 19, 2011)

I've dealt with idiots like that, especially when planning menus that need to be approved by committee; not so much individual clients.


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## tk59 (Aug 19, 2011)

:rofl2:


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## jmforge (Aug 19, 2011)

I often wonder how many people believe that organically raised cattle aren't given their regular "childhood vaccinations" or think that "grass fed" cows don't eat hay during the winter?


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## SpikeC (Aug 19, 2011)

Hay is grass.


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## ajhuff (Aug 19, 2011)

Aren't hay and grass the same thing though? I always thought tag "grass fed" was to differentiate from "corn fed."

-AJ


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## Andrew H (Aug 20, 2011)

Hay is just dried grass and it is used like ajhuff said to differentiate from corn fed.


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## Eamon Burke (Aug 20, 2011)

No food, no matter how campy, should be a celebration of disease, abuse and malnourishment.


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## ecchef (Aug 20, 2011)

johndoughy said:


> No food, no matter how campy, should be a celebration of disease, abuse and malnourishment.



I couldn't agree more.


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## swarfrat (Aug 20, 2011)

Yeah, we have high school for that.


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## jmforge (Aug 20, 2011)

I know that, but my question is do they? Have you guys seen the "unkilled food" letter to the editor that has been floating around the web? I don't know if it is real, but it is allegedly something sent to a paper that ran an article on hunting. The writer sobs about how cruel and barbaric hunting is and says that people should be happy with going to the supermarket and buying meat that hasn't been killed.:biggrin: With that said, I think it is more likely that a lot of the organic crowd have no idea that organic cows are given evil meds when they are calves and if the get sick. The regs for organic produce are more strict as far as the time the land has to lie fallow after the last application of chemicals (years from what I understand) but my brother and uncle are both cattle farmers in Kentucky and they just roll their eyes when you ask them about the folks in their area who raise "organic" beef. They really don't do much different other than not send them to the feed lot when they hit 600-700 pounds and charge more money once they get to slaughter weight. I'm pretty sure that they still de-nut the boy cows.


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## jmforge (Aug 20, 2011)

swarfrat said:


> Yeah, we have high school for that.


:rofl2: Now THAT is funny.


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## Eamon Burke (Aug 20, 2011)

******* said:


> I know that, but my question is do they? Have you guys seen the "unkilled food" letter to the editor that has been floating around the web? I don't know if it is real, but it is allegedly something sent to a paper that ran an article on hunting. The writer sobs about how cruel and barbaric hunting is and says that people should be happy with going to the supermarket and buying meat that hasn't been killed.:biggrin: With that said, I think it is more likely that a lot of the organic crowd have no idea that organic cows are given evil meds when they are calves and if the get sick. The regs for organic produce are more strict as far as the time the land has to lie fallow after the last application of chemicals (years from what I understand) but my brother and uncle are both cattle farmers in Kentucky and they just roll their eyes when you ask them about the folks in their area who raise "organic" beef. They really don't do much different other than not send them to the feed lot when they hit 600-700 pounds and charge more money once they get to slaughter weight. I'm pretty sure that they still de-nut the boy cows.


 
"organic" is useless..."local" means you have a means of seeing exactly how the cows live/are raised. Just drive over and look. There are local farms here in North Texas that don't half-ass their livestock. Buying local is the answer to a lot of the modern world's problems.


Don't get me started on school food!


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## jmforge (Aug 20, 2011)

You are absolutely right. I suspect that the majority of cattle farmers do an okay job. The feed lots are where you run into problems. I have talked to my brother and uncle about doing the kind of thing that you are talking about or even taking a crack at raising something like Wagyu or Wagyu-Angus hybrids and they say that the price for cattle has gone down so much because if rising corn prices that it is really tough to do anything other than let the Angus and Angus hybrid calves get up to minimum feeder weight and get rid of them. That plus neither of them are nearly as interested in farming as they once were. My uncle has been a county commissioner for the last 16 years and my brother has had some health issues. Plus both of them are now leasing large portions of their farms to a buddy who got the big R.J Reynolds contract to grow tobacco once the allotment system went away. so that eats up about 100-125 acres of the combined 600 they have and a LOT of the water supply compared to when they were growing maybe 15-20 acres between them under the allotment system and raising more cattle.


johndoughy said:


> "organic" is useless..."local" means you have a means of seeing exactly how the cows live/are raised. Just drive over and look. There are local farms here in North Texas that don't half-ass their livestock. Buying local is the answer to a lot of the modern world's problems.
> 
> 
> Don't get me started on school food!


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