WE ARE WHAT WE EAT

[Tizer]

Our village shopkeeper, Cliff, has done a deal with a farmer/butcher to sell some of his meat in the shop. It's good quality at a reasonable price, better than supermarket stuff, and we're in full support. However we didn't like his minced beef, it tasted and smelled too much of offal, probably blood - rather like eating black pudding. Now, I like the flavour of black pudding, but not in my minced beef. So we asked Cliff to get in some of the butcher's minced steak...and it's superb. Unfortunately I had to reject his sausages because they have spices in them, probably pepper, which cause inflammation of my gut.

[Stanley]

Sausage and mince are perhaps the best way of assessing a butcher. They both depend on the quality of the meat and the diligence of the butcher when trimming it. 'best mince' in the supermarket contains far more fat than my butcher's ordinary minced beef. Pity about your gut and the sausage Tiz... Even in plain sausage pepper is used as a natural preservative. I always remember the home made sausage that Johnny Spenseley at Stainton House Farm used to make and then hang over the stove in strings where they dried out until they looked absolutely disgusting. They were full of meat and spices and when fried were superb! God knows what a bacterial test on them would have revealed!

[Tizer]

Daily Telegraph, 26 March 2015
`Supermarkets accused of blocking efforts to tackle poisonous bacteria in chicken'
"Supermarkets are not co-operating with efforts to tackle poisonous bacteria in chicken, a watchdog declared last night. A Food Standards Agency board member told the Daily Mail that supermarkets’ effort to tackle campylobacter, the country’s most common cause of food poisoning, is “unacceptable”. The watchdog said that up to 79 per cent of raw birds on sale are contaminated with the bacteria. Levels are dangerously high in 19 per cent of chickens and the agency has demanded this figure should be below 10 per cent by the end of the year. The FSA said that Asda, Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons, Waitrose and the Co-op are all failing to address the problem. Only Marks and Spencer is giving updates on its plans and progress in tackling campylobacter."

" Professor Paul Wiles, a board member at the FSA, who was previously chief scientific adviser to the Home Office, expressed his disappointment that other firms had not followed suit. He said: “In terms of the scientific evidence and how to reduce campylobacter that is not acceptable.” Chief executive Catherine Brown said supermarkets had “pushed back” against providing information and claimed the stores were unhappy over the FSA’s publication of campylobacter league tables."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/ ... icken.html

[Stanley]

Disturbing news Tiz but hardly surprising. Supermarkets are essentially profit making businesses and that is their whole reason for being despite their pious statements about choice and quality. This is especially true in a price war due to over expansion and difficult trading conditions. The supply chains become longer and more convoluted and many, such as those of the food processors, are outside their control. This applies to relatively safe and stable foods but gets much worse when dealing with vulnerable items like poultry meat which are inherently dangerous in that they are natural carriers of bacteria. I don't see how the bacterial load of even clean poultry meat can be reduced much, it is a fact of life. This is where how it is processed, either as 'enhanced' products like ready meals or at home by the cook is essential. Our mothers knew the dangers and cooked all meats thoroughly. A chicken was done when it 'fell off the bone'. Unfortunately commercial chefs have successfully brainwashed people into believing that pink or even blue meat is best. This is largely down to the fact that short cooking times enhance the efficiency of a commercial kitchen. The single, most effective improvement in infection levels from vulnerable foods is to cook at home from raw and ensure that it is thoroughly cooked. This is not the message that the food processors wish to put out, their mantra is cook less eat more. I'll stick to my long slow cooking... My recent adventure doesn't alter my view, I am convinced that the root of that was a viral infection not a bacteriological error on my part.

[Stanley]

I was thinking about the amount of food that is wasted because the use-by date has been exceeded. These dates are always conservative and often the food is perfectly acceptable. In the old days we knew about using our nose to assess meat and fish. We knew that meat in particular is at it's most tender when the tissues are starting to break down. Even meat that has gone a bot too far is fine if you wash it in vinegar and cook it thoroughly. This is the principle behind hanging game before cooking it and beef that has been hung in a cool room for three to four weeks is perfect. Our mothers taught us to use our nose. Where do you learn that these days?

[Tizer]

Stanley will be pleased with this article in Science Daily magazine:
`Olive oil: The key to curing cancer?'
"Extra virgin olive oil, long-known for its heart health benefits, has now been identified for its rapid destruction of cancer cells. While scientists have proven that the oleocanthal compound found in extra virgin olive oil causes cell death in cancer cells, they have been unable to provide an explanation for this phenomenon until now. Paul Breslin, David Foster, and Onica LeGendre offer answers in their paper, published in Molecular & Cellular Oncology.

"In their recent study, the researchers discovered that the key to understanding the toxic effect of oleocantha in cancerous cells lies in its reaction with the lysosomes of the cell, where the cells store waste: the oleocantha ruptures the cancer cell lysosomes causing cell death within 30 minutes to an hour while leaving un-cancerous cells unharmed. This suggests that the lysosomal membranes of cancerous cells are weaker than those of uncancerous cells. Because of oleocantha's targeted damage to cancer cells, it may prove an ideal option for therapeutic cancer treatment."
Read the rest of the article here: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 141241.htm

[Stanley]

Well, there you are! All those hours reading books about lipid research weren't wasted! I still use Il Casolare oil, unfiltered and full of sediment. I topped up my stock of Cod Liver Oil yesterday as well. It's getting increasingly difficult to get straight Seven Seas oil in 450ml bottles. I have 4 in the fridge, I find it keeps well below 3C. My olive oil keeps well in the dark at room temperature.

[Tripps]

Literally. . . we are what we eat.

There's a bloke just been on the TV who made a black pudding from his own blood. I think 'gross' just about covers it. Then he had the cheek to say it needed some more salt.

[Stanley]

I think I have come across that bloke....
Have a look at 'What's the Beef' an article I wrote in 2004, posted this morning because I couldn't find it on the site. It cropped up because of current fears about the loss of micro-nutrients and trace minerals under modern mono-farming methods. Also the degradation in soil quality in terms of structure. These little regarded matters are beginning to be recognised and have a profound bearing on the quality of our food. I was banging on about the demise of old fashioned mixed farming that looked after the soil almost twenty years ago.....

[Stanley]

There is a follow on programme to the one last week about sugar. It's on BBC1 at 21:00 tonight and I shall be watching it carefully. I am constantly struck by the attitude of the general public towards fats, particularly the natural and perfectly healthy saturated fats such as animal fat and butter.
I am totally convinced that one of the biggest public health disasters of the last thirty years has been the misleading 'information' put out by food processors in order to promote cheaper alternatives with a longer shelf life. It is no accident that there is a direct correlation between this and the rise of obesity and the 'Western Diseases'. As I have said time and time again, those of us who were raised on saturated fat and burned it off are the last healthy generation. If cholesterol is so bad why did God put it in eggs and mother's milk? Simplistic I know but all my reading and research into lipids supports my contention. Question is, how do we educate the general public about the benefits and should we be actively banning the foods loaded with the bad fats. This is pertly after watching the blatant puffery for KFC in the recent TV programmes.....

[Tizer]

In case you want to watch the ITV Leaders' Debate, on at the same time tonight, the Fats programme is repeated on Sunday, 5th April at 15:55 on BBC One.

Fat
The Truth About...
Fat has a reputation as public health enemy number one. But is it really the devil we think? Recent headlines suggest that we may have got it all wrong, and that fat may not be as bad as we've long believed. Dr Saleyha Ahsan cuts through the confusion and reveals the surprising science of fat. She discovers that eating fat isn't the only culprit behind the nation's ever-expanding waistline and investigates some startling new research that suggests some saturated fats might even be good for our health. A group of nine volunteers take Salehya's Big Fat Challenge to investigate the strange things that happen to our body and mind if we stop eating fat entirely. And Saleyha discovers the fat hidden in sea water that could make the food of the future a lot healthier. This programme shows how we can be smarter about fat if we know which ones we should really be eating and how much is good for us.

[Stanley]

I don't think you will be surprised to hear that, given the choice between watching seven politicians making their choreographed job applications and watching the programme on fats I want for the fats!
On the whole the information they gave was accurate but there were omissions. The 'Fat Challenge' was a bit of show biz really to keep the attention of viewers as the results weren't announced until the end of the programme. Anyone who has studied nutrition knows that if you put people on a diet for a week that omits one of the major elements of a balanced diet you will get some sort of a result.
The omissions: In the survey of fats they mentioned some 'good' oils like Extra Virgin olive oil (and I noted a litre bottle of Il Casolare in the background) but they didn't draw attention to the bad ones or mention modified oils, transfats and shelf life. When they got on to Omega3 oils they correctly highlighted the role of algae in the sea but didn't flag up the difference between long chain Omega3 and the ordinary oil from vegetable origins. They completely omitted the importance of the balance between both long and short chain Omega3 and Omega6 fats.This latter is probably the most important 'fat fact' I have found and I totally believe in it.
So on the whole, they did more good than harm by attacking the spurious saturated fat arguments but they could have gone further. I was interested to see the short bit at the end on research being done to grow sea borne algae and refine the resulting concentrate so it can be used as a food additive for both humans and animals. Not a complete answer of course but a step in the right direction.

[Tizer]

The plant breeders are well down the route to developing rapeseed varieties that contain the same long-chain omega-3 fatty acids as does fish oil.

[David Whipp]

Tiz, that's good news for us veggies!

[Tizer]

We just need them now to develop plants that produce bacon and jelly! One of my friends took up vegetarianism but gave it up because he said he couldn't live without bacon and jelly (not together, I hasten to add).

[Stanley]

Tiz, some people might not appreciate why jelly is not a vegetarian food. A short lecture needed?

[Tizer]

Gelatin (gelatine) is a mixture of peptides and proteins produced by partial hydrolysis of collagen extracted from the skin, bones, and connective tissues of animals such as domesticated cattle, chicken, pigs, and fish. During hydrolysis, the natural molecular bonds between individual collagen strands are broken down into a form that rearranges more easily. It readily dissolves in hot water, and sets to a gel on cooling. This property has made gelatin very useful in a wide range of applications and world production is now around 375,000 tonnes a year. It has long been used in making food products although other gelling agents are now commonly used, partly because they are derived from plants and thus suitable for vegetarians and partly due to their different physical properties.

This web page features wonderful photos of jellies and related foods:
http://www.historicfood.com/Jellies.htm

[Stanley]

Seaweed?
Isn't OG wonderful, we have so much expertise across the board!

[Tizer]

Seaweed is a source of polysaccharides (sugar chain molecules) that can be used, like gelatin protein (an amino acid chain molecule), to make jellies and other desserts and to thicken liquid foods. Agar and carrageenan are the two main types and they provide a vegetarian option for those who wish to avoid the animal-based gelatin. The important characteristic of all these molecules is that they are long chains which can cross-link to form a 3-D scaffold structure which is the basis of jelly. It can be seen as a way of `making water stand up'!

[David Whipp]

Many thanks for the erudite information!

[Stanley]

If bitumen is bad for concrete that's bad news for a lot of people who have flat conrete roofs which have been tanked with bitumen based products. I think I'll take that one with a pinch of salt...
Thanks too for the explanation, the light bits were bothering me as well.
OG is wonderful, someone always has the answer David....

[Tizer]

Haha, I think that post went adrift Stanley...it should have got plugged into the Pothole Parade thread!

[Stanley]

I think you're right Tiz.....Ah well, we have a noble off piste tradition on OG!

[Stanley]

I've been a bit slow, I've only just caught up with THIS REPORT. You can't help wondering what we are storing up for these kids in years to come. Despite our general 'deprivation', my generation got plenty of exercise and fresh air and due to rationing, a well balanced diet with no junk food or additives. I thank ,y lucky stars that it was so and attribute much of my good health in old age to this. Perhaps we were indeed 'The Last Healthy Generation'·

[Stanley]

I have some two shear ribs on a bed of onions in the pressure cooker. This will be the start of some nourishing cabbage soup. Must keep Maz off my back!