Truth in Labeling

Louise and I were having an email exchange about how not all organic milk is created equal, when she sent me a link to an article claiming that there was no nutritional difference between organic and non-organic milk, with the note "I'm hoping it isn't true."

I was intrigued, because I've seen studies from Denmark and Great Britain (among other places) that show that organic pasture-fed milk has more fatty acids and is higher in antioxidants, beta carotene,  Vitamin E, and other nutrients than conventional milk. Now, if you're comparing factory-farmed dairy cows that are fed organic grain (and barely pasture-fed) vs. factory-farmed dairy cows that are given conventional grain, then maybe there is little nutritional difference. That's why pasture-feeding is so key to the definition of organic dairy and why organic/family farming organizations like the Cornucopia Institute put up such a fuss when factory-farms claim to be organic yet barely show their cows what a pasture looks like.

Nonetheless, even if the nutritional values of the two were the same, non-organic milk contains antibiotic residues, which scientists believe contribute to antibiotic resistance, a serious health problem in this country. Non-organic cows are also fed synthetic growth hormones, called bovine somatotropin. This bST, as it is sometimes known, and another hormone it produces (an insulin-like growth factor called IGF-1) have been shown to be present in milk. I don't care what the FDA says about "safe levels": Does anyone really want to feed their kids synthetic bovine growth hormones?

I got curious about the website Louise had linked me to, Stop Labeling Lies, so I looked at it in a bit more depth. [Note that I am not going to provide links to any of the sites mentioned below. You can reach them through About Us page on Stop Labeling Lies if you really want to visit them.]

One of its "participating organizations" is the important-sounding Center for Global Food Issues, whose motto is straight out of Monsanto's mission statement: "Growing More Per Acre Leaves More For Nature." They are associated with the conservative think tank, The Hudson Institute, and have stories on their web site like "Greenpeace Opts for Millions of Blind Kids." (Those villains! That's the last time I'll give them money in the street!)

Another is the objective-sounding American Council on Science and Health, which has an article on its web site that says: "The Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) has now firmly established itself not as an institution for higher learning, devoted to educating students about the science of preventing premature disease and death, but instead as a hotbed of pseudoscience and political agitation..." (Yes, we know all about those Harvard public health Trotskyites.)

Something called the Food Security Network is also a sponsoring org, the link to which leads one to a very bizarre web site whose focus is really hard to suss out. I did appreciate one of their food security stories: "Hormel premium sliced deli meats are now packaged in a clear flexible pouch with an integrated Hefty Slide-Rite closure system, supplied by Pactiv Corp., that helps the meat retain its fresh flavor even after the package has been repeatedly opened and closed." (Well, I feel much safer now.)

Another sponsor: "The Competitive Enterprise Institute is a public interest group dedicated to free enterprise and limited government." It was called by the Wall Street Journal "the best environmental think tank in the country." (And the climate-change-denying WSJ should know!)

Anyway, I'm going out on a limb and guess that Stop Labeling Lies is a front for mega-food-agribusiness companies and their political allies. Labeling lies, indeed.

P.S. If you want to know if the organic milk you drink is truly pasture-fed and meets other high standards for organic dairy, the Cornucopia Institute has a scorecard for all dairy companies that claim to be organic. Interesting reading.

Our brand, Natural By Nature, got 4 out of 5 cows on the Cornucopia Institute's scorecard.

Meat the Frankenbirds (part 2): A Photo Essay

Text by Graham
Photos by Katharine

Dad seizes a chicken!
The first to meet his handcrafted cone of silence.

Dad puts the chicken in the cone head first.
Then he pulls the head out through the bottom of the cone.

The chicken's legs (and his head at the other end)
are the only parts that stick out of the cone.

Next, we boiled a pot of water to dip the
dead chickens in to loosen their feathers.

After the chickens' feathers were loosened,
we brought them over to a makeshift table to pluck them.

We made sure every feather was off the bird.

Now the chickens were ready to be gutted.

Some of the "delicious" innards. Yum!!!! (he's kidding)

He tried to escape but we put a lid on him.
Chicken foot soup (okay, we just used them to make stock).

After hours of work, Mom prepared the chicken for the grill.
We can't wait for a taste.

A silly image of Katharine enjoying her favorite treat:
Grilled chicken feet.

Beautiful me. Beautiful bird.

Chicken liver pate.
This was so good!

Am I going to be next?


Please note: My mother didn't help with any of this (except for preparing the bird for the grill).
I think she's too chicken to face her chickens.

How We Compost

I used to be just like Therese and Peter, never wasting a bit of food. That is until we started keeping laying hens. Now, we toss them the potato and carrot peels, sandwich crusts not eaten by our children's friends, eggshells, and even coffee grounds. In the old days, I would have felt guilty for not turning that last slice of bread into breadcrumbs. Now I just think about how that slice will turn into an egg.

Before: Scraps from cooking and meals.
Giving our chickens coffee grounds with the hopes of creating the first Egg McZoomZoom.

After: It took our girls 10 minutes to peck the ground clean.
We use this "composted" soil in our garden.

Nothing is wasted.

Meat the Frankenbirds

This summer I finally read The Omnivore's Dilemma and The Ethics of What We Eat. I was temporarily put off my feed. Yes, I know I read these books long after everyone else. I kept shelving them because, I guess, I knew how they would end — the girl is put off the corn chips and is totally denied the cow. There could be no happy ending unless a state of pure vegetarianism was achieved. Talk about off-putting.

Seriously, I get it. The way our food is produced is atrocious and I understand that most Americans don't have a clue. It's sad. When our children's friends come over and they look at a fresh egg as if it were poison I begin to wonder about where they are coming from. Anyway, both Andrew and I read these books and then spent a weekend on a farm that is part of an international agritourism business (we were invited—read free—guests of the company owner). This particular farm was located in upstate NY. It's a cool place and we were totally into what the couple were doing—farming and raising kids sustainably. It was a lovely organic picture that I am most certain did not include Tyson chicken fingers in the freezer or Ho-Hos in the cupboard. Don't get me wrong, our kitchen contains neither as well. Hey, do Snickers count?

Anyway, aside from their grass-fed, free-range cattle, sheep, and pigs, they also had an assortment of fowl. After reading the two books mentioned earlier, raising our own meat birds was high on our list. So we (Andrew) asked about the butchering of the chickens and was then taken step-by-step through the process. Fascinating. Yeah. I'm a total hypocrite when it gets right down to it. I will raise the animals, cook them, and talk up a storm about the importance of eating locally and if possible, organically, but really have no desire to ever butcher an animal. This is up to Andrew, who proclaimed seven years ago that if he couldn't kill it, he didn't deserve to eat it. This is why I love the man.

When we got back to our own small farm I started to investigate meat birds and called my favorite chicken place: Murray McMurray Hatchery. Turns out I was looking for the Jumbo Cornish X Rocks. So I placed an order for 10 (combining it with some Rhode Island Reds to help boost the kids' egg business). Before hanging up, I asked the operator if there was anything special I needed to know about the Jumbos. Her instructions were straightforward: separate them from the other chicks after two weeks because they are mean. Start them on a finishing feed, and then, very nonchalantly, she slips in that I should place their water at one end of the pen and their food at the other, so, you know, they would be forced to get up and move. She wrapped it up with: They'll be ready to butcher in about eight or nine weeks. WTF?

Over the last six years we've raised a number of egg layers, none of whom would have been finger lickin' good at eight weeks. Even after a year our egg layers were not something you'd plan a meal around. It suddenly dawned on me: I had ordered Frankenbirds! My summer reading horror list mentioned these birds, and now here I was, buying them. What had I done? I wanted to call Murray back and cancel my order, but a little voice in me clucked, "Oh c'mon, don't be chicken. It's not like you're going to pump them up with hormones and antibiotics. Let 'em ride..."

The day the chicks arrived we compared them with the reds. Aside from their color, they looked just like any other day-old bird. The first sign we had that they were different was about four days into the project when they started feathering—it was as if they hit puberty at age 6. By a week, the Frankenbirds were remarkably bigger. By two weeks they were easily double the size of the reds. Six weeks later, they are plump and round making the reds look undernourished. We tried separating them with straw bales but they hopped over powered by their big legs. When it's cold, the reds nestle under the Frankenbirds' wings. It's kind of creepy but they all seem quite happy. It's nearly time for the reds to move outside and be with their sisters. When we do this I'll start the Frankenbirds on the finishing feed (a high-protein, all vegetarian pellet). Yes, I know I haven't followed Murray's instructions but they're looking good. Stay tuned, butchering day is in two weeks (Andrew bought a knife from the local bait shop): Will the Frankenbirds be tender to the bone or just another rubber chicken?

My Body Warmer

Baby, It's Cold Outside

It's mid-October and the red stuff in the thermometer seems to have stalled at 42. That's not right. We live in what I'd call southern Virginia. Temperatures are usually in the 60s or 70s this time of year. This unusual cold snap, combined with four days of driving rain, has caught us totally off guard. October is usually spent cleaning up the garden, preparing the house and outbuildings for winter, and, with any luck, pulling in a second harvest of honey from our two hives. (I will get into our bees in a later post.) All of this has been put on hold, temporarily, I hope.

We live in a 113-year-old farm house. The place is hardly what you'd call air-tight and heating it is a costly nightmare. To save money we try to hold off as long as possible before turning on the furnace. We're a little chilly right now to say the least. I'm sitting here dressed in several layers, topped off by my fleece bathrobe with our puppy tucked inside (I kid you not, he's wrapped himself around my waist like a belt). I look like a hobo minus those fingerless gloves, which I'm beginning to think would be a good investment. Andrew just brought me some coffee, I took a sip and the steam fogged up my glasses. Last week it was 75.

That's right, 75. Andrew was finally able to start and finish the re-roofing of our chicken coop. He pounded the last nail in moments before the wind changed direction and the rain started. At least the girls are cozy. As for the garden, I have to assume the peas and broccoli are doing a little dance of happiness for the dip in temperature, but the peppers, tomatoes, eggplant, and zucchini are all whinging. We had an amazing summer harvest and were able to "put up" plenty of vegetables for winter so I'm okay with hot-weather plants calling it quits, but still. There is plenty of clean up to be done. The garlic needs to be planted.

Meanwhile, on my neighbor's farm there is a little trouble. They are away for 10 days and have left our children in charge of their chickens. In their barn they have some month-old blackstar chicks which will be placed in their outdoor coop once they are fully feathered and have a little meat on their bones to keep them warm. Outside in their coop they have an assortment of older hens plus seven Rhode Island red pullets that we started for them two months ago. Before they left on their trip they added the fully feathered pullets to their coop. I would have done the same thing—this time of year the weather is sunny and plenty warm for young birds. Anyway, this surprise cold snap took its toll. The older hens handled it without a feather out of place. Unfortunately, the pullets all perished, wet and cold to the bone. Not sure when we'll tell our neighbors. Not the kind of news you want from home while on vacation.

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What the heck is urbal tea?

A little over a year ago, I started compiling a list called "Why Bother?" which attempted to chronicle all the things--both big and small--my husband, Peter, and I were doing in our Brooklyn home to try to counteract what seemed like the inexorable destruction of the planet.

I called the list "Why Bother?" both to acknowledge the helplessness I felt, and to provide a response to those feelings. As post-middle aged people (Peter retired in 2007; I have a few years left to work, if I could find some!), we made it a priority to redefine how to live in the world, if only for the sake of our grandchildren.

My friend Louise, who at the time was working with me on a magazine start-up (that crashed and burned soon after the October 2008 market collapse), talked about these issues with me all the time. She and her husband, Andrew, come at these questions from a different perspective: they live on a family farm in rural Virginia and raise two school-aged children, Graham and Katharine.

But despite our urban-rural and age differences, we share common interests: serious travel (last year Peter and I took a four-month trip to Australia and New Zealand, while Louise and Andrew took their kids out of school for the year and spent half of it living and traveling in South America); serious gardening (even though we have a postage stamp back yard and they live on a farm); and serious cooking (not fancy but principled). We also share common values: respect for the Earth; a love of culture and cultural differences; a respect for the (well) written word; a belief in the common good.

Queen Charlotte Sound, New Zealand

Over the years I've pulled Louise into my work projects, which tend to focus on technology in education. And while it's a perfectly respectable topic and she doesn't turn down the work, she keeps asking me: Can't you get on a magazine that covers gardening or travel or cooking? I wish.

Well, why wish? Fact is, the economics of publishing today mean that we're never going to start our own traditional magazine (if Conde Nast had to close Gourmet, there's no hope for any of us). But why let that keep us back from writing on the things that we feel passionately about? Andrew, who is by far the cleverest of the four of us (but don't tell him I said so), came up with the name of the blog. Urb[an] [rur]al Tea [a blend, where city meets country]. (Or, as he says, "If you have to be so literal, you don't deserve the title.")

I promised I'd write the first entry—and I admit that it's a little serious, but it's hard to get something started with the exact right tone. (I predict that Louise and Andrew will be smart-ass funny, Peter will be deadly serious, and I'll try to be funny and only sometimes succeed.)

The intent is to share the ways we're trying to figure out how to live responsibly and take pride of ownership, at least, of the small patch of Earth we're given the privilege to inhabit. It's a conversation we invite you to join.

Peter in our Brookyn garden

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