The Safest, Most Abundant Food Supply in the World

Gulf dead zone. (4.00 / 3)

The eastern border of Arkansas is that funny shape because it is formed by the Mississippi River. You know, the thing that causes the Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone, the sewer that carries excess fertilizer runoff and animal waste runoff from Montana and the Dakotas to the GOM.

Although the Gulf dead zone gets bigger every year, so far it disappears every winter, when farmers don't apply fertilizer. Animal waste runoff and nitrogen-phosphate discharges from sewage treatment plants along the river continue during the winter, so obviously healing the dead zone does not require eliminating all nutrients from the river. Nutrient reduction is required, however. Ideal places for efforts to accomplish this would be the House and Senate agriculture committees, and Lincoln should have a particular interest because she is from a state along the Mississippi.

Will it happen? No way.

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by: count @ Thu Sep 17, 2009 at 06:28:01 AM UTC

and we have the best heaalth care system in the world. (4.00 / 4)

too. Which bought off Senator said that???

Blanch Lincoln Senator-D- Tyson Food

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by: LeeN @ Thu Sep 17, 2009 at 11:32:04 AM UTC

"Envy of the world", right? (4.00 / 2)

Lol.  Yeah, I'll bet millions and millions and millions of Europeans spend all night just dreaming that they were in my situation, heh...

Coming soon to a Philadelphia near you!

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by: JayinPortland @ Thu Sep 17, 2009 at 12:08:57 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I was watching an episode of (4.00 / 3)

No Reservations with Anthony Bourdaine. He was in Tokyo in a small restaurant. The chef was doing chicken. That morning the chef had slaughtered and dressed the chicken he was cutting up, right in front of them I might add, and cooking for them. Some of the meat was done very rare, similar to the way you cook tuna - cooked on the outside and almost raw on the inside. These were slices of breast if I remember right.

Anthony commented that this would be illegal in the states and his host at the restaurant asked why. Anthony said that you'd get sick eating chicken cooked like that because of the way that chickens are slaughtered and processed in the states.

He didn't go into detail, but for those of us who are familiar with the pathogen situation in chickens and how they are slaughtered and processed in the big plants, he didn't have to.

I can't speak for how the big processors operate in Japan, but the poultry was, no doubt, much safer to eat as far as pathogen contamination, at that restaurant than what we get from the store here. If it wasn't they wouldn't be eating it cooked so rare.

Regarding locavores as elitists - explain to me how supporting local business is elitist....

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by: Joanne Rigutto @ Thu Sep 17, 2009 at 15:00:56 PM UTC

I wonder if... (4.00 / 2)

Anthony commented that this would be illegal in the states and his host at the restaurant asked why. Anthony said that you'd get sick eating chicken cooked like that because of the way that chickens are slaughtered and processed in the states.

He didn't go into detail, but for those of us who are familiar with the pathogen situation in chickens and how they are slaughtered and processed in the big plants, he didn't have to.

I wonder if some lawyer for Big Chicken considered suing him or the station for that?  Kinda like the Cattlemen with Oprah and that vegan cowboy dude?

But then again, maybe he did go into detail... and they just cut it out of the final version for exactly that reason.  Hmmm, wouldn't be shocked at all...

Coming soon to a Philadelphia near you!

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by: JayinPortland @ Thu Sep 17, 2009 at 15:11:53 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Could be (4.00 / 3)

I didn't pay that much attention to how it was edited. I doubt that the poultry industry would go after him for saying something like that, because he was expressing his opinion for one thing. He also doesn't have the following that Opra has, in addition to Opra being on broadcast and Bourdaine being on cable/sattelite.

Also, there's the issue of the labels on the raw poultry essentially telling the consumer that if they don't cook the crap out of it they might die.

I don't know how many times I've read comments over at MeatingPlace from people who apparently think that it's not industry's responsibility to produce clean poultry that's free of pathogens. 'Stupid consumers ought to read the damn label and follow directions if they don't want to get sick' to paraphrase many over there.

Regarding locavores as elitists - explain to me how supporting local business is elitist....

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by: Joanne Rigutto @ Thu Sep 17, 2009 at 19:45:54 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Howard Lyman (4.00 / 2)

In 2006, Deconstructing Dinner aired a one-hour speech by Howard Lyman (speech from 2002).

Powerful stuff.

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by: count @ Thu Sep 17, 2009 at 22:04:55 PM UTC

[ Parent ]