Friday 13 September 2013

Grass Fed Beef

Seeing as we're FINALLY starting to see the shelves holding the food in the freezers, along with my accumulated disgust for the off- and weird-looking muscle meats mum gets from the moderately sized supermarket down the road, I decided to take charge and pick myself up a quarter of a grass fed cow.

Now, I haven't actually got it yet (or ordered it!), but I'm ultra excited. And mum's all like ''It's going to take up so much room in the freezer! You don't understand how much room it'll take up! Whinge whinge whinge!" That's why I eat my mango ice cream after every meal, silly.

During my procrastination session today, I found a study about wild ruminant fat and it's here for all those geeks out there (like me) who love to pretend they can understand all the fancy schmancy scientific speak.

I read the hypothesis, which said that, if a pre-agriculturist (ie Grok) got most of his fat from an animal (which would have been a wild ruminant at the time, such as a wild boar), his dietary fat would be based on whatever was in that fat. I love how they differentiated between wild and CAFO meat here, because it's already obvious to them that CAFO meat has a skewed fat content.

The results? Um, ok, so I don't want to go into what's under the title 'Results', but some of it said that bone marrow is mostly monounsaturated fat, brain has the lowest omega-6 : omega-3 ratio (I think?? I'm just guessing that's what n-6 and n-3 are), and there's about 1% of conjugated linolic acid (CLA) in marrow and none in brains.

They concluded that whatever they actually found here - I could've very easily have interpreted that all wrong pretending I can read fancy schmancy scientific speak - is very similar to pastured meat, but not the same as grain-fed meat. Two things from that: what is their definition of 'pastured', and since this experiment was on elk, deer and antelope, who's farming, selling and/or eating grain-fed antelope?

Tuesday 10 September 2013

Don't be stupid.

You know how that voice in the back of your head that tells you when something is stupid?

I can hear that voice. It's very clear. It's a bit of a mocking tone, saying 'Duh, Jordie, don't do that! It'll ruin your chances of living happily and innocently afterwards!'

I don't block it out. I don't ignore it or anything. It's just that sometimes, where there's a will there's a way, even if that means hitting the sane and logical voice in the head and going 'Duh, Little Voice, you can do this and not die!'

Like,

'Duh, Little Voice, you can cut slippery kaffir lime leaves with a sharp knife and not stab yourself!'

and, my favourite,

'Duh, Little Voice, you can pour hot caramel onto a balloon!'

Moral of the lesson: Don't. Be. Stupid.


Wednesday 4 September 2013

Fifth Day of Spring

Like I said, it's the fifth day of spring and I have gazillions of bacteria and other general lifey stuffs in my jars!


Yesterday they didn't look so promising so I was glad that some bubbly action was going on when I had a look at them this morning. That and the combined effect of pretty much neglecting them opening-wise for the jars that are hard to open and not pressing the weird carrot salad thingos down once they started floating. I actually have no hope in that one.

And I tried an orange from the bag that the orange segment ferments are from. They are the blandest and least tasting oranges I've ever tasted! (however, I must admit my orange tasting hasn't been challenged much) So I also don't expect much from those. I did put a pinch of sugarcane sugar in them, but that doesn't mean it'll actually work.

Anyway, enough about my gloomy bacteria that are set up for failure:

I popped into the physics class this afternoon, just for fun. And even though I did gather a partial headache which barely happens to me any more, it was actually FUN. Yes, I am saying that learning about how wavelengths are entertaining and enjoyable. I learnt a heap of random stuff I won't be able to use apart from cool party trick conversations ('Did you know that that star is mostly helium?'), mostly that the visible wavelengths (light) that a gaseous element emits when heated is unique to whatever that element is (for example, helium emits orange, green and blue wavelengths, because of how far electrons jump across electron shells), that the word 'assess' in an exam question means that you have to state one side and give reasons for it, and that the elements that make up a star can be shown in the aforementioned 'blueprint' each element had.

And we had a discussion about whether copying someone's exact molecules and locations of such and whatnot, and replicating them elsewhere, was moral or not and if that's the same person or not. I don't think it would be. I think there's other things in the human that we have absolutely no idea about. Like why living outdoors more is better than living in the exact same way, but inside and all artificial and stimulated. There's gotta be stuff that we're missing out on when we chemically replicate stuff. For example (I'm just throwing this one out there), if there's some chemical or hormone or SOMETHING in breast milk or exchanged between mother and daughter when breast feeding that we just don't know about yet, and we give our babies formula made of all the stuff we do know, they're not receiving all that unknown good (or bad) stuff, and thus not being as nicely developed as another in the same environment but with a boob in their face instead of a plastic piece of junk. 

Actually, come to think of it, why the hell do we use friken PLASTIC bottles to feed our babies??

Monday 2 September 2013

Fermenting Time!

On the second day of spring, ... da da da da da da...
Three strawberry kvasses
Two orange juices
And a half jar of salty carrots!



Ok, so just ignore the fact that it doesn't fit...

I can't wait to sing On the fifth day of spring, ...da da da da da da....
FIVE TRILLION LACTOBACILLUS BACTERIA!
Four trillion yeasts
Three trillion other microorganisms
Two jars left
And a very very happy tum-my!

Oh, and that's a jar of sauerkraut that gave my babies their starter. It's like their mother (no pun intended).