Howdy, pardners.

Well, this has been awhile in the making, but some friends, relatives (including Tom and Chareva), and I finally went all in on grass-fed beef. As in, not just buying grass-fed beef, not just knowing where your food is coming from, but in your grass-fed beef coming from your own beeves. “Beeves” is what us rancher types call more than one cow.

By ranch, I mean we’ve got two head. Meet Tartare and Royale:
 

 
This all started well over a year ago. In talking to Linda, who has the farm where I get my raw milk, I had talked up Joel Salatin and the whole intensive grazing/high density/rotational grazing approach. She has a few dairy cows on several acres, with part of her pastures segregated and rented out to a traditional rancher who brings cows in the Spring to pasture during the year, then takes them back and puts them on grain in the Fall for market.

She said if I found a grass-fed calf or two, I could pasture them with her cows. In the meantime, she’d started to put fences in to accommodate a rotational system.

As I said, that was over a year ago. It turns out you can’t just go down to the mega-mart and find a pasture-fed calf. I asked anybody selling grass-fed beef if they sold calves, but nobody had “extras.” Between demand increasing, the seasonality of calving, and last year’s drought preventing herd growth, there just weren’t any to be found.

A couple of months ago, one of the people I’d been talking to since last Fall suggested I contact Jerry Pierson, who raises some grass-fed cows in addition to his “day job.” Jerry turned out to be as nice and eager to help a “newbie” as everyone else I’ve talked to, and did think he might sell a couple. It took a couple of weeks to coordinate a visit (he’s about 45 miles away), figure out pricing, etc. then another month waiting for the rain and Jerry’s schedule to clear up enough to deliver them.

I went down to “help” — which pretty much meant staying out of the way. Cows are pretty easy to herd if you’re patient and know what you’re doing. Here’s Jerry making it look easy:
 

 
We stopped at a scale on the way to Linda’s so we could figure the weight, then took a slow 60 mile ride through the country to deliver next year’s steaks to their new home:
 

 
Cows are herd animals, and they and Linda’s cows immediately headed towards each other to make each others’ acquaintance.
 

 
When Jerry stopped on the way back to weigh the empty rig, I got a bit of sticker-shock. Neither one of us, especially me, had much experience, but the guy at the scale had looked in the trailer when we stopped and he guessed them at around 600 or 650 pounds each. It turned out they were actually around 870 pounds each.

That meant writing a bigger check today, but it also likely moved the anticipated date to put them in the freezer up from Fall 2014 to Spring 2014 or maybe even late this Fall.

It’s a learning experience, and I’m looking forward to that as much as our very own grass-fed beef. I’ll keep you posted. In the meantime, remember — never approach a Bull from the front, a Horse from the rear, or a Fool from any direction.

Cheers!

the Older Brother

Hiya Fat Heads!

I meant to get this out yesterday, but spent a good chunk of the day in my basement with the shop-vac and floor squeegee keeping water moving towards the drain. Just one of those things when you live in the Midwest and have 7 or 8 inches above average rainfall for the year.

Anyway, I figured I’d share my notes from last week’s IDPH meeting before heading back downstairs to do battle with Mother Nature. (Note: as one of my buddies from the Power Squadron says — “water always wins — that’s why there’s a Grand Canyon.”)

Angel Smith, who originally tipped me off to the Illinois Department of Public Health being on the move to “regulate” raw milk out of existence, has already posted her notes from the meeting here.  She also links to a three-part series in The Prairie Advocate – here — that has more detail and history.

Here are my observations:

Firstly, and most encouraging, was how many people showed up.  I mentioned that in the last post, but I don’t recall ever being in a room where almost everyone in the audience (probably 120-140) seemed to be thinking the same way as I was.  Weird, really.  Good weird.  It couldn’t have felt very comfortable for the 10 or 15 members of the Raw Milk Steering Committee who thought they were just going to have a couple of meetings on the regulations that the FDA was paying them to “write,” then move on.

Which brings up one of the first exchanges; this one between Molly Lamb, Chief, Division of Food, Drugs, and Dairy (the person in charge of this circus, whose salary is around $77,000 a year) and Donna O’Shaughnessy, the raw milk producer who primarily instigated this revolt among the serfs:

Lamb (after Donna refers to the Raw Milk Steering Committee):  …I don’t know why you keep referring to this as the Raw Milk Steering Committee.  There’s no such thing.  This is the Dairy Subcommittee of the Food Safety Advisory Committee.

O’Shaughnessy:  Because that was the title of the two emails you sent me when I asked about these meetings.

<insert cricket chirping sound here!>

… The meeting  started with the obligatory “rules of order” and agenda, which is of course all done via Power Point Presentation and delivered by the person who was probably really responsible for actually doing all of the work, Steve DiVicenzo, Public Service Administrator.  Such service to the public being remunerated at a salary of over $100,000 per year.  This included the ground rules, making specific note that although the meeting was being conducted in public, the only people who could/would be speaking during the meeting — outside the 30 minutes set aside for public comment — were  the committee members.

[I mention the salaries in case anyone is wondering how to get $9 billion behind on your bills, $70 billion on your pension liabilities, and an even bigger number no one will say out loud on your unfunded health care obligations.]

After a couple of slides on the origin and history of the committee, Ms. Lamb asked if everyone knew how a regulation comes into existence and then clicked to a flow chart slide with about forty boxes titled something like “How a Regulation is Made.”  This is like the old “How an Idea Becomes Law” from your old civics class, which is complete b.s. because there’s no boxes for “lobbyists”, “vested interests”, “campaign donors”, or “tragedy stampede.”

The first one was “determine that a change or new regulation is needed” and went on from there.  She jumped to the box about meetings and hearings and blah, blah, blah, and was five minutes and about 1 & 1/2 rows into the five or six rows on the slide, which she assured everyone was actually kind of a condensed version.

I was looking at the pen I’d brought thinking “if I turn this around and jamb it into my eye socket really fast, maybe I’ll die before I feel anything.”  But I was also thinking, “why in the hell doesn’t anyone ask how they got past the first box — who decided they even NEED a new regulation?!?”

Then, one of the raw milk producers who had been added after Donna started inquiring raised his hand and said “you didn’t explain why or how the decision was made that we even need a new regulation — how did that happen?”

Then, the whole room erupted in cheers.  I slowly put my pen down and decided that it was going to be a good day.

Ms. Lamb: Um, well we decided.

Producer: How?

Ms. Lamb: Well, let’s move on…

At some point either right before or after this, Ms. Lamb helpfully pointed out (again, backed up with an authoritative Power Point slide) that since the Department had been statutorily given the authority to regulate dairies, and since there were currently no rules regulating raw milk, that meant that raw milk was really illegal. The slide literally had “no rule = illegal” on it.

This is the bureaucratic mindset at its very base: until a bureaucrat passes a rule that says you have their permission to do something, it’s illegal.  She said this with a smile like that was going to clear things up, and let people know they were just trying to be helpful by passing some rules.  She seemed to be a bit surprised by the (politely contained) expressions of outrage and incredulity from the crowd.

There was also this:

Producer: So, your directive is to regulate dairies?

Ms. Lamb: Yes

Producer: But the regulations define a “dairy” as an operation that collects milk from farming operations for processing and wholesale and retail sales.

Ms. Lamb: Yes

Producer: So, since that definition means none of us are dairies, you shouldn’t be regulating us.

(audience: applause)

And this:

Producer (addressing Larry Terando from the FDA): Why are you on this committee?  The FDA has a position that all raw milk is always bad and has made it illegal to sell across state lines.  Therefore, all raw milk transactions are intrastate and there is no federal issue here.

(Audience: applause)

Ms. Lamb: He’s here as an expert…

Terando:  Because all raw milk is hazardous, so since it can occur in multiple states we have a federal interest.

The correct answer is that the FDA is financing this whole thing, so they get to call the shots.  Mr. Terando apparently had a busy schedule as he did not return to the meeting after the lunch break.

Another question — I can’t recall if it was from Donna or one of the other new folks on the committee:

Producer: Why did you send a memo to the state legislative committee with these proposed rules in it before we even had this meeting?

Ms. Lamb: Oh, those aren’t really proposed rules.  That’s just like a status report of what we’ve been discussing.

Producer: Well, since you sent that before any raw milk producers or consumers were put on the committee, and since many of the statements are incorrect, can we send a new memo with correct information and let them know there is disagreement on the proposed rules?

Ms. Lamb: Well, since that’s just a status report we really don’t need to do that.

When they got to the part of the agenda labeled “Epidemiology,” another IDPH expert got up.  She introduced herself (forgot her name, so I don’t know how much that pays) and started with her section of Power Point slides.  She was promptly interrupted:

Producer: How long have you been with IDPH?

Epidemiologist: I’ve been here twelve years (I may be a bit off on this –jn)

Producer: What is your degree in?

Epidemiologist: I have a Masters degree in Public Health Administration

Producer: So, you’ve studied a lot of food-born illnesses and outbreaks?

Epidemiologist: Yes.

Producer: How many raw milk outbreaks or illnesses have you studied?

Epidemiologist: Well, I’m not sure specifically raw milk related.

Producer: Is that because there haven’t been any in Illinois while you’ve worked here?

<insert cricket chirping sound here!>

I’m not sure what a Masters degree in Public Health Administration really prepares you for, but apparently it’s not the evaluation of epidemiological data.  It seemed to be maybe a G.E.D. level in “Google,” because her presentation consisted of a few slides of “studies” showing — wait for it — correlation! — between food born illnesses and states with raw milk; and one with a recap of dairy related outbreaks where “raw dairy” accounted for a majority of the “All Dairy” category.  This probably would’ve played well for the average audience, but it was the equivalent of trying to lecture a room full of Fat Heads (which this kind of was) on the evils of Saturated Fat while citing the Seven Countries Study and then doubling down with the China Study.

Even one of the Big Dairy folks couldn’t let these go, and stepped up to the plate:

Dairy rep: That study has already been challenged. Two-thirds of the illnesses — including the only two deaths –attributed to raw dairy  in that report  were directly attributed to “bathtub cheese,” where Hispanic people have made their traditional queso cheese using raw milk [probably illegally from dairies before the pasteurization process -- not actual raw milk producers -- jn].  It was undoubtedly contaminated in the cheese making process or subsequent handling.

Epidemiologist: Um, well, yes, some people do have different opinions.  My next slide relates to cheese!….

That may have been my personal favorite.

Once they got to the part where they were supposed to discuss actual rules — now just “suggestions for discussion,” mind you — it was exactly what you’d expect.  A bunch of rules related to massive, highly automated, feedlot-style operations that may have value in that environment, but completely non-scalable down to the level of someone or a family personally running a pastured cow dairy operation.  Even things like chill tanks would cost thousands and thousands of dollars.  And lord help the person who takes that fresh milk into their own kitchen and puts it in the fridge until their customer stops by.  No sir, separate milking parlors, chill rooms, etc. etc.  With the further caveat that no more than 100 gallons of raw milk could be sold a month.  When the producers hoo-haa-ed that one especially, one of the bureaucrats said — I swear to God, months in and ready to pass  rules on this that would put most of the producers in the room out of business –   “well, we weren’t really sure how many gallons a month you folks usually produce.”

The answer, in case you get asked, is that 100 gallons is about maybe  1/2 down to about 1 full cow’s production for a month.  So if you have one healthy dairy cow, during the productive season, you’ll be throwing half of Bessie’s milk away!

That’s mostly what I recall from the official meeting, somewhat in that order.  After lunch and moving to a room big enough to hold all the folks there to defend their rights to healthy food, they did allow over a half hour for public comments.  They used as a list the folks who’d submitted written comments.  Several spoke, all of whom I pretty much agreed with.  Angel actually got the last word, and did a great job relating how poor health impacted her military career and that raw milk was a key component of rebuilding her health.

The real standout was a women named Penny Gioja (again, thanks to Angel for taking way better notes than me!), who recounted having run an in-home day care for several years before the regulatory cost and paperwork led her to move on, then her family being talked into selling eggs at a local farmers’ market until they were told of a couple more licenses they’d need to purchase that made it economically unviable, and now looking at having to decide whether they should just leave the state.

Then she got wonderfully animated and told the panel that if the IDPH’s mission was really — as they had asserted — to protect the health and nutrition of Illinois citizens, she wanted them to enforce the same rules for people who sold Coke, Pepsi, Mountain Dew, and Monster Drink, which have well-documented poor health impacts — they could only sell 100 gallons a month, they couldn’t advertise, they could only put it in the customers’ own containers, and it could only be purchased on the vendors’ premises.  That rocked the house.

That pretty much wrapped the day.  The committee had a few more housekeeping items, like setting the next meeting and such.  Everyone broke up and started heading for the doors to return home.

I’ve heard from a couple of folks who think the regulators got an education on raw milk.  A lot of informed, passionate, motivated people showed up to stand up for things people just took for granted a generation ago.  The bureaucrats also accidentally put over 120 of those people in contact with each other, many of whom (like me) didn’t know there were so many more of us out there, not alone. Maybe the bureaucrats would change things up substantially.  Maybe even remove impediments to raw milk while setting a few common-sense protocols, as it fits in with the buy local/real foods programs the state and others talk up.

I’m guessing they’ll lay low for a few months or more, and then pass pretty much all of those rules as is, maybe without the 100 gallon limit.  Or maybe they’ll bump the limit to 500 gallons.  But they didn’t learn anything, and they’re there to pass those rules.

It’s what they do.

Still, it was a pretty good day in the sausage factory.

Cheers!

the Older Brother

Greetings, fellow Fat Heads.

I’m guessing Tom had his whole routine for this year’s Low Carb Cruise down cold by Monday.  I’m also guessing he’s still going over it again and again.  That’s how he rolls.  I, on the other hand, don’t tend to burden myself with such preparation.  So here we go!

The sausage factory is a reference to the observation generally attributed to Otto Von Bismark — that people who like politics or sausage shouldn’t watch either being made.

Actually, making sausage isn’t that bad.  I’ve made a few batches since “converting” from the conventional nutritional wisdom, and it’s been pretty good. But watching law being made is every bit as revolting as the quote implies.   I’ve been there in the belly of the beast, and it’s pretty much always ugly.  I did get a state legislator to curse at me once while I was testifying against some insanity.  Other than that, though, there’s nothing redeeming about it.

There’s actually something even worse than lawmaking.  That would be “rulemaking.”  That’s where the regulatory agencies are given charge to “interpret” the sundry laws and directives passed through the legislative process.  The more vague the law, the more the regulators get to decide.  So the actual rules you have to live by are determined by unelected bureaucrats.  They can be (and are) arbitrary, contradictory, and unevenly enforced.  The idea of even being in the same room with one of these people irritates me.  Watching them at work infuriates me.

So, there I was yesterday, in the same room, watching a bunch of them work.

And it’s all your fault.

See, since you all keep getting Tom invited to speak hither and yon, and then I get invited to sit in the Big Chair while he’s gone, some of you have gotten to know a bit about me.  One such person, Angel S — who also lives in Illinois — sent me a heads up that the Illinois Department of Public Health was getting ready to regulate raw milk producers out of business.

I read Angel’s blog post, and then started looking for more information.  The IL Dept of Health, with funds from the US FDA (“official position: all raw milk is dangerous”), had set up a Raw Milk Steering Subcommittee to investigate if raw milk needed regulation in Illinois.  To ensure deep understanding of the product and issues, the regulators picked — for this 19-member committee — exactly ONE person who sold raw milk as a vocation (Donna O’Shaunessy, see her blog post here).  Well, that’s not entirely accurate, because she wasn’t asked to be on the committee until they’d already had their first two meetings and had finished their draft recommendations.  When Donna inquired as to how the committee could propose drastic new regulations of a product without actually speaking to anyone who makes or consumes the product, the head regulator replied that she didn’t know how to contact any of those people.

Unsurprisingly, they came up with helpful recommendations like only allowing 100 gallons of raw milk sales per month.  And requiring that anyone selling raw milk get a Class A Dairy license.  In other words, force raw milk producers to spend tens of thousands of dollars on equipment you don’t need if you’re not a feedlot, volume milk producer; regularly produce hundreds of pages of useless documentation; and then limit their sales to the equivalent of about one cow’s monthly output. Did I mention that seven of the committee members represented the interests of mega-dairy operators Dean Food and Prairie Farms?  You know, commodity, low-cost producers who already have to have Class A licenses.

Mad yet?

As it turns out, even though IDPH couldn’t figure out how to find anyone involved with raw milk, Donna sure could!  She embarrassed IDPH into adding some more raw milk producers and some consumers to the committee (n.b., that is the only way to get a bureaucrat to do something other than what they had already decided they were going to do).  Also, it seems a BUNCH of people started contacting their alleged representatives, who started contacting IDPH asking them why they were making their constituents so mad.  People were also contacting the bureaucrats directly.  Smart people.  Passionate people.  Loud people.  Bother, bother.

Imagine what was going through the bureaucrats’ minds.  “But, everyone from the FDA told us raw milk was bad, and just a few fringe lunatics drink it.  And all of our swell friends from the big dairies had such good ideas — they don’t have any problem with 10,000 gallon chill tanks and separate milk parlors and monthly testing.  That’s what they let us tell them they have to do!”  Hilarious.

The third meeting first got moved to a bigger venue (the Illinois Corn Producers’ building in Bloomington) based on the number of people saying they wanted to attend (danged Open Meetings laws!).  Then it got rescheduled to add time for public comment because so many people wanted to direct a few words to our overseers.  Here’s what it looked like when I got there Wednesday morning:

That’s from about halfway back in the line of cars that were parked on the street. The parking lot was already full.

Here’s what it looked inside the meeting room after they switched into an even BIGGER building next door after lunch.

And as much as I hate being around, and watching, and especially listening to government bureaucrats tell us how much good they’re doing us, it’s almost fun when you’re in a room full of those smart, passionate, loud people who’ve had enough and don’t intend to take it anymore.

Almost, hell.  Turns out watching sausage being made can be fun — it just depends on who’s getting stuffed.

Well, it’s getting late, and The Wife and The Oldest Son and I are off to watch a Cubs game tomorrow from one of the rooftops.  I’ll give you the play-by-play analysis of the meeting later this weekend (I probably won’t be able to catch any comments until Saturday).

Cheers!

The Older Brother

My nephew Eric (The Older Brother’s Oldest Son) emailed me a few days ago to tell me he’d picked up a copy of The Fat Fast Cookbook and was trying some recipes, but couldn’t find shiratake noodles where he lives.  He did, however, find kelp noodles and told me he prefers them over shiratake noodles.

So I ordered a package of kelp noodles, and last night I served them with my quick and easy Alfredo sauce as a side dish.  They were a hit.  The kelp noodles are slightly crunchy, sort of like a cross between shiratake noodles and bean sprouts, and have a good flavor.  I’ll be ordering more of them.  If you can find them in a local store, great.  If not, I added an Amazon store link to them in the left sidebar.  (If you order anything on Amazon by clicking through an ad here, we get some Amazon credits, which helps support the blog.)

Like shiratake noodles, the kelp noodles don’t require cooking, just rinsing and separating.

Here’s the recipe for the Alfredo sauce if you’d like to give it a try.  Please note this is the quick and easy version.  If you want to shred your own parmesan, press your own fresh garlic, milk a cow and make your own butter and sour cream, go for it.

Ingredients
4 ounces Kerry Gold butter (half the package)
1/2 cup sour cream
3/4 cup parmesan
1/2 teaspoon garlic salt

Steps
Melt the butter on a low temperature
Stir in the parmesan and melt it
Stir in the sour cream
Stir in the garlic salt

The sauce ends up on the salty side, which I like when we pour it over bland foods like spaghetti squash, kept noodles, spinach, etc.  If you don’t like salty sauces, you can substitute garlic powder or fresh garlic and then salt to taste afterwards.

When Chareva and the girls joined me for a recent episode of The Livin’ La Vida Low Carb Show, she mentioned how she and the girls make berry ice cream.  I’d never seen them do it, but they made some a couple of days ago and took a picture.  Couldn’t be easier.  Chareva keeps frozen berries in the freezer.  To make ice cream, she puts the frozen berries (raspberries in this picture) in a dish and adds some heavy cream.  After the cream begins to freeze a bit, she stirs it up with the berries.

That’s it.  The girls love it — no stevia or other sweetener required.

When Chareva and I were first engaged, she warned me not to marry her for her cooking abilities.  At the time, it was a fair warning – not that I cared.  Considering that it took me 25 years of dating to find someone I wanted to marry, a lack of enthusiasm for cooking wasn’t exactly a deal-breaker for me.

That was then, this is now.  She’s become an excellent cook over the years, despite the restriction of preparing meals without sugars and grains.  Here’s one of my recent favorites from Chareva’s Kitchen:

Eggplant Lasagna

Ingredients:
1 lb. ground beef
1 lb. pork sausage
1 large eggplant
12 oz. ricotta cheese
1/2 cup plus 1 cup parmesan cheese
1 16 oz. bag shredded mozzarella cheese
2 eggs
1 Tbs. Italian seasoning
1 tsp. garlic powder
1 tsp. onion powder
1 Tbs. parsley
1 6 oz can of tomato sauce (canned tomato sauces tend not to have added sugar).
olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Cut the eggplant into 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick slices. If you have the prep time, you can coat the eggplant slices with salt and let them sit for an hour to extract any bitter juices, then rinse clean and squeeze dry with paper towels.  If not, skipping this step doesn’t seem to affect the final taste much at all.

Rub both sides of the eggplant slices with olive oil. Place on cookie sheet and bake for about an hour in a 325-350 degree oven.

While the eggplant is baking, brown the ground beef and sausage together in a pan. Pour off the extra grease – nothing wrong with eating  fat, mind you, but you don’t want the lasagna to be runny.

Make the white sauce:  In a medium bowl mix together 12 oz ricotta cheese, 1/2 cup Parmesan, 2 eggs, Italian seasoning, onion powder, garlic powder, and parsley.

Remove the eggplant from the oven once it has browned on both sides. (You may need to turn the slices halfway through baking).

Build the lasagna layers:  Pour a little olive oil in a casserole dish and spread it around. Then create a layer of eggplant slices, browned meat, white sauce, tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese and a sprinkle of Parmesan cheese. Repeat. You can probably create two or three layers, depending on the size of your casserole dish.  (The dish in the picture below is 8 in. x 8 in.  There were enough leftover ingredients to make a second batch in a smaller dish.  Tom ate that second batch himself.)

Bake the lasagna for about an hour at 350 degrees. It’s ready when the top layer of cheese begins to brown. Let it cool for 15-20 minutes so it becomes firm before serving. Makes great leftovers and a very convenient packed lunch for the kids and hubby the next day.

(It’s also awesome cold – Tom)

Last January I reviewed Jonathan Bailor’s excellent book The Smarter Science of Slim, which is very well written and packed with references to research. Bailor will also be a speaker on this year’s low-carb cruise, so I’ll be meeting him in person … after roasting him, of course.

In the meantime, he’s launched a non-profit organization dedicated to providing the public with information about diet and health.  Rather than try to summarize their activities myself, I’ll quote Bailor:

Wanted to drop you a quick note as we were fortunate enough to receive VC funding to start up a non-profit ancestral nutrition educational organization we’re calling Slim is Simple. SIS is working to provide compelling multimedia resources—free of charge—that the entire good nutritional science community can leverage to help share the simple lifestyle adjustments that have helped us all help so many people live so much better. We’re working to get this “curriculum” into schools, churches, and etc.

Here’s one of their first videos:

You can visit the organization’s website here and follow them on Twitter at #SlimIsSimple.