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Black Belt Jones 1
11-08-2001, 05:39 PM
Man is it just me or does fast food all suddenly taste like sh1t? Seems like I cant eat at mcdonalds buger king sonic dairy queen or anywhere without suffering for 10 hours with indigestion. I used to love to eat fast food burgers and all that crap but for some reason it seems that the quality of fast food has went down the toilet. Your thoughts?

Stranger
11-08-2001, 05:43 PM
You're tasting the anthrax.

I don't get mad.
I get stabby.

Mojo
11-08-2001, 05:53 PM
I agree about McDonalds, their food quality has gone into the toilet. I never eat there any more.
I still eat at Jack in the Box and Carl jrs. Mostly because they are close to work and convenient.

..............................
The Dude: Fortunately, I'm adhering to a pretty strict, uh, drug, uh, regimen to keep my mind, you know, uh, limber.

blat
11-08-2001, 06:02 PM
was McD's ever five star dining? i wouldn't complain about getting McSick from eating that McCrap.

McNews Flash: McPutting Mc in front of any McWord makes it McFunny. :p

Daedalus
11-08-2001, 06:18 PM
10. SubWay
9. Taco Bell
8. Wendy's
7. Bojangle's/Popeye's
6. Sonic
5. Jack in the Box
4. McDonalds
3. Zaxby's
2. Hardees
1. Long John Silvers


Waffle House Rules! :)

Robinf
11-08-2001, 06:24 PM
I haven't had fast food from those places in more than a year, except for the Yogurt parfait from McD's--that's pretty good.

Surrender yourself to nature and be all that you are.

Shaolin36
11-08-2001, 06:28 PM
That may be why! When your body gets used to not eating that greasy crap and then you subject yourself to it, you body rejects it. I had an experience with this. I never eat fast food and I went to Carls Jr for their star burger(that **** commercial) and ate but was sick for the next 4 hours. I just stay away now.

Shaolin36

Sharky
11-08-2001, 07:16 PM
wendy's are all closed down in the uk. no one goes to burger king cos it's about £2-3 more for less than u get in mcd's. There's only mcd's or kfc, and the chips are wack at kfc. Plus, i get a free cheeseburger with md's, when i buy a meal, cos i am the shiznit.

Having said that, i never usually eat that stuff.

Question: if you get a proper kebab, surely it's not fattening? I don't mean that spit roasted processed ****, i mean a shish kebab - naan bread and pure chicken breast and lots of salad - surely that's not unhealthy, non?

However, i live near a Domino's pizza :(

All i wanted was some RICE CAKES! Now? WE MUST BATTLE.

origenx
11-08-2001, 07:51 PM
"quality of fast food has went down the toilet"

NEWSFLASH - it's always BEEN down in the toilet!

fa_jing
11-08-2001, 09:01 PM
A Big Mac tastes exactly like dog poop. Don't ask how I know.
Find a woman who knows how to cook. That's what I did. If you are a woman, marry Emeril.
-FJ

Sharky
11-08-2001, 09:08 PM
yea man u gotta get a chickin sandwhich, big macs are just NASTY man, NAAAASTY.

All i wanted was some RICE CAKES! Now? WE MUST BATTLE.

Budokan
11-08-2001, 09:13 PM
Fast food is by definition slurried pigsh*t. If you're serious about MA and keeping in shape you'll stay away from that junk. Soft drinks too.

I know what you mean, though. I haven't eaten at any of those places on a regular basis for five years. Jeez, I can't even remember the last time I drank a whole Coca-Cola--over a year maybe? When I do eat fast food now (and it's extremely rare) I always am sick with indigestion until I sh*t that stuff out of my body.

By the way, I NEVER eat at MD's, especially after some of my students told me they always had to chase away the mice in the morning. Seems the little critters had a penchant for eating tunnels into--and then falling asleep with--full bellies in the bread bun sacks....

Mmm! Good old Mickey-D's! With an export like that, is it any wonder other countries hate us so much...?

K. Mark Hoover

Sharky
11-08-2001, 09:17 PM
someone answer my kebab question

All i wanted was some RICE CAKES! Now? WE MUST BATTLE.

RedDragon
11-08-2001, 09:23 PM
no its not unhealthy, ok?!?! happy now? so go and eat your kabab and salad in peace without the fear of not wakin up the next mornin from a heart attack!

"United We Stand, Divided We Fall."

Sharky
11-08-2001, 09:43 PM
shut the **** up

All i wanted was some RICE CAKES! Now? WE MUST BATTLE.

SevenStar
11-09-2001, 02:35 PM
kebabs are tha shiznit, fa shizzle.

"Just because I joke around sometimes doesn't mean I'm serious about kung-fu.
" - nightair

Radhnoti
11-10-2001, 01:30 AM
I like Subway. The veggie sub on wheat with EVERYTHING...except cheese, is good. Wendy's has baked potatos and decent salads. I don't usually like the McSalad Shakers at McDonalds...they keep them too long and the lettuce gets nasty, but I suppose it could be ok if somehow you caught a fresh one. (Note: I disapprove of McDonalds in general, due to their ridiculous attempts to push a political agenda. So, it's the LAST place I go if I've got a choice...which with a 3yr old son I often don't. :rolleyes: )

Johnny Hot Shot
11-10-2001, 03:09 AM
One Big Mac has 1350 calories.

That's a fat burger.

Kebabs are good for you , Just as long as you don't eat too many. ;)

"Life's a great Adventure, Mate"
Jacko Jackson

phoenix-eye
11-10-2001, 03:35 AM
The Donner / Shish / Chicken Kebab question has trobled me for a while too. The yanks don't get it cuz they aint got the delicacy that is Kebab shops over there....

Anyway, I reckon you are right - a shish or chicken kebab isn't as harmful as a doner. doner is almost 100% pure fat and crap. At least with the others you are getting recognisable chicken and/or lamb. pitta bread, salad and a bit of chilli sauce can't hurt too much after that. (Can it?)

I know you want any sort of kebab after a few pints of Stella - but try to remember that CHICKEN is better than DONER. I know its hard you're a bit gubbed but it also looks good with the laydeeez.

round my way -the order is:-

1) Indian take away - Lamb Kadie (mmmmmm...)
2) fish Supper from the Park Chippie
3) Chines Takeaway
4) Khans kebab Shop
5) Burger king
6) KFC (20 mile drive)
7) McDonalds

Now you know why we all look like Samo Hung.

"We had a thing to settle so I did him"
Tamai, 43, was quoted by Police as saying.

Sharky
11-10-2001, 03:35 AM
Eeeeeexcellent smithers.... eeeexcellent....

All i wanted was some RICE CAKES! Now? WE MUST BATTLE.

phoenix-eye
11-10-2001, 04:26 AM
Sharky

My last post didn't read too well did it? ( Just back from the pub........)

I reckon its harder to be a good martial artist here as the temptation is greater - booze, kebabs, women with natural blondce hair instead of cheesy highlights......

"We had a thing to settle so I did him"
Tamai, 43, was quoted by Police as saying.

Sharky
11-10-2001, 04:46 AM
LOL!

All i wanted was some RICE CAKES! Now? WE MUST BATTLE.

Sam Wiley
11-10-2001, 07:35 AM
I've noticed that there are certain fast food restaurants at which I can't eat. Burger King, Zaxby's, Chili's, all make me extremely ill. McDonald's I have never liked. Arby's and KFC have begun to make me ill as well. Pizza Hut always gives me indigestion. The Sonic's okay, but I'm afraid to eat at Checker's. I don't eat at Chik-Fil-A because they are bigoted religiously prejudiced Jesus freak zealots. And Dairy Queen is a non-option because I don't like getting halfway through my aerated presoftened half melted conglomeration of pseudo desert and finding half of a cockroach. And I simply refuse to eat at Krystal any more because the last two times I went there, it smelled like feces. The first time, I thought maybe someone just cut a really bad ****, but the second time it was the unmistakable and oppressive odor of ****.

Just about the only fast food restaurant at which I can eat any more is Taco Bell, strangely enough.

So I pretty much eat at home all the time.

Soft drinks, however, are something I am pretty much addicted to. I bought a 2 litre bottle of Pepsi this afternoon around 4pm, and finished it off about 30 minutes ago. And every day, I drink at least two 20 oz. bottles of some carbonated sugar product. I used to work in a restaurant, and drank about 2 gallons (literally) of Mountain Dew every day. I'd just drink that stuff like it was water. And I still couldn't get enough. I'm trying to cut back to 1 20 oz. bottle per day, but it's pretty difficult.

*********

SevenStar
11-10-2001, 08:20 AM
I feel ya on the krystal thing *nasty* sounds like you have a drinking prob, bud. Ever thought about joining sodaholics anonymous?

"Hi, my name is Sam and I am hooked on soda..."

"Just because I joke around sometimes doesn't mean I'm serious about kung-fu.
" - nightair

wufupaul
11-10-2001, 08:39 AM
I guess I'm lucky, I have an iron stomach. I can eat pretty much anything at any time and not feel ill. I can't recall the last time I had indigestion, probably only a few times in my life. But then again, I'm a young one(24), and I know it gets worse with age, woo hoo! :p

In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about
life. IT GOES ON.

Black Belt Jones 1
11-10-2001, 03:56 PM
You said Mcdonalds has a political agenda, could you elaborate on that a bit Im curious.

rogue
11-10-2001, 05:45 PM
There is nothing as bad looking as a jack in the box taco, and nothing better tasteing.

You guys are forgetting White Castle, whose burgers are nicknamed "sliders" for good reason.

Signed,
Rogue, Soke and Senior Grandmaster of Southeast American Brazillian Bagua Combat Chi jitsu Kempo Karate Do and Choral Society. (We are not affiliated with Southeast American Brazillian Bagua Jujitsu Kempo Karate Concepts, or Wan King Fist Kung Fu)

"Americans don't have the courage to come here," Mullah Mohammed Omar, leader of the Taliban

[I]
There is only one tactical principle which is not subject to change; it is, 'To use the means at hand to inflict the maximum

Sam Wiley
11-10-2001, 07:55 PM
I can just see my first SA meeting now...

"Hi, my name is Sam, and I'm addicted to Coke...and Mountain Dew, and Pepsi, and..."

And then Bob Saget would stand up and shout, "That's not an addiction! Have you ever sucked dick for crack? Now that's an addiction!" ;)

*********

Dave Farmer
11-10-2001, 08:02 PM
Mighty Rogue I bow to your title

:D :D :D :D :cool: :cool: :D :D :D

Dave F

'wing chun men do it with sticky hands'

brucelee2
11-11-2001, 07:37 AM
Sam,

I was reading recently about sodas- they are extremely bad for you! Aside from the sugar and caffeine content, they are extremely acidic. A healthy body should be more alkiline then acidic, and it takes alot of alkaline food/body effort to counterbalance the acidity of one soda. Also, I think I read/heard once that Mountain Dew has the highest caffeine content of any soda (except for maybe jolt).

Go forward, my son, and
be like unto a torch
upon the darkness. Thou
are stripped now, of all
that was before. Look
not to thy fellow men
for guidance or
countenance- they canst
advise you no longer.
Thou shalt be as dust
now, and dust shall be
upon the tongues of thy
enemy. Verily, thou
shalt herald the coming
of the new age upon
man."

Fish of Fury
11-11-2001, 07:47 AM
well, i eat falafel rolls, and i reckon they've gotta be better than Macca's (which is total crap)

i have a question sharky, mcd's may be wack, but is it pants , do you think?
:D

__________________________________________________ _________________________ "I'm just trying to lull you into a genuine sense of security!"

Sam Wiley
11-12-2001, 01:18 AM
As far as I know, what you read was absolutely correct. In addition to this, many sodas, mostly fruit flavored ones it seems, have brominated vegetable oil as an ingredient. Bromine is a sanitizer, but it is a sanitizer mainly used in swimming pools and spas. Trust me on this, I work on pools and spas for a living. This past summer, I nearly choked to death on a cloud of bromine gas, which in my opinion is far worse than chlorine. I don't completely understand why vegetable oil would be included in a soft drink, but I know that bromine is deadly. Of course, I did not know that pool sanitizer was being put into my favorite soft drink during the period when I was drinking several gallons of it a day. If I had known that I would not have consumed it at all. And nowadays, it affects my choice of drink to the point that I completely read the label on a bottle before I try it.

As they say, buyer beware.

Anyway, I'll let you guys know what happens to me as I quit drinking the stuff. I started seriously cutting back this weekend. I already notice caffeine withdrawal, fatigue, and mood swings.

*********

dzu
11-12-2001, 01:26 AM
I feel sorry for the people that cannot eat an In-N-Out Double Double cooked animal style. Is it good for you? Defintely not! If you're going to eat fast food, though, go for the best...

Being close to the border means that there are a lot better options for good mexican food aside from Taco Bell and Jack in the Box tacos. Give me a California Burrito or a Carne Asada Burrito over any fast food chain (other than In-N-Out of course).

Dzu

Bessho
11-12-2001, 01:30 AM
cantonese roast duck over rice w/ a fried egg. soda pop on the side. prepared faster than you can spit on a burger.

Radhnoti
11-12-2001, 03:04 AM
Black Belt Jones 1,

It is my understanding that the higher ups in the McDonald's corporation support gun control legislation.
I KNOW that Gillette, NBC, McDonalds, and Kodak all declined to sponsor the US Shooting Team for the 1996 Olympics due to their anti-gun sentiments.

ewallace
10-25-2002, 04:33 PM
http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/Northeast/10/25/offbeat.mcdonalds.deer/index.html

Oh deer lord!

guohuen
10-26-2002, 10:10 AM
Ha! And I bet you thought that people deer hunt for sport or food. It's self defence man. Those deer can really be animals. I heard the deer heard (herd?) a rummor that Micky's actually had something that resembled lettuce and were just checking it out as a joke. Probably hopped up on elderberries.

TaoBoy
10-27-2002, 03:47 PM
Fast food is bad for you? :confused:

mickey
08-27-2009, 11:25 AM
Greetings,

I saw his thread while trying to figure out what I should have for lunch. It is my feeling that a lot of the stuff that is being sold as fast food may be cloned.

I bought some hot wings a few years ago. I'm talking 20 pieces in a box with fries (I was hungry). I ATE this one piece that had this look where a little bit of the fried skin was pointing away from the drummette. Well, five minutes into that wonderful box I saw it again. I remarked to myself, "I ate this before." This was before the reports of cloned foods and their "safeness" for consumption. For me a dead giveaway for cloned foods is digestive difficulties such as serious acid reflux and the food remaining in the stomach for hours.


mickey

Lee Chiang Po
08-28-2009, 09:19 PM
The fast food industry is the reason why most everyone is obese to some degree. It consists primarily of carbohydrates, which create triglyceride, which stores up as fat on your body. This causes you to have high cholesterol, mostly the bad kind. That is the cause of heart disease. This also leads to other auto immune diseases such as arthritis and diabetes. Processed sugars get most of the blame, but it is not alone in this. The fast food industry specializes in foods that consist primarily of carbohydrates, chased down by a drink that contains huge amounts of processed sugars. Back in my day there might be 2 or 3 burger joints or drive ins to a large down or small city, but today they are on every street corner. You would do well to avoid these places, as they do not have your long term health and welfare in mind. They are only interested in your money. The buffet type places are not much different, but you can usually put together a decent meal that is both nutritious and healthy for you.

GoldenBrain
02-02-2013, 08:31 AM
I don't think people should be eating this crap anyway but now there is a very good reason to stay away from this shady company. Yuck!!!:eek:


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2271440/Burger-King-admits-selling-beef-burgers-Whoppers-containing-horse-meat.html#axzz2Jfh1uRkK

MasterKiller
02-02-2013, 11:51 AM
What's so bad about horse meat?

Syn7
02-02-2013, 11:52 AM
burger king isn't food anyways.

GoldenBrain
02-02-2013, 01:21 PM
What's so bad about horse meat?

You know MasterKiller, I thought about this one a little bit and there probably isn't anything wrong with eating horse meat. The real problem seems to be that BK denied it and then said they didn't know that it was in their burgers. Not knowing what they are serving to the public should give anybody who eats there pause for concern. As Syn7 pointed out it's not real food anyway and I haven't had a Whopper in at least 10 years so I'm not personally worried. Just sharing the news...

Syn7
02-02-2013, 01:47 PM
No, the real problem is that the horse meat was from ythe "filler" and was most likely not even dog food grade horse meat.

But I mean if you eat at burger king, you get what you deserve anyways.

I don't need to be told not to jump in front of a moving bus. And if I got hit I most certainly wouldn't blame the bus driver.

We all know burger king isn't real food. They never actually say their food is healthy. They choose their words carefully.

Kellen Bassette
02-02-2013, 01:49 PM
Like a lot of other folks here, I've been places where they eat rats, dog, rodents I couldn't name, monitor lizards, turtles, soups made of hog's blood, duck tongue, pig face, intestines, roaches, scorpions, grubs, ect. ect.

It's all in your head. It's really arbitrary the animals and body parts our culture decides is ok to eat.

Syn7
02-02-2013, 02:07 PM
I would be much more concerned with what chemicals are in your beef than if its actually cow.

Don't even get me started on fillers.

American beef is ILLEGAL to sell in the EU. That should speak volumes.

YouKnowWho
02-02-2013, 02:19 PM
We all know burger king isn't real food.
Burger King is the only place that offer veggie burger. Since I don't eat meat, Burger King is the only place I go (besides Taco Bell 7-layer burrito) when traveling.

http://voices.yahoo.com/king-veggie-burger-review-burger-king-364925.html

pazman
02-02-2013, 02:26 PM
Horse meat is delicious. Ate it raw on my last trip to Japan.

Syn7
02-02-2013, 02:29 PM
Burger King is the only place that offer veggie burger. Since I don't eat meat, Burger King is the only place I go (besides Taco Bell 7-layer burrito) when traveling.

http://voices.yahoo.com/king-veggie-burger-review-burger-king-364925.html

Dude. That is not real food. It is in no way better for you than the meat versions. It is simply another version of bad.

If you wanna eat burgers, eat burgers. If you are genuinely concerned about diet, don't eat any of that fast food garbage.

Being vegetarian for health reasons then going to burger king is very oxymoronic. And if you have a philosophical problem with meat, then you shouldn't even step foot in a joint like BK.

YouKnowWho
02-02-2013, 02:30 PM
Horse meat is delicious. Ate it raw on my last trip to Japan.
Old Chinese saying said, "In the sky, there is the dragon meat. On earth, there is the donkey meat." Chinese believe that the donkey meat taste the best on earth.

Most Chinese don't eat beef becaue they believe that cow do hard labor for human.

YouKnowWho
02-02-2013, 02:39 PM
don't eat any of that fast food garbage.

I worked in KFC for 2 years when I was student. Do people know that the KFC "mashed potato gravy" is made of the bottom of the deep fly chicken grease?

Drake
02-02-2013, 02:53 PM
If you are eating fast food, I think horse meat is the least of your worries.

GoldenBrain
02-02-2013, 06:00 PM
If you are eating fast food, I think horse meat is the least of your worries.

Indeed, and that should pretty well sum it up right there.

GeneChing
02-04-2013, 10:50 AM
What's so bad about horse meat? The horse meat might be better than the beef as it's probably as full of growth-hormones and such. But if you sell something to eat, you got to say what it is. Food, more than anything else, needs accurate labeling.

Lucas
02-04-2013, 11:01 AM
Sometimes I'm hungry enough to eat a horse.

bawang
02-04-2013, 03:49 PM
The horse meat might be better than the beef as it's probably as full of growth-hormones and such. But if you sell something to eat, you got to say what it is. Food, more than anything else, needs accurate labeling.

i wish beef is full of steroids and growth hormones, then i can turn into superhuman warrior and bench press 500 pounds.

GeneChing
02-04-2013, 06:28 PM
Why bother diluting it with beef? :confused:

Kellen Bassette
02-04-2013, 06:34 PM
Why bother diluting it with beef? :confused:

Because it's so delicious!!!

GeneChing
02-04-2013, 06:39 PM
That's like putting aspirin in your bacon or ex-lax in your flan. Who uses Rx as a seasoning? :p

Kellen Bassette
02-04-2013, 06:47 PM
That's like putting aspirin in your bacon or ex-lax in your flan. Who uses Rx as a seasoning? :p

I don't know...aspirin with a glass of water, or a plate of bacon? Seems like a no brainer to me.....:cool:

GeneChing
02-04-2013, 06:53 PM
Heck, I just eat coffee beans straight like tic tacs. Why dilute it with water?

GoldenBrain
02-04-2013, 07:05 PM
You guys are hard core! :D

I thought I was a tough guy for leaving the cream out of my coffee sometimes but I see I have a very very very long way to go. I shall train harder. :p

I think I'll start tomorrow by eating raw ground beef off the ground between every pushup rep, while on knuckles, on a glass coated alcohol soaked rug.:D;):D

bawang
02-04-2013, 07:15 PM
Why bother diluting it with beef? :confused:

because i poar

Drake
02-04-2013, 09:40 PM
Heck, I just eat coffee beans straight like tic tacs. Why dilute it with water?

I've done that, actually.

Syn7
02-04-2013, 09:45 PM
I've done that, actually.

Me too.


Wasn't a good look tho.... I think I'm done with that.

I also chewed two tablespoons of ground beans. The whole beans were worse.

The tablespoon of cinnamon was the hardest tho. I sneezed some out of my nose. **** that hurt!

Still, atleast I didn't do a rail of salt for 5 bucks like my friend did one rough sunday morning at dennys.

Featherstone
02-05-2013, 07:32 AM
There once was a time when you could eat raw ground beef and not get sick. Now you are just playing intestinal roulette!

mawali
02-05-2013, 09:25 AM
Actually, curried goat meat has been my choice for some time!
Halal or kosher market are a pretty good location to get decent meat choice(s).

GeneChing
02-05-2013, 10:05 AM
...it sure tasted like it. :(


because i poar 'Poar' people don't cut their drugs with beef. They use mannitol. :rolleyes:


I've done that, actually.

Me too.
We should form a club.




The tablespoon of cinnamon was the hardest tho. I sneezed some out of my nose. wtf?

Featherstone
02-05-2013, 12:37 PM
Go for it Gene, 1 tablesppon of cinnamon, see how long you can hold it in your mouth.

I'd link the actual site for it, but it is blocked at work, but I can get to youtube...:rolleyes:

Challenge (http://www.youtube.com/channel/HCnUzWlDduDYs)

GeneChing
02-05-2013, 01:06 PM
Is this the website? www.cinnamonchallenge.com (http://www.cinnamonchallenge.com/) Man, the stupidity on the internet never ceases to amaze me. So you tried this, Syn7? Seriously?

We should start a website called...omg. :eek: I was just going to suggest that we start a website called tigerbalmchallenge.com and try to get guys to put tiger balm on their gonads, but I see that while no one owns that website yet, there are already YouTube vids and such. :rolleyes:

David Jamieson
02-05-2013, 02:23 PM
Eating raw beef could get you a nice chubby tapeworm to carry around in your guts.

yup yup. :p

Punch.HeadButt
02-05-2013, 02:45 PM
Haven't there been reports of people damaging their lungs via the "cinnamon challenge" due to unintentionally inhaling too much of it?

When I first heard of that challenge, I couldn't help but wonder why it came into existence. Why would you WANT to do it? Even if you succeed, there's no clout to be won.

GeneChing
02-05-2013, 02:52 PM
See how much you can learn on the KFM forum? :rolleyes:


Even if you succeed, there's no clout to be won. Unlike the above-mentioned Tiger Balm challenge, which gives you massive clout. Go for it, Syn7.

Syn7
02-05-2013, 03:52 PM
Is this the website? www.cinnamonchallenge.com (http://www.cinnamonchallenge.com/) Man, the stupidity on the internet never ceases to amaze me. So you tried this, Syn7? Seriously?

We should start a website called...omg. :eek: I was just going to suggest that we start a website called tigerbalmchallenge.com and try to get guys to put tiger balm on their gonads, but I see that while no one owns that website yet, there are already YouTube vids and such. :rolleyes:

Yes. when I was like 15. And yes it can hurt you, yes it is dangerous and yes it ****in sucks. Still better than a rail of salt though, lol. Believe me, that's not the dumbest thing I've done. I was a bit of an adrenalin junkie when I was a kid. Everything from cliff/bridge jumps to 400 foot rope swings over canyons to white water blow up mattressing to rock climbing w/o any gear etc etc etc. Lots of dumb ****. I guess the rope swing wasn't that crazy, it was a strong rope. The crazy part was climbing the tree leaning over the canyon to put the rope up. Free climbing a tall tree w/ very little branches along the way w/ a rope tied to my belt wasn't the best idea, in retrospect. :p

I'm done with the ****ing contest self abuse thing.

GeneChing
02-05-2013, 04:13 PM
"Dumb **** we did as teenagers" Glad to hear that you lived and learned, Syn7.

Now who else here might be be able to get to do the Tiger Balm challenge? Maybe one of the nooBs? ;)

Punch.HeadButt
02-05-2013, 04:29 PM
You realize you're asking for gonad videos on a forum full of crazy people, right bro? :eek:

GoldenBrain
02-05-2013, 04:30 PM
"Dumb **** we did as teenagers" Glad to hear that you lived and learned, Syn7.

Now who else here might be be able to get to do the Tiger Balm challenge? Maybe one of the nooBs? ;)

I'm not exactly sure what the Tiger Balm challenge is but I suspect I inadvertently tried it. About 2 years ago I fell wrong from a back lock and badly strained my groin muscle. I thought a little Tiger Balm might help and it did for about 10 minutes and then it traveled with my sweat to regions where you don't want it to travel to and wow did it burn.:eek: I couldn't get to the shower fast enough. Lessons learned I suppose.:o

GeneChing
02-05-2013, 04:35 PM
You realize you're asking for gonad videos on a forum full of crazy people, right bro? :eek: Just the thought of several forum members here taking on the Tiger Balm Challenge makes me smile. And yes, I have several specific members in mind. ;)


and wow did it burn.:eek: I think almost everyone makes that mistake once in their training. It's getting someone to do it intentionally that I find amusing.

GoldenBrain
02-05-2013, 04:44 PM
LOL! Gene you're a bit of a sadist but I like it. ;)

My sifu warned me but I said nah man I got this, I'm wearing compression shorts so no worries it won't travel there.:rolleyes:

The moral here is ALWAYS listen to your sifu!:D

Punch.HeadButt
02-05-2013, 04:49 PM
Just the thought of several forum members here taking on the Tiger Balm Challenge makes me smile. And yes, I have several specific members in mind.

Both creepy and sinister. You, sir, are an inspiration. :p

Closest I ever came to such a circumstance is going to the restroom after splashing liberal amounts of Tabasco sauce on pizza slices....

...shoulda washed my hands first :o

David Jamieson
02-06-2013, 06:17 AM
Both creepy and sinister. You, sir, are an inspiration. :p

Closest I ever came to such a circumstance is going to the restroom after splashing liberal amounts of Tabasco sauce on pizza slices....

...shoulda washed my hands first :o

This brings to light, "the devils challenge".

also known as the tabasco / anus combo.

GeneChing
02-06-2013, 10:29 AM
...not the horribly sick, twisted idea of DJ's. :eek:

Meanwhile, to get us back OT, check this out (and we Americans thought horse meat was bad):

Customer at Shenyang McDonald’s Accidentally Served Detergent, Seriously Ill (http://en.rocketnews24.com/2013/02/06/customer-at-shenyang-mcdonalds-accidentally-served-derergent-critically-ill/)
6 hours ago by Philip Kendall
http://sociorocketnewsen.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/mcchina.jpg?w=448&h=296
According to a Yahoo! Japan News report, a woman in Shenyang, China, is seriously ill after drinking detergent from a cup left on the counter, believing it to be cola.

The incident, which occurred on January 16, has left the as-yet unnamed woman with erosive gastritis and currently still receiving medical attention.

The woman’s boyfriend, identified by sources simply as “Mr. Liu”, is believed to have picked up the cup along with the hamburger he ordered from the counter and given it to his girlfriend. After drinking some of the soap-filled liquid, the women complained of a burning sensation in her throat and stomach pains. She was quickly taken to hospital where it became clear that she had ingested detergent.

Mr. Liu is believed to have later returned to the restaurant seeking answers. The member of staff responsible confirmed that they had – against store policy – left a detergent-filled cup on the counter.

No word yet as to why the woman didn’t immediately notice that she was drinking detergent rather than sweet, sugary coca-cola the moment it touched her lips.

rett
02-06-2013, 10:53 AM
It's a given that fast-food burgers are going to contain the worst quality rancid garbage they can sweep off the slaughterhouse floor.

Same goes for tacos or any other mystery meat products sold at the lowest possible prices.

The economics of the industry guarantee it.

rett
02-06-2013, 10:54 AM
Eating raw beef could get you a nice chubby tapeworm to carry around in your guts.

yup yup. :p

Isn't that a good slimming tip?

sanjuro_ronin
02-06-2013, 11:57 AM
McD's has the answers:
http://yourquestions.mcdonalds.ca/

example:
HOw is it that your burgers don't rot?

Answer:
Hi Laura. This is a great question. The short answer is that our burgers do rot under the right conditions, but we can see why there's some confusion out there. To clear things up, we reached out to one of Canada's foremost food scientists, Dr. Keith Warriner. He's the Program Director at the University of Guelph's Department of Food Science and Quality Assurance. Here’s what he had to say:

“There have been a lot of online videos and photos touting the fact that when left out for an extended period of time, a McDonald’s hamburger does not rot and that this is because they are laden with chemicals. The reality is that McDonald’s hamburgers, french fries and chicken are like all foods, and do rot if kept under certain conditions.

Essentially, the microbes that cause rotting are a lot like ourselves, in that they need water, nutrients, warmth and time to grow. If we take one or more of these elements away, then microbes cannot grow or spoil food.

In the example of a McDonald’s hamburger, the patty loses water in the form of steam during the cooking process. The bun, of course, is made out of bread. Toasting it reduces the amount of moisture. This means that after preparation, the hamburger is fairly dry. When left out open in the room, there is further water loss as the humidity within most buildings is around 40%. So in the absence of moisture or high humidity, the hamburger simply dries out, rather than rot.

With moisture loss, we take away an element required by microbes to grow and cause spoilage. So to spoil a McDonald’s hamburger, we simply need to prevent the moisture loss. This can be done through wrapping it in cling film to prevent moisture from escaping, or storing it within a high humidity environment, such as a bathroom (notice black mould on your bathroom windows but not in your bedroom). If you try doing the same experiment with a homemade burger with similar moisture content as a McDonald’s hamburger and under similar conditions, you’ll probably get the same results.”

We hope this answers your question, Laura.

Lucas
02-06-2013, 12:51 PM
http://cdn.memegenerator.net/instances/400x/25742423.jpg

Brule
02-06-2013, 01:03 PM
Gonna leave all my leftovers on the counter from now on, yeah !! :D

Syn7
02-06-2013, 01:35 PM
...not the horribly sick, twisted idea of DJ's. :eek:

Meanwhile, to get us back OT, check this out (and we Americans thought horse meat was bad):


According to a Yahoo! Japan News report, a woman in Shenyang, China, is seriously ill after drinking detergent from a cup left on the counter, believing it to be cola.

The incident, which occurred on January 16, has left the as-yet unnamed woman with erosive gastritis and currently still receiving medical attention.

The woman’s boyfriend, identified by sources simply as “Mr. Liu”, is believed to have picked up the cup along with the hamburger he ordered from the counter and given it to his girlfriend. After drinking some of the soap-filled liquid, the women complained of a burning sensation in her throat and stomach pains. She was quickly taken to hospital where it became clear that she had ingested detergent.

Mr. Liu is believed to have later returned to the restaurant seeking answers. The member of staff responsible confirmed that they had – against store policy – left a detergent-filled cup on the counter.

No word yet as to why the woman didn’t immediately notice that she was drinking detergent rather than sweet, sugary coca-cola the moment it touched her lips.

Natural selection at it's finest.

Syn7
02-06-2013, 01:36 PM
It's a given that fast-food burgers are going to contain the worst quality rancid garbage they can sweep off the slaughterhouse floor.

Same goes for tacos or any other mystery meat products sold at the lowest possible prices.

The economics of the industry guarantee it.

It's not just meat. Even the buns are poison.

Syn7
02-06-2013, 01:45 PM
McD's has the answers:
http://yourquestions.mcdonalds.ca/

example:
HOw is it that your burgers don't rot?

Answer:
Hi Laura. This is a great question. The short answer is that our burgers do rot under the right conditions, but we can see why there's some confusion out there. To clear things up, we reached out to one of Canada's foremost food scientists, Dr. Keith Warriner. He's the Program Director at the University of Guelph's Department of Food Science and Quality Assurance. Here’s what he had to say:

“There have been a lot of online videos and photos touting the fact that when left out for an extended period of time, a McDonald’s hamburger does not rot and that this is because they are laden with chemicals. The reality is that McDonald’s hamburgers, french fries and chicken are like all foods, and do rot if kept under certain conditions.

Essentially, the microbes that cause rotting are a lot like ourselves, in that they need water, nutrients, warmth and time to grow. If we take one or more of these elements away, then microbes cannot grow or spoil food.

In the example of a McDonald’s hamburger, the patty loses water in the form of steam during the cooking process. The bun, of course, is made out of bread. Toasting it reduces the amount of moisture. This means that after preparation, the hamburger is fairly dry. When left out open in the room, there is further water loss as the humidity within most buildings is around 40%. So in the absence of moisture or high humidity, the hamburger simply dries out, rather than rot.

With moisture loss, we take away an element required by microbes to grow and cause spoilage. So to spoil a McDonald’s hamburger, we simply need to prevent the moisture loss. This can be done through wrapping it in cling film to prevent moisture from escaping, or storing it within a high humidity environment, such as a bathroom (notice black mould on your bathroom windows but not in your bedroom). If you try doing the same experiment with a homemade burger with similar moisture content as a McDonald’s hamburger and under similar conditions, you’ll probably get the same results.”

We hope this answers your question, Laura.

Yeah. Anyone with a half a brain and google and tear that apart. Spin, spin, spin and more spin. There are anti moisture factors that go beyond heating patties and buns. He gave described apples when we really wanna know about oranges. Notice how he said a homemade burger would do the same thing? Oh wait, that's not what he said! He said "If you try doing the same experiment with a homemade burger with similar moisture content as a McDonald’s hamburger and under similar conditions, you’ll probably get the same results." Notice how they never actually explain why a McDonalds burger has less moisture other than a few obvious suggestions that they never actually say are the only factors. This is a classic example of how science is abused in marketing.

Ahem, bull****!

Punch.HeadButt
02-06-2013, 02:39 PM
This brings to light, "the devils challenge".

also known as the tabasco / anus combo.

Thankfully (though that's questionable), in my case, it was numero uno.


How the hell do you even issue a challenge like that? "Hey dude, I bet you don't have the STONES to smear Tabasco on your *******!"

I believe my response would be something along the lines of "We can't be friends anymore."

GeneChing
02-06-2013, 03:05 PM
How the hell do you even issue a challenge like that?
Ask Jamieson. He seems to have thought it up. :eek:

In his defense, I did a more targeted search and came up with this from that outstanding source of internet unreliability, urban dictionary:

Devils Prostate Exam (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Devils%20Prostate%20Exam&defid=3259094)

sex move. Man covers hand in Tabasco sauce, and Fists someone, once hand is inside, he then makes devil horns.
Girl: Ouch my boyfriend gave me the devils prostate exam last night
Girl2: Ouch, is your ass okay?

Syn7
02-06-2013, 03:16 PM
Anyone into fisting deserves to get the horns!



:p

Punch.HeadButt
02-06-2013, 03:24 PM
"Ouch"? That seems a bit nonchalant for the circumstance, don't ya think?

Syn7
02-06-2013, 04:15 PM
"Ouch"? That seems a bit nonchalant for the circumstance, don't ya think?

Guess that depends on who you ask. :p

GoldenBrain
02-06-2013, 04:54 PM
http://cdn.memegenerator.net/instances/400x/25742423.jpg

I bet captain hair could shed light on the whole devils horns topic. I'm sure he would tell us the ancient Sumerian alien overlords invented it as a form of punishment for those who didn't mine enough gold and what not. Bwaaahahaha!!!:D

Thanks for that pic Lucas! I lol'd out loud even!!! :)

Lucas
02-06-2013, 05:06 PM
wait till the 'its aliens' storm comes around again. its kind of a running joke where we all go off the deep end and use variations of that picture to answer any and all things related to the universe.

Punch.HeadButt
02-06-2013, 05:39 PM
Guess that depends on who you ask. :p

I guess I have to broaden my horizons a bit, cuz I have met a lot of very freaky people (and I mean that respectfully.....for the most part), but I have yet to meet anyone who says "A Tabasco-dipped fist shoved up my rectum and then made pointy? Yes....yes I will have that..."

"...it's right up my alley."

GeneChing
02-06-2013, 06:39 PM
...he prolly stole it from CLF. :eek:

Meanwhile, to get back OT...sort of...I wonder if this would cost more or less with horse meat. And can I get a side of detergent with that?

A single 3D-printed burger currently costs over $300,000 to make (http://www.geek.com/articles/geek-pick/a-single-3d-printed-burger-currently-costs-over-300000-to-make-20130122/)
Jan. 22, 2013 (3:00 pm) By: James Plafke

3D printing might be the wave of the future, or it might just end up a niche hobby that’s pretty cool but ultimately too expensive and complicated to ever take off. Whatever that fate may be, startup Modern Meadow is throwing its hat into the 3D printing ring, but rather than printing plastic trinkets or gun parts, it plans to print edible meat.

We’ve mentioned Modern Meadow – a company that is practicing a variant of 3D printing, called 3D bioprinting — before. Instead of using resin like standard 3D printing, or a material more easily sent through a printer for food-printing like melted chocolate that then hardens, Modern Meadow uses material somewhat creepily called “bioink”.

In order to print live cells, the engineers perform biopsies on animals and collect stem cells, or other special cells. Because stem cells are basically magical (this not a technical term), they can not only turn into other cells, but replicate themselves. Once they replicate enough times, the engineers load them into a bioprinter cartridge, which creates something of a bioink — a material made of many live cells. When the bioink is printed, the living cells link together and form living tissue.

Modern MeadowWhen using 3D bioprinting a hamburger as an example, Professor Gabor Forgacs — part of the father and son founders of Modern Meadow — notes that the actual shape of the food isn’t too much of a hurdle, as it’s simply a round, relatively 2D patty. Another benefit to producing edible meat is that the live tissue can die afterward, as consumable meat normally isn’t living tissue, so a method of preserving the tissue’s life isn’t really required.

Though it might be easier to print edible, dead-tissue meat, Modern Meadow is facing a couple fairly large hurdles. For one, convincing the world to eat lab-grown meat might not be so easy. Another significant hurdle is that though Modern Meadow hasn’t grown something like a burger or steak as of yet, the price of one would be astronomically high. Another team of researchers at Maastricht University in the Netherlands has been growing animal cells to produce strips of lean muscle, with the goal of creating an artificial hamburger. Though the team doesn’t use bioprinting, they do use a somewhat related process of having stem cells replicate and create live tissue in a mold. Unfortunately, creating an entire burger would currently cost over $300,000.

If this all seems a little nutty, Modern Meadow has managed to raise some backing from prominent figures, such as Peter Thiel, who was one of Facebook’s early investors. There’s no word yet on when the company will be able to print a burger (or even a slider!), but if it can, it will be interesting to see how much it’ll cost, and if people can be convinced that “synthetic” meat is truly edible.

GoldenBrain
02-06-2013, 06:53 PM
OMG, soylent green is seriously just around the corner. However, maybe 3d printing isn't as bad as it sounds and will one day lead to the famous Star Trek replicator. I just hope they, whoever they are don't rationalize that human stem cells are the answer. Long pork anybody? Yuck!

GeneChing
02-08-2013, 11:18 AM
To get back on topic (why do I bother? For the sport of it, of course!)


Horse Meat in Food Stirs Furor in British Isles (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/09/world/europe/horse-meat-in-food-stirs-furor-in-british-isles.html?_r=0)
By STEPHEN CASTLE and DOUGLAS DALBY
Published: February 8, 2013

LONDON — Few things divide British eating habits from those of continental Europe as much as a distaste for consuming horse meat, so the news that many Britons may have unknowingly done so has prompted alarm among consumers and plunged the country’s food industry into crisis.

A trickle of discoveries of horse meat in burgers, first found in Ireland last month, has turned into a steady stream, culminating in the revelation this week that lasagna labeled beef from one big retailer of frozen food, Findus, was in some cases 100 percent horse meat.

With concern growing, the Food Standards Agency ordered retailers to test all processed food, and large notices have been displayed in British supermarkets seeking to calm worried customers. The scandal has raised new concerns about the standards applied by the meat processing industry, and fueled worries about what exactly has been going into cheaper burgers consumed in millions in British schools, hospitals and prisons.

Meat from horses is no more harmful than that from cattle, though there were some fears — as yet not substantiated by tests — that phenylbutazone, an equine drug, could find its way into the food chain.

But the labeling of horse meat as beef has breached one of the great culinary taboos of Britain, a country that prides itself on its love of certain animals, particularly horses.

The fact that the source of the meat appears to have been mainland Europe, where the consumption of horse meat is more common, has only increased the continental divide.

“It is completely unacceptable that a product which says it’s beef lasagna turns out to be mainly horse meat,” the environment secretary, Owen Paterson, said in a statement. “Consumers have a right to expect that food is exactly what it says on the label.”

He added, “The presence of unauthorized ingredients cannot be tolerated. This is especially true when those ingredients are likely to be unacceptable to consumers, or where there is any conceivable risk to human health.”

The latest episode came to light when Findus withdrew the beef lasagna products after Comigel, its French supplier, raised concerns about the type of meat used, while maintaining that food safety was not at risk. Some supermarkets have also removed products made by Comigel. Henrik Nyberg, a product manager for Findus, said Friday that about 20,000 frozen lasagna meals were being recalled in Sweden.

Earlier, Irish food inspectors revealed that some horse meat, which is cheaper than beef, had been found in some burgers stocked by a number of British supermarket chains, including Tesco, Iceland and Lidl. The meat was supplied by two plants in Ireland.

After millions of burgers were removed from supermarket shelves in Ireland and Britain, Poland was identified as the source of that horse meat.

The Irish agriculture minister, Simon Coveney, said he had instructed the police to join an inquiry conducted by his department’s special investigation unit after tests on Monday evening confirmed 75 percent equine DNA in a raw material ingredient at the Rangeland Foods processing plant in County Monaghan.

That was the fifth such instance at processing plants across Ireland over the last month. The latest discovery follows similar incidents last month in the Irish Republic and in Northern Ireland, where samples from other beef processing plants contained up to 80 percent horse DNA.

On Tuesday, the chief executive of the Food Safety Authority of Ireland, Alan Reilly, said fraud was behind the mislabeling of meat, which had been traced to Poland.

“We are no longer talking about trace amounts,” he told RTE, the national broadcaster. “We are talking about horse meat. Somebody, some place is drip-feeding horse meat into the burger manufacturing industry. We don’t know exactly where this is happening.”

A Grant Thornton report released last week before the announcement on Monday of the latest discovery expressed concern about the fallout from the horse meat fiasco.

“The recent issue with traces of imported horse DNA in beef burgers could translate into millions of euro lost for the industry,” it said.

Stephen Castle reported from London, and Douglas Dalby from Dublin.

What is up with all the horsemeat? Can't you taste the difference?

Syn7
02-08-2013, 11:30 AM
Learning that horse meat may be present in processed meat products has "plunged their food industry into crisis.... Really? :rolleyes:

"oh no, I can't eat mystery meat anymore cause apparently there could be things in there I may not like."

It's pretty sad how little people know about the foods they consume. And then there are the truly dumb who believe all the info they need is right there on that label. Laughable, I know.... But so many believe it. Sad.


Does any of this actually surprise anyone here? As far as I can see, this is just par for the course. And it won't get better until people wake up and make some demands.

rett
02-09-2013, 03:16 AM
I saw in the news here yesterday that the Polish horsemeat has also turned up in frozen lasagne from Findus in Sweden and the UK. My teenager chucks that stuff in the microwave.

Worse than the horsemeat are recent findings of the presence of animal painkillers and hormone supplements that aren't supposed to be in products for human consumption.

I guess that would make sense if the meat was from people's riding horses that weren't ever intended as food. This is verging on roadkill.

Gotta keep the burgers coming at lowest possible cost. No gap in the supply chain because then where would all the chain outlets be?

RenDaHai
02-09-2013, 04:02 AM
I saw in the news here yesterday that the Polish horsemeat has also turned up in frozen lasagne from Findus in Sweden and the UK. My teenager chucks that stuff in the microwave.

Worse than the horsemeat are recent findings of the presence of animal painkillers and hormone supplements that aren't supposed to be in products for human consumption.

I guess that would make sense if the meat was from people's riding horses that weren't ever intended as food. This is verging on roadkill.

Gotta keep the burgers coming at lowest possible cost. No gap in the supply chain because then where would all the chain outlets be?


Same story but we heard it was from romania. Also someone found a human tooth in a tesco sausage! Wonder if the rest of him was in their too.

Makes me dread to think all the things I ate in China over the years.....

LFJ
02-09-2013, 05:32 AM
I guess that would make sense if the meat was from people's riding horses that weren't ever intended as food. This is verging on roadkill.

A little while back a Chinese restaurant in the States got closed down because customers, while enjoying their meal, witnessed them wheeling a trashcan from the front door back to the kitchen, with bloody deer legs sticking out of it.

In defense, the owner said it was only going to be served to his family.

Makes you wonder, if they'd rather take home roadkill than eat what they serve at their own restaurant...

sanjuro_ronin
02-09-2013, 05:58 AM
A little while back a Chinese restaurant in the States got closed down because customers, while enjoying their meal, witnessed them wheeling a trashcan from the front door back to the kitchen, with bloody deer legs sticking out of it.

In defense, the owner said it was only going to be served to his family.

Makes you wonder, if they'd rather take home roadkill than eat what they serve at their own restaurant...

Deer isn't roadkill ( though of course it COULD be), many people hunt deer for the meat.

LFJ
02-09-2013, 06:00 AM
Deer isn't roadkill ( though of course it COULD be), many people hunt deer for the meat.

Nah, it was one they actually hit on the road and decided to take back to the restaurant to feed the family.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/kentucky-restaurant-shut-down-roadkill-kitchen-160225525.html

Kellen Bassette
02-09-2013, 07:08 AM
Nah, it was one they actually hit on the road and decided to take back to the restaurant to feed the family.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/kentucky-restaurant-shut-down-roadkill-kitchen-160225525.html

Where I'm from people take roadkill deer all the time, as long as its' fresh and the guts didn't get busted up to bad. I hit a deer with a car once, and called the state trooper to come tag it...before he got there, 6 different people stopped and asked if they could have the deer.

rett
02-09-2013, 08:28 AM
The road here has a lot of wildlife accidents with moose, deer and wild boar. Each stretch has a designated roadkill volunteer who gets called out, since you rarely see cops out here. They also have to track injured animals that limp away and shoot them.

The owner of the adjacent land has first dibs on any carcasses (apart from any humans of course). They often take it for food if it's in okay shape.

By roadkill I'm thinking more squished armadillos or possums in the sun. Or badgers.

David Jamieson
02-11-2013, 09:28 AM
I don't know about you guys, but 2013 and the upcoming 50th year of my life is kind of pointing me towards a vegetarian diet.

Should fit in with all the esoteric bull**** I'm into as well. :p

PS, I haven't had a burger king hamburger since the late 80's. I haven't even been inside a burger king in 25 years! holy crap!

sanjuro_ronin
02-11-2013, 09:46 AM
I tried going vegetarian years ago.
Couldn't make it the full year !
I was working out a lot, MA AND ST and I just didn't have the gains or energy as I did when I ate meats and such.
I had to supplement too much to get the protein I needed.
I lost weight easier that's for sure.

Punch.HeadButt
02-11-2013, 10:17 AM
I went kind of vegetarian for a little over two months ("kind of" in that I kept eggs in the diet for protein). It really wasn't that bad, the only reason I abandoned it was lack of variety...I'm no chef, and the only way I can cook vegetables consistently is steaming them. I just got tired of eating the same stuff over and over again.

I went to one of KFM's banquets a few years back when the Abbot was visiting, so every course was vegetarian...and delicious. If I had regular access to THAT kind of vegetarian food, I would quit meat in a heartbeat! :eek:


....possibly with occasional lapses to enjoy a hamburger every once in a while....I friggin' love (real) hamburgers.

GeneChing
02-11-2013, 10:29 AM
Makes me dread to think all the things I ate in China over the years..... In China, I ate all sorts of crazy meats, but you knew what is was because it is tradition to leave the heads on. That's why they do that. Also, the exotic meats were served like a delicacy. In China, BK would probably be able to charge more for horse burgers. In the US and UK, meat eaters are timid about that sort of thing. Put it a nugget so I don't know it's an animal. :rolleyes:

OK, that's a dig, but when you get served dog (or turtle or cat or horse) in China, they tell you very clearly that it's a special treat.

Syn7
02-11-2013, 12:21 PM
I was a vegematarian for over 15 years and only recently ate meat again. I only went back to meat to make a point to someone and always assumed I would go back to no meat. Because it had been soooo long since I ate meat it was like a new flavor adventure that I liked at first. But now I'm back to the point where all that **** seems gross to me. Maybe if I lived on a farm or got my meat from a local source where I knew that they were raised and fed right and that I'm getting the meat w/o all the lovely extras we find in the grocery store. It's so bad. American meat isn't even legal to sell in Europe. Vegetarians aren't really missing anything. If you take all the flavours in the world you will see that meat is only a very VERY small percentage of your options.

From an environmental and cost perspective(as a whole) being vegetarian is cheaper. Meat producers are one of the worst polluters in the world. The amount of resources it takes to make such a small amount of meat is insane. And I mean INSANE! Beyond irresponsible and down right stupid.

GeneChing
02-11-2013, 01:12 PM
You bring up an intriguing point as always, Syn7. Now I'm wondering if the amount of resource it takes to raise cows for meat is significantly higher than what it would take to raise horses. This whole debacle has come about by cost-cutting greed (like most debacles) but is horsemeat really that much cheaper? This article says "slightly less".


How the Horsemeat Sneaked Into the Lasagna (http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-02-11/how-the-horsemeat-sneaked-into-the-lasagna)
By Carol Matlack on February 11, 2013

Companies Mentioned

TESO

Tesco Corp
$12.18 USD
-0.12
-0.97%
WMT

Wal-Mart Stores Inc
$71.32 USD
-0.15
-0.22%
BKW

Burger King Worldwide Inc
$16.7 USD
0.17
1.02%


It’s considered one of the European Union’s great successes: the establishment of a single market in which 27 countries trade freely among themselves in everything from steel to meat. The meat, however, appears to include some horsemeat labeled as beef.

Merchants in Britain, France, Ireland, and Sweden are pulling frozen meals and hamburger patties off their shelves after tests showed the presence of horse DNA in what was supposed to be beef. While regulators say there’s no risk to human health, the case underscores the challenge of monitoring the supply of food to the EU’s 500 million consumers.

Horsemeat found in frozen lasagna in Britain, for example, apparently came from Romania and passed through intermediaries in four other countries before reaching the shelves of stores owned by Tesco (TESO), Wal-Mart’s (WMT) Asda, and other chains. In a separate case, Burger King’s (BKW) British unit recently found traces of horse DNA in burgers supplied by an Irish company that had imported the meat from Poland.

The suspicion is that unscrupulous suppliers have substituted horsemeat, which costs slightly less than beef. But the large number of intermediaries makes it hard to figure out who was responsible. “We need to get out of this fog,” French Agriculture Minister Stéphane Le Foll said in an interview today on RTL radio. “That way, we can establish traceability.”

French authorities say that frozen “beef” meals supplied to supermarkets in Britain, France, and Sweden were prepared in a Luxembourg factory owned by a French company, which bought the meat from another French supplier. That supplier, in turn, says it bought the meat from a Cypriot trader, who had subcontracted the order to a Dutch trader, who obtained the meat from a Romanian slaughterhouse. So far, none of the suppliers has admitted knowingly selling horsemeat.

Adding to the difficulty of untangling the supply chain is the fact that food-safety regulations in the EU are established and enforced by national governments. “For processed foods, there is no global overview on where the food comes from,” says Monique Boyens, director general of the European Consumer Organization in Brussels.

What’s more, Boyens says, Europe’s financial crisis has led to “a cut in financial resources and human resources” devoted to food inspection and sampling. With vast quantities of foodstuffs passing freely across national borders, “if there is one weak link in supervision, it can go wrong,” she says. The horsemeat scandal “was a problem waiting to happen.”

EU officials, though, contend that the system works pretty well. “The simple fact that within a few hours or 48 hours we can already have a first idea of what happened, that shows that the European traceability works,” Fréderic Vincent, the EU spokesman for health and consumers, said at a press conference in Brussels today. “We can trace who has done what. If in the whole process there has been some fraud, the member states will have to take measures at the legal level.”

Goyens of the European Consumer Organization says the response has been far from speedy. “The first elements of the scandal were known in mid-January in Ireland,” when horsemeat was found in meat that local suppliers had obtained from Poland, she says. “If this had been a public health issue, it would have been a catastrophe.”

Although many consumers in Britain and Ireland are repelled by the idea, eating horsemeat is relatively common on the Continent. The EU’s agriculture directorate estimates that Europeans consume 80,000 metric tons of horsemeat annually, about one-third of which is imported from outside the bloc.

With reporting by Rudy Ruitenberg of Bloomberg News

GeneChing
02-11-2013, 01:17 PM
I think the bottom line here is that the meat industry is still really dirty. The Jungle was written in 1906 and while some regulation arose in its wake, over a century later, that book is still relevant.


Battle over blame after horse meat found in beef products (http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/10/world/europe/uk-horsemeat-probe/index.html)
From Josh Levs and Per Nyberg
updated 5:22 AM EST, Mon February 11, 2013

(CNN) -- High-stakes lawsuits, overlapping investigations and a bitter battle over blame are spreading across Europe in the wake of a scandal that has rocked the meat industry.

Horse meat was discovered in products that are supposed to be 100% beef, sold in Sweden, the United Kingdom and France.

On Sunday, a major company under scrutiny called one of its suppliers a "villain" responsible for the fraud. The supplier, in turn, insisted it was "fooled" by a subsupplier.

While authorities say there is no immediate cause for health concerns, the discovery was a new shock to an industry already reeling from a bombshell last month when Irish investigators found horse and pig DNA in numerous hamburger products.

The blame chain
Europe deals with horse meat scandal

Swedish food producer Findus has been a focus of the uproar since it announced Thursday that it had withdrawn its lasagna from stores as a precaution. The products were pulled Monday after French supplier Comigel raised concerns about the type of meat that was used, Findus Sweden said.

Findus said a letter from Comigel dated February 2 informed Findus that the contamination may date back to August 2012.

Horsemeat found in hamburgers in Britain and Ireland

Findus is only one of several companies that receive products from Comigel. Others include Axfood, Coop and ICA, which have recalled some meat products in Sweden, and Aldi, which has pulled some products from shelves in Britain.

Six big French retailers -- Auchan, Casino, Carrefour, Cora, Picard and Monoprix -- said Sunday that they were recalling lasagne and other products.

Findus Nordic, which oversees Findus throughout the Nordic region, said it has begun legal action against Comigel and its subsuppliers.

"We are only at the beginning of our legal process. Comigel will end up in a lot of legal processes going forward, I imagine," Findus Nordic CEO Jari Latvanen said Sunday in an interview with CNN. "Comigel is the villain."

Comigel has not responded to CNN's requests for comment. The company did not answer its phones when CNN called repeatedly, and did not respond to an e-mail request for comment. Neither did CEO Erick Lehagre.

But Lehagre told French news agency Agence France-Presse on Sunday that his company had been "fooled" by a French supplier. "We were victims," he said, according to AFP.

Comigel apparently took its website down, posting a sign that it is "under construction." Previously, the site described the company as offering a wide array of products through partners, including major European retailers.

Criss-crossing investigations

Probes are under way in France, Sweden, and Britain. The supply chain being studied includes still more countries.

France's consumer affairs minister, Benoit Hamon, ordered an immediate investigation and said results will be available by midweek.

In a statement, Hamon said a provider in Luxembourg and traders in Cyprus and the Netherlands are part of the chain being probed.

The Swedish National Food Agency announced Sunday that it is reporting Findus to police, which is the standard course of action when products have been sold with the wrong labels.

British police are investigating as well.

British officials held an emergency meeting Saturday in London. Participants agreed "meaningful results" must be achieved by Friday, UK Food Standards Agency spokesman Brad Smythe said.

Officials discussed what tests are possible, what laboratory capacity is needed, and what can be done to protect consumer confidence, he said.

The evidence so far suggests "either criminal activity or gross negligence," Environment Secretary Owen Paterson said, adding that "more bad news" could come.

UK food businesses have been ordered to test all processed beef products for authenticity and report back to the authorities by Friday.

"I am determined that we get to the bottom of this and that any wrongdoing discovered is punished," Paterson said in a statement.

Prime Minister David Cameron weighed in Friday on Twitter. "This is completely unacceptable -- this isn't about food safety but about proper food labeling and confidence in retailers," he wrote.

Legal action under way

Latvanen credits his company with uncovering "a serious case of fraud."

"What has happened with Comigel is a crime, a scandal," he said in an interview with CNN.

Burger King finds horse meat at European supplier

While Findus has begun legal action in Sweden, Findus France previously said it will file a legal complaint Monday against a Romanian business that is part of the supply chain. It did not name the business publicly.

"There are two victims in this affair: Findus and the consumer," Findus France said in a statement.

The British arm of Findus said it is considering legal action against suppliers as well. Early results of an internal investigation "strongly suggest" the horse meat contamination of a beef lasagna product "was not accidental," the company said.

Tests showed up to 100% horse meat

Aldi said tests on random samples demonstrated that the withdrawn products contained between 30% and 100% horse meat.

"This is completely unacceptable and like other affected companies, we feel angry and let down by our supplier. If the label says beef, our customers expect it to be beef."

Samples of the affected Findus lasagna contained between 60% and 100% horse meat, according to UK and Irish food safety inspectors.

In January, the Food Safety Authority of Ireland found that 10 out of 27 hamburger products it analyzed in a study contained horse DNA, while 23 of them -- or 85% -- tested positive for pig DNA.

In nine out of the 10 burger samples, the horse DNA was found at very low levels, the inspectors said. But in one sample from Tesco, Britain's largest retailer, the horse meat accounted for about 29% of the burger.

Tesco apologized and vowed to make sure it never happens again.

Irish officials blamed ingredients from Poland.

Concerns about a veterinary drug

While horse meat is not itself a food safety hazard, food inspectors are concerned it may contain the veterinary drug phenylbutazone, or "bute," commonly used to treat horses.

Meat from animals treated with phenylbutazone may pose a risk to human health and is not allowed to enter the food chain as it may pose a risk to human health.

Findus has been ordered to test the lasagna withdrawn from shelves in the United Kingdom for the drug's presence.

The revelations have revolted many meat eaters in the United Kingdom, where horse meat is generally considered taboo, although it is commonly eaten in neighboring France, as well as countries including China, Russia, Kazakhstan and Italy.

The discovery of pig DNA in beef products is of particular concern to Jews and Muslims, whose dietary laws forbid the consumption of pork products. Jewish dietary laws also ban the eating of horse meat.

The UK Justice Ministry confirmed last week that a number of meat pies and similar items supplied to prisons in England and Wales were labeled and served as halal -- prepared in compliance with Islamic dietary law -- but contained traces of pork DNA, the Food Standards Agency said.

Horse meat is not commonly eaten in the United States, but the country does export it to Canada and Mexico. Congress passed a bill in November 2011 that lifted a 5-year-old ban on the slaughter of horses for meat in the United States.

Lucas
02-11-2013, 02:10 PM
I'm tempted to go to burger king and to specifically ask for a horse burger.

Syn7
02-11-2013, 02:55 PM
You bring up an intriguing point as always, Syn7. Now I'm wondering if the amount of resource it takes to raise cows for meat is significantly higher than what it would take to raise horses. This whole debacle has come about by cost-cutting greed (like most debacles) but is horsemeat really that much cheaper? This article says "slightly less".

Yeah, well, I'm an intriguing mother****er like that....!!!


The cost benefit analysis seems insignificant on a one by one basis. But when you get into a billion units, even half a cent is VERY significant.

Money is the issue. As long as people are willing to pay premium prices for meat, the producers will do anything they can get away with to maximise their financial potential. Infact in some cases they are bound by law to do so.

It's a very rotten industry. Worse than oil and firearms combined. Ofcourse all three are connected in so many ways. Think of all the oil burned to produce and get meat to everyone everywhere.

As far as the diff between horses and cows, I think most of the costs to produce meat would be the same for both. If horses were valued as food like cows were in N America, I'm sure the price differences would be negligible. In a few years we would have these massive wide horses. I mean, originally cows didn't look anything like they do now. Husbandry did most of that work, but genetics is changing the game now. It's scary how little we know about the affects of all this yet we use it to sustain our lives. Is it just me or does that seem profoundly stupid? Look at how archaic mid century psychiatry looks now. Like OMG I can't believe they prescribed that ****! And all the shock therapy and other weird **** they did. I mean, I'm glad the experimented and all and it got us to where we are. It's just the widespread acceptance of new and virtually untested methods. We shouldn't accept things because we are told it's all good.


Lucas,

I guarantee that the employees have been briefed and have been told how to respond to any horse meat inquiries.

GeneChing
02-11-2013, 03:11 PM
Yeah, well, I'm an intriguing mother****er like that....!!!
I'm sure it is a direct result of that rail of salt incurring brain damage. :p


In a few years we would have these massive wide horses.
http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m5xrrxqm1O1qk9v82o1_1280.jpg Makes ya hungry just lookin at it, don't it? ;)

Syn7
02-11-2013, 04:02 PM
I'm sure it is a direct result of that rail of salt incurring brain damage. :p

Nah, never did the salt thing. I manipulated others into it though. But it could be the cinnamon....!!!

Actually, I had over 80 stitches in my head before i was 10 and spread out over about 5 or six incidents. I lived at the edge of brave/stupid. I guess I'll never know if it slowed me down or not, but I feel like I'm ok. What I do know is that I have been lucky MANY times and have survived some close calls. I got to an age where the math started getting scary and I backed off a bit. I mean, I still have the urge to base jump, I just put a lil more thought into it now and do a proper risk assessment before I engage any risky activity. At the very least I employ harm reduction methods and a solid damage control plan.

Kellen Bassette
02-11-2013, 04:39 PM
Syns right, if we were raising horses for food, like we do cattle, we wouldn't recognize them in 5 years. Look at the abominations we pass off as turkey and chicken.

Hey your in Canada, just go shoot some wild game, it's way better for you.. :)

Syn7
02-11-2013, 05:07 PM
Syns right, if we were raising horses for food, like we do cattle, we wouldn't recognize them in 5 years. Look at the abominations we pass off as turkey and chicken.

Hey your in Canada, just go shoot some wild game, it's way better for you.. :)

Too many rules. Better off to just go to a small local farm. For meat and veggies. I try to only buy whole foods. I make my own sauces and whatnot. S'all good. WAAAAY cheaper too. Gotta put in the time tho. Usually I will just bang off a bunch of stuff in one free day and preserve or freeze it and just add in the whole foods I get day to day. Boom, great healthy easy cheap meal. If I was in a more rural place I would mos def go get my own food. I would love to have a lil hobby farm when I retire. Maybe. I have some interesting ideas too. Ways to have me actually feed the power grid and have them pay me a monthly cheque. Ways to make my home efficient. One thing I really wanna do is built my house around a tropical green house and use pretty simple but cool ideas for geo heating/cooling. Stuff like that. Not that expensive either, and it pays for itself pretty quick. Gotta be on it tho. Can't just leave it unattended for long periods w/o proper preparations that are a lil more complicated than throwing your mains and locking the doors.


Between gas, time, permits and all the other crap that costs money that you need for hunting. The local small farm is ur best bet for price/quality.

GeneChing
02-11-2013, 05:43 PM
it could be the cinnamon....!!!

Actually, I had over 80 stitches in my head before i was 10 and spread out over about 5 or six incidents.
I'm guessing it wasn't the cinnamon. 80 head stitches before age 10....daaaaaaaaaaaaang. No wonder you fit in so well around here. ;)

Syn7
02-11-2013, 05:45 PM
I'm guessing it wasn't the cinnamon. 80 head stitches before age 10....daaaaaaaaaaaaang. No wonder you fit in so well around here. ;)

HEY!


I'm not crazy, I'm unique! :D

GeneChing
02-11-2013, 06:52 PM
Perhaps you're projecting a little. ;)

Kellen Bassette
02-11-2013, 06:53 PM
One thing I really wanna do is built my house around a tropical green house and use pretty simple but cool ideas for geo heating/cooling.

That's something I'm interested in too....I'd have to have a green house that could keep warm when I'm traveling though..that could be tough to pull off...

I lived off grid for a little while, I was setting up a cabin to have everything I need, but I can't get the wife to do it now. :(

The biggest problem, (besides her) is getting in and out in the winter. From late November to early April you got to use a snowmobile. I looked into getting a tracked Snow Cat, but those things are so expensive. Some dudes have done some awesome home made deals out of 4 wheel drive trucks, but I am a miserable failure as a mechanic.

Drake
02-11-2013, 07:05 PM
I will always be a carnivore. If would bring down an animal with my bare hands, rip out its heart, and eat it as the hot blood flowed down the sides of my face.

To look an animal in the eyes as it dies, is to say to it "I am the face of god, and I have brought you death."

Syn7
02-11-2013, 07:22 PM
I will always be a carnivore. If would bring down an animal with my bare hands, rip out its heart, and eat it as the hot blood flowed down the sides of my face.

To look an animal in the eyes as it dies, is to say to it "I am the face of god, and I have brought you death."

You have issues, bro. Should prolly work on that ****.

Drake
02-11-2013, 08:39 PM
You have issues, bro. Should prolly work on that ****.

Shut up and eat your salad, sissy.

GoldenBrain
02-11-2013, 09:50 PM
Hey everybody! Thanks for keeping this thread alive while I was traveling. It's been a very entertaining read and special thanks to Gene for keeping us on track. Very sporting of you sir!;)

Some of you may be interested to know that we are in the process of building up our little family farm and getting WAY off grid. In Texas we get paid for selling electricity back to the power company so as soon as the house is finished in a few weeks we will set up the greenhouses, passive solar for heating, vertical wind generators, buy goats and sheep and on and on.

We plan to use a combination of aquaponics in one greenhouse and traditional raised beds in another for growing and raising all of our food. I'll also set up outdoor raised beds and plant a bunch of fruiting and nut bearing trees.

The goats love all those greenbriar vines, poison ivy and all that crappy stuff that is a pain in the ass to clear. Sheep just taste great and mow the lawn for free. I'm not going to raise horses for meat though, not because I wouldn't eat one, they are just to darn big and eat way to much to deal with.

To Kellen... If you want to heat a greenhouse on the cheap you can line the edges on the ground with about a foot high and a foot wide of mulch and or compost which will give off heat. Heat rises and warms the entire greenhouse. Check out this guys greenhouse where he uses the above mentioned method for supplemental heating in Wisconsin. This dude is my aquaponic idol. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qZPwBPAqks

To Drake... Man you are hardcore but I like it. I keep telling my hunting buddies that the next time I get a chance to go deer hunting I'm using one of the two knives pictured below to bag that sucker. I just think it's to easy to use a .308 from a billion miles away. Just once I'd like to get up close and personal. I think it's kind of a revenge thing also. When I was 12 I was knocked down and stomped on by a pretty large buck at Royal Gorge State Park in Colorado. Thanks to my pops I'm still alive but I still hold a grudge.
7284

Syn7
02-11-2013, 10:19 PM
Sound like fun. I have so many ideas I would like to develop in that respect.


It's pretty hard to kill something like a deer with a knife. Maybe a throwing spear. Bow is easy, been there done that though. I want to do an endurance hunt. I'm not really into sitting in a stand or a blind. I mean, I would if I had to for the food, but I don't and it bores me. Running a trap line is pretty fun though.

GoldenBrain
02-11-2013, 10:55 PM
Farming/homesteading is definitely a fun and very peaceful lifestyle. It's hard work but extremely rewarding.

In all seriousness I'm pretty sure I'd get mauled to death if I actually jumped on a deer with my knife, so thanks for bringing me back down to reality Syn.:( I'd totally be down with using a spear or maybe even an atlatl though.:D

GoldenBrain
02-11-2013, 11:06 PM
To get back on track here... It seems that as many as 16 countries could be affected by the horse meat scandal. I'm pretty sure that horse meat is lean and good for you and all that, but I doubt these people are serving up the choice cuts.

http://www.thejournal.ie/horsemeat-scandal-france-romania-meat-790691-Feb2013/?utm_source=twitter_self

GeneChing
02-12-2013, 10:29 AM
I doubt these people are serving up the choice cuts. What would those be exactly?

GoldenBrain's linked article above alludes to this:

Romania Produced 6,300 Tons of Horsemeat Last Year (http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/romania-produced-6300-tons-horsemeat-year-18475719)
BUCHAREST, Romania February 12, 2013 (AP)

Romanian food safety officials say the country produced 6,300 tons of horse, mule and donkey meat last year, and that it was correctly labeled when it was exported to other European countries.

Amid a growing scandal over horsemeat mislabeled as beef in frozen processed food, the National Authority for Veterinary and Food Safety said Tuesday that some 97 percent of the meat slaughtered and processed at 35 authorized plants was sold to Bulgaria, France, the Netherlands, Italy, Poland, Germany, Belgium and Greece.

A complex web of meat wholesalers has made it increasingly difficult to trace the origins of food.

France says Romanian butchers and Dutch and Cypriot traders were part of a supply chain that resulted in horsemeat being labeled as beef.

GoldenBrain
02-12-2013, 12:07 PM
I guess the choice cuts would be anything labeled correctly and not lips and arseholes. :D

I might try a horse tenderloin as long as I knew what it was.

Syn7
02-12-2013, 12:33 PM
Farming/homesteading is definitely a fun and very peaceful lifestyle. It's hard work but extremely rewarding.

In all seriousness I'm pretty sure I'd get mauled to death if I actually jumped on a deer with my knife, so thanks for bringing me back down to reality Syn.:( I'd totally be down with using a spear or maybe even an atlatl though.:D

Deer can **** you up, but that's now what I meant. I don't think you would get withing 25 feet of one in the wild, let alone get your hands on it. Maybe if you smoked out then sat in a tree and waited for however long it took, but I doubt it. I guess you could set up obstacles and run it into some corner and fight it, but I wouldn't if I were you. Even the ones in my backyard, that I see daily, won't let me get closer than 10 feet and I have put in the work and am very patient.


My father stalks them for kicks. A few weeks ago he got pretty close, bout 10 feet and it ran at a thick tree line, freaked out and ran back towards him. Lucky he was at the corner of the house and just stepped around the corner. And these are like wild but somewhat tame deer. Nothing like what you would come across in the real bush.

GoldenBrain
02-12-2013, 10:14 PM
Deer can **** you up, but that's now what I meant. I don't think you would get withing 25 feet of one in the wild, let alone get your hands on it. Maybe if you smoked out then sat in a tree and waited for however long it took, but I doubt it. I guess you could set up obstacles and run it into some corner and fight it, but I wouldn't if I were you. Even the ones in my backyard, that I see daily, won't let me get closer than 10 feet and I have put in the work and am very patient.


My father stalks them for kicks. A few weeks ago he got pretty close, bout 10 feet and it ran at a thick tree line, freaked out and ran back towards him. Lucky he was at the corner of the house and just stepped around the corner. And these are like wild but somewhat tame deer. Nothing like what you would come across in the real bush.

I'm glad your father is okay. Both of you sound like you'd be cool as sh!t to hang with. You make a really good point about the distance. I've stalked them in the wild as close as 20 yards or so but to get any closer would seem to be ridiculously tough. I suppose if I were really serious about this I could wear a vest made of cut up apples, take a nap in the woods and just wait it out but I'd prolly be jumped by a bear or something instead. Ah well, it was a fun thought exercise.

GeneChing
02-13-2013, 11:27 AM
Figures, right?

You know, now that I think about it, I don't think I ever ate horse meat. There was a time when I would have surely tried it, back in my stunt meat eating daze in China, but I can't remember it ever being offered to me. :(


Europe’s Horse Meat Scandal Casts Light on Food Taboo (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/13/130212-horse-meat-beef-scandal-food-france-england-europe-science-taboo-horsemeat/)
Horse meat is taboo in some cultures, standard in others.
Horse sausages and meat for sale in a butcher in Haarlem, Netherlands.

http://images.nationalgeographic.com/wpf/media-live/photos/000/642/cache/horse-meat-controversy-united-kingdom-beef_64209_600x450.jpg
A butcher in the Netherlands offers a variety of horse meat options.
Photograph by Bram Budel, Hollandse Hoogte/Redux

Catherine Zuckerman
National Geographic News
Published February 12, 2013

Everyone, it seems, is talking about horse meat.

A scandal has erupted in Europe because some products labeled as beef—including Burger King hamburgers and frozen lasagna—were recently found to contain various amounts of horse meat.

Some of what was sold as beef was entirely horse meat.

With everyone from vegetarians to die-hard carnivores, the subject hits a nerve. Burger King is reported to have dropped a supplier linked to the scandal, while the frozen food company Findus has pulled its lasagnas from supermarket shelves in France and England. Frozen shepherd's pie and moussaka have also been yanked.

Even if you routinely make pig, chicken, and cow a part of your diet, there's a feeling that there's just something wrong about eating horse.

But that may only be true in certain parts of the world, like the United States and the United Kingdom, where the reports of horse meat masquerading as beef first surfaced and where horses are widely viewed as gentle companions or noble competitors. Think of the Kentucky Derby, and the many movies and books dedicated to the equine kind. It's probably safe to say that most Americans are uncomfortable with the thought of sitting down to a plate of Black Beauty or Seabiscuit. (Room for wild horses shrinks in the American West, from National Geographic.)

In plenty of other places, though, horse is regularly consumed—without any stigma attached.

Horse Meat Consumers

On the Mediterranean island of Sardinia, for example, horse is a popular local ingredient, as is its relative, the donkey. (What's the secret to Sardinian longevity?)

Among Europeans, the Sardinians aren't alone in their taste for the animal. The meat is available at some butcher shops in the Netherlands. It's eaten in France, too. And though it may not be mainstream or headlining big-ticket dining establishments, there are websites like this one, where you can buy various cuts of chevaline for grilling, roasting, and braising.

The world's biggest consumer of horse meat is China, according to estimates made by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

The Chinese dry it for sausages. The meat is especially popular in the southern region of Guangxi, where it's served as part of a dish made with rice noodles.

Number two, estimates the FAO, is Kazakhstan, where horse is an integral part of the diet and used to make various sausages and a type of dumpling called manti.

Russia, Mexico, Mongolia, Argentina, and Japan are also top consumers of horse meat.

The Meat or the Deceipt?

So what does it taste like? Food writer Waverley Root once described it as having a "lingering sweetness, which is not disagreeable but is disconcerting in meat."

The blog Eat Horse, dedicated to "promoting the human consumption of horse meat," touts the meat's healthy qualities: it's low fat, low cholesterol, and high in iron.

Los Angeles-born food historian Andrew F. Smith takes a nonjudgmental stance, perhaps surprising for an American.

"What's wrong with eating horse meat?" he asks, noting that the real problem in the European fallout is that customers were deceived.

As for whether or not horse should be consumed, he says, "We've decided certain animals are edible" and have "made certain definitions while other countries have not."

What's your definition of an edible animal? Do you think it's acceptable to eat horse? Does cultural background make a difference?

Kellen Bassette
02-13-2013, 11:39 AM
To Kellen... If you want to heat a greenhouse on the cheap you can line the edges on the ground with about a foot high and a foot wide of mulch and or compost which will give off heat. Heat rises and warms the entire greenhouse. Check out this guys greenhouse where he uses the above mentioned method for supplemental heating in Wisconsin. This dude is my aquaponic idol. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qZPwBPAqks



Great video....fish farming also intrigues me. There so much right with these ideas.

wenshu
02-13-2013, 12:44 PM
On an interesting side note I once bet on a horse named "Have It Your Way".

GeneChing
02-13-2013, 01:01 PM
...did you win, wenshu?

wenshu
02-13-2013, 02:35 PM
Obviously not since he ended up in your Whopper®.

GeneChing
02-13-2013, 02:47 PM
I feel like Abbot wenshu just Costello-ed me. :o

https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSzgwoBuQXTRAFTDRVQNzlLce95iRvyV W7pu7pr8NaS9JHLzzzRKQ
https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRAY4dGFhx4XpY9GkNMnJTxO6FBr-4dbw8vIwfDUCir9fj0PX2q

wenshu
02-13-2013, 03:01 PM
hiyooooooo (http://www.hiyoooo.com/)

GoldenBrain
02-13-2013, 10:24 PM
Great video....fish farming also intrigues me. There so much right with these ideas.

Thanks Kellen! Farming has been a life long dream of mine and now that I have the time and resources to pull it off I have found a sort of zen in it all. In 9 months or so when the tilapia are all grown up I may have to invite all my new Kung-Fu Magazine.com forum buddies over for a good ol fashioned fish fry.

GoldenBrain
02-13-2013, 10:29 PM
Great article Gene! This story just keeps giving and giving... And the quote of the night is, "back in my stunt meat eating daze in China." I can only imagine some of the exotic foods available in China. I really need to visit there one day. It's on the bucket list fo sho.

Oh, and no offense Gene but props go to wenshu! He had you hook line and sinker. That's just what I needed to end a hard days work with a rolling guffaw.

eltravose
02-14-2013, 10:31 AM
Why use horse meat when there are sooo many cows? Doesn't make sense. I heard that McDonald's meat contains rat meat. Yuck

GeneChing
02-14-2013, 11:04 AM
This brings us back to Syn7's point:

From an environmental and cost perspective(as a whole) being vegetarian is cheaper. Meat producers are one of the worst polluters in the world. The amount of resources it takes to make such a small amount of meat is insane. And I mean INSANE! Beyond irresponsible and down right stupid.


February 14, 2013, 8:15 am
Horse Meat Scandal: Is the Era of Cheap Food Over? (http://rendezvous.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/14/horse-meat-scandal-is-the-era-of-cheap-food-over/)
By HARVEY MORRIS
A butcher in Central England advertising horse meat-free beef.Darren Staples/Reuters A butcher in Central England advertising horse meat-free beef.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2013/02/14/blogs/14rdv-horsemeat-cheap-food-era/14rdv-horsemeat-cheap-food-era-tmagArticle.jpg

LONDON — With Europe’s expanding horse meat scandal escalating from a drama to a crisis, consumers are being warned that the era of cheap food may be over.

In less than a month, the scandal has spread from Ireland, where prepared foods sold as beef products were found to contain horse, to Britain and much of the Continent.

The crisis deepened on Thursday when British officials said tests showed that a powerful equine drug, potentially harmful to human health, may have entered the food chain, my colleague Stephen Castle writes.

As European officials called on Europol, the European police agency, to coordinate investigations into what could turn out to be extensive Continent-wide fraud by criminal gangs, supermarkets in Germany, Switzerland, Belgium and the Netherlands became the latest to remove suspect products from their shelves.

Some are already blaming a low-cost food culture for a situation that may have allowed criminals to exploit ever longer and more complex food supply chains to dump cheap horse meat into the market.

The potential illicit profits could be huge. France’s Nouvel Observateur, tracing the possible itinerary of a horse meat lasagne, said that the route from a Romanian abattoir to a French or British supermarket shelf passed through numerous intermediaries with an opportunity to switch horse for beef.

With horse meat two or three times cheaper, the magazine wrote, “the profit from the switch is reckoned to be €300,000 [$400,000] for every 25 tonnes.”

In an era of affluence, Europeans became accustomed to spending a diminishing portion of their weekly household budgets on food. But with strapped families facing tighter budgets at a time of austerity and rising international food prices, the trend has reversed.

Supermarkets have responded by attempting to keep prices down at the expense, according to critics, of content and quality.

“In a highly competitive market our food industry has not changed its business model,” according to Laura Sandys, a Conservative legislator, writing in The Times of London on Thursday. “Instead it has tried to adapt to food inflation by fitting a more expensive product into a cheap price structure.”

Ms. Sandys, concluding that “the era of cheap food is, sadly, over,” said consumers were unwittingly absorbing the rising costs of meat and grain through reductions in quality and quantity.

“So the £1 [$1.55] cottage pie in your local freezer shop will be the same price that it has been for years,” she wrote, “but today will contain less meat and more artificial fillers such as high fructose corn syrup.”

Pamela Robinson, a supply chain expert at the University of Birmingham in Britain, told The Daily Telegraph, that pressure to sell food more and more cheaply had led to the horse meat scandal.

She said supermarkets were going to have to acknowledge food prices needed to go up if they were to guarantee quality. Families also needed to be educated on how to eat healthily on a budget, rather than relying on cheap processed foods that could no longer guarantee quality.

In the midst of the horse meat scandal, some consumers are already voting with their feet.

A poll for the Sky News broadcaster indicated one-in-five British shoppers had changed their buying habits since the scandal broke. More than half of those had abandoned processed meat entirely.

Traditional butcher shops supplying well-sourced but more expensive meat have meanwhile reported a spike in sales of up to 30 percent.

In the spirit of the times, the BBC published a handy guide to healthy alternatives to pre-packaged, industrially processed foods.

The broadcaster’s Hannah Briggs quoted gastronomes who sang the praises of brined ox tongue and beef brisket, adding: “You could also try curing pig cheeks or chaps in salt and seasoning with Indonesian long pepper and herbs.”

But is the European public really ready to return to a mythical age in which a family of four could go for a week on a boiled cow heel or a pot of tripe? Or will we have to adjust to spending more for our food and less on luxuries?


And the quote of the night is, "back in my stunt meat eating daze in China." I can only imagine some of the exotic foods available in China. I really need to visit there one day. It's on the bucket list fo sho. China has faced poverty like no other nation. So they eat everything. There's no waste. Boiled cow heel or a pot of tripe? Luxury! Ironically, some of the most revolting meats get converted into gourmet delicacies. The experience really forced me to rethink the American diet.

bawang
02-17-2013, 04:49 AM
This brings us back to Syn7's point:




China has faced poverty like no other nation. So they eat everything. There's no waste. Boiled cow heel or a pot of tripe? Luxury! Ironically, some of the most revolting meats get converted into gourmet delicacies. The experience really forced me to rethink the American diet.

kraft dinner has chemicals used in rocket fuel, we are not far off.

GoldenBrain
02-18-2013, 05:57 AM
kraft dinner has chemicals used in rocket fuel, we are not far off.

Scary!!!:eek: I know that when I have eaten this craptastic dinner in the past it rockets right through me.

I wonder if it's the same stuff that powers this awesome drink...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRuNxHqwazs

MasterKiller
02-18-2013, 09:23 AM
Why use horse meat when there are sooo many cows? Doesn't make sense. I heard that McDonald's meat contains rat meat. Yuck

Every "meat" that comes from a high-capacity processing plant contains a certain percentage of rat, bug, and feces as a result of processing itself. It's inevitable.

Buy from local buchers.

Syn7
02-18-2013, 02:55 PM
Buy from local buchers.

I pretty much only buy from local sources, not just meat. EVERYTHING. Unless I have no choice, I mean, I would rather not starve. But typically, all local and seasonal. I don't give a **** about tomatoes in the winter. That's what mason jars are for. :p

I dunno, I just don't need exotic fruit, we have great food that grows right here. And with indoor micro farming, I can grow almost anything I want in my living room window or my lil greenhouse. I'm a maker, I enjoyed making a weather controlled growing space that wasn't for high grade ganja for a change.

GoldenBrain
02-18-2013, 05:57 PM
[QUOTE=GeneChing;1211490]This brings us back to Syn7's point:



Boiled cow heel or a pot of tripe?


No thank you sir!;) But I did like that sign. It was to many funnies!:D

GoldenBrain
02-18-2013, 06:05 PM
MasterKiller and Syn7 are right on the money. Always buy locally if possible. Isn't eating locally and seasonally a very Taoist thing to do? That advice fits very well in these forums.

If we don't grow or raise it we have family or friends who do. I even have a local source for Bison which is supposed to be leaner than Venison but without the over abundance of vitamin A.

GoldenBrain
02-18-2013, 06:24 PM
I pretty much only buy from local sources, not just meat. EVERYTHING. Unless I have no choice, I mean, I would rather not starve. But typically, all local and seasonal. I don't give a **** about tomatoes in the winter. That's what mason jars are for. :p

I dunno, I just don't need exotic fruit, we have great food that grows right here. And with indoor micro farming, I can grow almost anything I want in my living room window or my lil greenhouse. I'm a maker, I enjoyed making a weather controlled growing space that wasn't for high grade ganja for a change.


I love the idea of indoor gardens. My wife and I did this a couple of years ago in our last house which had a pretty large basement. I set up a couple of large HID lights and everything and the produce was absolutely delicious but it just wasn't cost effective. It added about 40 bucks to the monthly electrical bill. Nothing beats sunshine so we have tossed around the idea now of creating a space in our new house using solar tubes which ought to work just fine for our needs. Of course we don't really need to do this with 16 acres at our disposal but it's just for the fun of it. This time instead of produce we are going to try to grow medicinal herbs like American Ginseng, Golden Seal...etc, as well as herbs for cooking with and possibly a couple of dwarf citrus and Texas fig trees.

Raipizo
02-18-2013, 08:28 PM
MasterKiller and Syn7 are right on the money. Always buy locally if possible. Isn't eating locally and seasonally a very Taoist thing to do? That advice fits very well in these forums.

If we don't grow or raise it we have family or friends who do. I even have a local source for Bison which is supposed to be leaner than Venison but without the over abundance of vitamin A.

Also buffalo is low in fat and good much better than beef for you. http://voices.yahoo.com/buffalo-meat-ostrich-meat-two-healthier-alternatives-38515.html

Syn7
02-18-2013, 08:32 PM
I love the idea of indoor gardens. My wife and I did this a couple of years ago in our last house which had a pretty large basement. I set up a couple of large HID lights and everything and the produce was absolutely delicious but it just wasn't cost effective. It added about 40 bucks to the monthly electrical bill. Nothing beats sunshine so we have tossed around the idea now of creating a space in our new house using solar tubes which ought to work just fine for our needs. Of course we don't really need to do this with 16 acres at our disposal but it's just for the fun of it. This time instead of produce we are going to try to grow medicinal herbs like American Ginseng, Golden Seal...etc, as well as herbs for cooking with and possibly a couple of dwarf citrus and Texas fig trees.

You should look into window farming if you wanna grow some smaller stuff like herbs or whatever.

I would love to have sixteen acres. The cheque the power company would send me every month would be great. The thing that makes solar and wind etc difficult is storage. Batteries are pretty inefficient and problematic and various ways. But if you are plugged into the grid, it's all good. Cheap to build if you do the labour yourself. The parts are pretty easy to get these days. Like if you buy solar panels that are already assembled, it's pretty expensive. But if you shop around and just get the parts you can't fab on your own, it's really cheap. Like for me all I need are the cells and I'll make my own panel and housing. The rest I can find easily at home or close to home. Conversions are easy enough and the parts are all common.

GoldenBrain
02-19-2013, 10:33 AM
Also buffalo is low in fat and good much better than beef for you. http://voices.yahoo.com/buffalo-meat-ostrich-meat-two-healthier-alternatives-38515.html

Not only that but they don't need to be fed a diet of antibiotics just to stay alive. My friend raises them and has invited me to learn how to butcher one when I'm ready for our next freezer full, and I get to keep the hide. He brain tans them in the old Choctaw way so this should be a great learning experience. Thanks for the link Raipizo!

GoldenBrain
02-19-2013, 10:43 AM
You should look into window farming if you wanna grow some smaller stuff like herbs or whatever.

I would love to have sixteen acres. The cheque the power company would send me every month would be great. The thing that makes solar and wind etc difficult is storage. Batteries are pretty inefficient and problematic and various ways. But if you are plugged into the grid, it's all good. Cheap to build if you do the labour yourself. The parts are pretty easy to get these days. Like if you buy solar panels that are already assembled, it's pretty expensive. But if you shop around and just get the parts you can't fab on your own, it's really cheap. Like for me all I need are the cells and I'll make my own panel and housing. The rest I can find easily at home or close to home. Conversions are easy enough and the parts are all common.


Oh yeah, we're planning garden windows galore so definitely going to go that route as well. Plus some catnip for the kitty cat.

I totally agree about the batteries. That's the weak point. I wish they'd get on the ball and develop something with a bit longer life and much cheaper.

Syn7
02-19-2013, 03:54 PM
Oh yeah, we're planning garden windows galore so definitely going to go that route as well. Plus some catnip for the kitty cat.

I totally agree about the batteries. That's the weak point. I wish they'd get on the ball and develop something with a bit longer life and much cheaper.

Micro farming is pretty cool. Doesn't really take much, does it...

Batteries... there is a fundamental challenge that cannot be avoided unfortunately. But slowly they get a lil better. These days I power most of my small projects with LiPos.


But like I said before, if you're plugged in, not an issue. But maaaaaaaan, we waste so much energy it's insane. We need to put more into harnessing lost energy, most people try to make things more directly efficient. Whereas you have great thinkers using passing trains to power train crossings and stuff like that. Sorta like using the heat off the block to warm your car rather than actually heating an element.


Oh, and have fun keeping the cat out of the garden. If your cats are anything like mine are/were, they are already into pretty much everything you don't want them into :p

GoldenBrain
02-21-2013, 11:08 AM
Oh...Neigh...


7300

GeneChing
02-25-2013, 11:41 AM
It's fascinating to see how widespread this has become.

Ikea Withdraws Meatballs After Horse Meat Is Found (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/26/business/global/ikea-withdraws-meatballs-after-horse-meat-is-found.html?_r=0)
By STEPHEN CASTLE
Published: February 25, 2013

LONDON — The escalating crisis over horse meat in beef products in Europe claimed another big retail victim Monday when the Swedish furniture giant, Ikea, withdrew meatballs from sale in 14 European countries.

The retailer said it had removed some products from its stores in Sweden after the authorities in the Czech Republic detected horse meat in Ikea meatballs. The company said it had made the decision even though its own tests two weeks ago had not detected horse DNA.

Ikea also announced that it was stopping sales “of the concerned batch” of meatballs in Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, France, Britain, Portugal, Italy, Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Greece, Cyprus and Ireland.

“We are now initiating further tests on the same production batch in which the Czech Republic authorities found indications of horse meat,” Ikea added in a statement. It said results were expected in the coming days.

“We do not tolerate any other ingredients than the ones stipulated in our recipes or specifications, secured through set standards, certifications and product analysis by accredited laboratories,” the statement said.

A traditional part of Swedish cuisine, meatballs are consumed in large quantities by customers in Ikea’s in-store cafeterias, and are also offered, frozen, for sale in Ikea’s in-store food shops for customers to take home.

The discovery came as European Union ministers were meeting in Brussels to discuss how to contain a crisis that began last month in Ireland, spread quickly to Britain, and has now expanded steadily across the Continent.

Around a dozen countries have now been affected, and the scandal has drawn attention to the problems of policing a complex supply chain for processed food in Europe.

The European Union introduced strict traceability laws for fresh beef after the outbreak of mad cow disease in the 1990’s. Similar controls are not in place for processed meat products.

While pressure for stricter rules is growing, some European nations worry that this could produce an unwieldy and impractical system.

In the meantime, European nations have stepped up DNA tests of meat products to determine their provenance, and these are producing more unwelcome discoveries every week.

Last week Nestlé, one of the best-known food companies in the world, said it was removing pasta meals from store shelves in Italy and Spain. Already most of the big supermarket chains in Britain have withdrawn products, including millions of hamburgers.

Last week, local authorities in Scotland were urged by a procurement agency not to use current stocks of frozen beef products, following the discovery of traces of horse DNA in a frozen burger taken from a Scottish school kitchen.

Syn7
02-25-2013, 11:55 AM
It's fascinating to see how widespread this has become.

I think if every ground meat product was tested, people would go nuts. I promise that there is all sorts of stuff you don't want in your meat. I guarantee that unless you test it yourself and/or know exactly where it comes from, you have eaten something you don't want to eat.

GoldenBrain
03-01-2013, 03:14 PM
I thought this horsemeat scandal would have died off by now but neigh, it still keeps on giving...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21631961

bawang
03-01-2013, 04:07 PM
you have not experienced heaven until you tasted roasted dog leg with garlic.

GeneChing
03-01-2013, 05:22 PM
Where's the beef? :p


March 1, 2013, 2:28 PM
Horse-Meat Testing Finds Something Even Worse: No Meat (http://blogs.wsj.com/corporate-intelligence/2013/03/01/horse-meat-testing-finds-something-even-worse-no-meat/)
By Jens Hansegard

You’ve heard of “Meatless Mondays.” But you may not be as familiar with meatless meat pies – unless you’re in Iceland.

The tiny nation’s Food and Veterinary Authority, or Mast, investigated a beef pie from high-end natural food company Gaedakokkar in western Iceland to make sure there were no traces of horse meat in the wake of the wider scandal that has ensnared a number of European companies.

The good news: the agency found no horse meat in the pies. The bad news: the agency actually found no meat at all. In fact, there were no traces of animal protein found at all, Hjalti Andrason, a MAST official, said in an interview Friday.

Labeling on the products promised that the pie stuffing contained 30% beef. The agency suspects the filling “could be some sort of vegetable protein, but that is not confirmed,” Mr. Andrason said.

The discovery dealt a tough blow to Gaedakokkar, which employs 10 people and has been around since 1999. Stores carrying Gaedakokkar’s products threw out the company’s products and the company’s phones have been ringing since the disclosure of MAST’s findings.

Gaedakokkar’s owner Magnus Nielsson said the development has punctured his business model.

“It’s sad that MAST takes one pie from one store and then goes out and just kills me in the news,” he told The Wall Street Journal Friday. “MAST went into one store and bought one pie, which they tested. They sent us a mail and I was shocked.

Mr. Nielsson said “we are a small company and everybody’s trying to do their best. We went through our production and discovered that the way we mixed the beef pie stuffing–by hand–didn’t mix the stuffing evenly enough.”

He said the pie stuffing mixing was immediately moved to a machine that mixes the stuffing evenly. But the damage to the company’s reputation is already done and that his company, which makes about 60 different food products without additives, now may go out of business as customers cancel business.

Gaedakokkar is based in in Borgarnes on the western end of Iceland and started out as a company making high-end organic food products. Initially the company’s meat balls contained only meat, but Mr. Nielsson said that after the financial crisis that hit Iceland, the company was forced to add vegetable stuffing and soy protein to its minced meat products to bring the price down for cash-strapped Icelandic consumers.

Following the discovery of the meatless meat pie, Mr. Nielsson says vegetarians have called him and said that the company should focus on making vegetarian pies.

“But we make meat pies and there should be meat in them, that’s what we do,” Mr. Nielsson said.

Now it is up to the Municipal Health Authority in Western Iceland to decide what further actions to take in the matter.

GeneChing
03-05-2013, 01:02 PM
... but I was hoping it would be China, not Kazakhstan.


In Kazakhstan, No Horror At Horse Meat (http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2013/03/04/173448013/in-kazakhstan-no-horror-at-horse-meat)
by Peter Kenyon
March 04, 2013 5:06 PM

http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2013/03/04/2471951249_horsemeat-0595dbe4a3ff663e3d21a04b08f412b49d621f03-s40.jpg
Signs advertise the type of meat sold in each section of the Green Market in Almaty, Kazakhstan.


Though the thought of horse meat in British lasagna or Ikea meatballs may be stomach-churning to some people, in some cultures the practice of eating horse meat is not just acceptable, it's a treat. NPR's Peter Kenyon just returned from the Central Asian republic of Kazakhstan and checked out the meat market at the Green Bazaar in Almaty. He sent back this postcard.

In a cavernous hall, I found a long counter dripping with steaks, chops and ribs. A sign at the end of each aisle advertised the animal on display: lamb, cow, goat and, toward the back, horse.

Those aisles were attracting plenty of customers, despite the fact that horse meat costs more than beef. That's a far different situation than in Europe, where scandal erupted over cheaper horse meat substituted for more expensive beef.

In the Green Baazar, horse breast and ribs are very popular, as is a fatty part of the neck, according to Farida, one of the knife-wielding women working there.

But the ultimate delicacy is kazy, a boiled horse sausage served on special occasions and to honored guests. It's so essential to Kazah cuisine that the country's Olympic team begged to be allowed to bring it to London for the 2012 games.

When I asked Farida about the horse meat scandal in Europe, she made it clear that she's far too polite to make fun of another country's gastronomic foibles.

"The British people honor the horse, and they don't eat it. They haven't got the tradition," she said. "Here in Kazakhstan, our ancestors ate horses, and it is deeply connected to our identity."

Those connections are centuries deep. The Kazakhs' forebears rode across the steppes with Genghis Khan in the 13th century. The army moved with alarming speed, thanks to its sturdy horses, with three or four per warrior. Those horses also provided milk, blood and eventually meat to fuel the army.

In the market, 60-year-old Nurseit watched as fistfuls of crushed garlic were mixed with horse breast and salt, and stuffed into sausage casings to make kazy. Nurseit laughed as he remembered bringing some kazy to the United States for his son, a diplomat. At the airport, the sniffer tog twitched and turned his way, but he managed to deliver the prize safely.

After the market, I decided to try it myself, at the Seven Treasures restaurant. I found it delicious, not unlike very tender venison.

But that's not the only horse product on the menu. My translator, Aibar, dared me to try fermented mare's milk, which is known to back quite a kick.

"It's very good, actually," Aibar said. "There shouldn't be that much alcohol in it, probably about 10, nine degrees."

The milk is sour, smoky and gamy all at once.

Actually, through, I feel a sudden urge to conquer the steppes. Maybe after one more bite of this delicious sausage. What is it again?

Lucas
03-05-2013, 03:50 PM
http://cdn.ebaumsworld.com/thumbs/2013/02/01/075648/83061488/vs1.jpg

GeneChing
04-19-2013, 01:40 PM
Alas Andalusia

Legendary horses latest victim of Spain's bust (http://www.sfgate.com/default/article/Legendary-horses-latest-victim-of-Spain-s-bust-4443648.php)
By ALAN CLENDENNING, Associated Press
Updated 11:30 am, Thursday, April 18, 2013

ALMONTE, Spain (AP) — The southern Spanish region of Andalusia, famed for flamenco and Moorish castles, is also home to a legendary breed of horses that carried conquistadors into battle in the Americas, featured in Hollywood epics and more recently became trophy acquisitions for Spaniards during a giddy economic boom.

On his grassy ranch in the territory's heartland, 73-year-old Francisco Mesa breeds these "Pura Raza Espanola" — Pure Spanish Breed — horses with a passion that comes from years of pampering the elegant beasts known for their intelligence and affection for humans. He enters a muddy pen and is immediately surrounded by mares and foals who nuzzle him with tenderness, oblivious of their almost certain fate: the slaughterhouse.

Barring an unlikely reprieve, Mesa's purebreds will be turned into horse meat for export come July. They are victims of a wrenching economic downturn that has wiped out fortunes, turned housing developments into ghost towns and left more than a quarter of the population out of work.

The Pura Raza Espanola breed has always been popular in Spain but took off just after the start of the country's biggest ever economic boom in the late 1990s. They had already won fame as war horses and gifts exchanged between European nobility, and have been featured in Hollywood films such as "Gladiator" and "Braveheart." The spike in demand over the last decade triggered a breeding frenzy in which the number of horses in Spain rose by the hundreds of thousands, nearly half of them purebreds like Pura Raza Espanola. Spain's newly minted affluent classes couldn't get enough of them.

Then came the bust of Spain's property bubble in 2008. First demand for the horses dried up. Now, as the financial crisis deepens with no end in sight, there's a new dilemma: Horse owners are increasingly unable to pay for the animals' upkeep. It all means that they face slaughter if owners can't find anybody to take the animals off their hands. Until last year, Spanish law even dictated that rejected horses must be sent to the slaughterhouse. That's no longer the case but most still are turned into meat because there's little alternative if nobody else is willing to take the horses in. Owners who simply abandon horses face steep fines.

The number of horses sent to slaughter in Spain by owners and breeders hit 70,000 last year, more than double the 30,000 recorded killed by the country's Agriculture Ministry in 2008.

Mesa grew up on a farm where horses were the machinery before the machines came in, and has been in the breeding business since 1991. He used to sell his purebreds for tens of thousands of euros each, and is now desperately trying to unload his 25 horses cheap or give them away to save their lives. He is horrified at the strong prospect of them being turned into meat that few Spaniards eat, but is exported to other European countries — especially France and Italy.

In these lean times, Mesa says he can't justify spending any more of his monthly government pension, supplemented by rent his son gets from another farm, to pay the cost of the horses' upkeep. So he has set a June deadline for finding a new owner for his horses. If he can't, this is what happens: A buyer who sells horses to the slaughterhouses pays about 150 euros ($200) per animal, and sends a truck to pick them up. The horses then remain in a corral until the local slaughterhouse gets through its waiting list of horses slated for butchery.

"We want them to stay alive and we are trying to see if we can get something back of what we have spent on them," Mesa said. "And if not I fear as a last resort, with all the pain in my heart, we will have to send them to the slaughterhouse. But I am begging for help. I don't want to make any money out of this."

Mesa doesn't believe the market for prize horses that Spain enjoyed for years will come back in his lifetime. It's a view that animal breeding experts and government officials agree with.

"Horses were a status symbol and lots of people bought them, learned to ride, and the horse breeders prospered" said Carlos Buxade, an animal husbandry professor and head of the animal production department at the Polytechnical University of Madrid. "What's happening now is that it costs 350 to 400 euros ($455 to $520) a month to maintain a horse and there's a lot of people who can't" afford that anymore.

Spain is in "crisis for everything that is luxury, and horses are a luxury," Buxade added.

The Agriculture Ministry horse census counted 660,889 horses in Spain this year, down from a high of 748,622 in 2011 — but the number is still much higher than the 435,598 counted in 2007 just before Spain's economic boom imploded. Veterinarians and horse experts warn that the high number of horses being killed in Spain could continue for years. Government officials have taken notice but there doesn't seem to be any solution to prevent the slaughters.

It all boils down to simple economics: Horses have useful lives of 10 to 12 years, and many of those alive now were born just a few years ago for a market that has disappeared. Many breeders have gone out of business and those that remain are breeding fewer horses, said Leopoldo Fernandez, president of the Spain-based Union of Breeders of Spanish Horses association.

"The inventory is being diminished and breeders are being diminished," said Fernandez, who founded Spain's huge Telepizza restaurant chain and runs a large Pura Raza Espanola breeding operation in Segovia, about an hour from Madrid. "You have the breeder who throws in the towel, and the breeder diminishing the amount he is breeding. Horses are either being sold at a very low price or going to the butcher. We don't know how many people are digging holes in the ground and putting their horses there."

Fernandez said he's seen evidence of some Spanish breeders underfeeding their horses amid their struggle to make ends meet. And animal rights activists say the crisis has sparked an increase in the number of abandoned horses despite the threat of fines.

But Buxade said the slaughterhouse is still the more common fate. The reason: Most Spanish horse owners complied with a government mandate requiring microchips that include ownership details to be surgically implanted into horses. That means owners who abandon their horses can be tracked down and assessed penalties ranging from hundreds to thousands of euros.

"It's much better for a horse owner who can't pay for his horse anymore to send it to the slaughterhouse so no one goes after you, but it's not something that makes money for the owner because the horse is worth a lot more than the meat," he said. "Sending it to the slaughterhouse just saves you the day to day costs."

Breeder Francisco Jose Rodriguez has given away two of his Spanish purebred horses to friends in recent months and has no plans for breeding the mare that just a few years ago produced offspring he could sell for between 4,000 euros and 12,000 euros each. Letting her give birth to more foals now would just add to his horse feeding and veterinary costs.

The breeding business Rodriguez started on the side in Almonte from his fruit growing operation has turned "into a hobby, a pastime."

"If you can't eat because you don't have any money, the horse is going to get a lot less," Rodriguez said. "I want to avoid sending my horses to the slaughterhouse, but if my work dries up, I'll have to do it. It was a business before, now it's destruction."

A few kilometers (miles) away at his ranch, Mesa is trying to unload a stallion that would have fetched 20,000 or 30,000 euros a few years ago for 4,000 euros. He's ready to give that horse and the rest of his away if he can't sell them by the end of June.

He's set that deadline because it coincides with the annual pilgrimage of Catholic faithful to a nearby hermitage to see the small carved statue of the Virgin of El Rocio. The event frequently draws a million people, many on horseback or in horse-drawn carriages, in keeping with tradition.

Mesa said he'll use the event to advertise his horses for one last time to a crowd that appreciates them — and might want to spare his from being slaughtered.

"I'm a horse lover, and I'm doing everything I can to save their lives," he said.

GeneChing
05-01-2013, 02:57 PM
At this point, BK should just give in and offer a horsemeat Whopper. They could call it the Whinny. :p


Federal Approval Near for Opening of Horse Meat Processing Plant in New Mexico (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/01/us/horse-meat-processing-plant-approval-near.html?_r=0)
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: April 30, 2013

ALBUQUERQUE (AP) — The southern New Mexico plant that has been fighting for more than a year for permission to slaughter horses will open soon, unless Congress reinstates a ban on the practice, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said Tuesday.

In a telephone interview on Tuesday, Mr. Vilsack said his department was working to make sure the process was handled properly for the opening of what would be the first domestic horse slaughterhouse in six years.

“We are going to do this, and I would imagine that it would be done relatively soon,” he said.

The Valley Meat Company sued the Department of Agriculture last year, asserting that inaction on its application was driven by emotional political debates and that the delays had cost it hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The department reinspected the plant last week.

“It will open unless Congress restores the ban on horse slaughter that they had in place,” Mr. Vilsack said. “If that doesn’t happen, then we are duty bound to do what needs to be done to allow that plant to begin processing.”

The Obama administration opposes horse slaughter. Its recent budget proposal eliminates financing for inspections of horse slaughterhouses, which would effectively reinstate a ban on the practice in which horses are processed for human consumption. Congress eliminated that financing in 2006, which forced a shutdown of domestic slaughter facilities. But Congress reinstated the money in 2011, prompting Valley Meat and a few other businesses around the country to seek permission to open plants.

The debate over whether to return to domestic horse slaughter has divided horse rescue and animal humane groups, ranchers, politicians and Indian tribes.

At issue is whether horses are livestock or pets, and how best to control the nation’s exploding equine population. Supporters of horse slaughter point to a 2011 report from the federal Government Accountability Office that shows horse abuse and abandonment have been increasing since 2006. They say it is better to slaughter the animals in humane, federally regulated plants than have them abandoned to starve across the drought-stricken West or shipped to inhumane plants south of the border.

The number of horses in the United States sent to other countries for slaughter has nearly tripled since 2006. And many humane groups agree that some of the worst abuse occurs in the slaughter pipeline. Many are pushing for both a ban on domestic slaughter as well as a ban on shipping horses to Mexico and Canada.

Mr. Vilsack says the administration understands the concerns and “needs to be more creative” in finding alternative solutions to horse overpopulation.

GoldenBrain
05-01-2013, 06:17 PM
They could call it the Whinny. :p

Bwaaaaahahahahaha!

As long as it's served as the mane course. :D

Brule
05-03-2013, 07:10 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/more-arrests-for-selling-fake-and-spoiled-meat-show-chinas-food-safety-troubles-persist/2013/05/02/3b42506e-b39a-11e2-9fb1-62de9581c946_story.html

GeneChing
05-15-2013, 05:52 PM
I think I just choked on my horse meat.

Dubious School Lunch Ingredient Spotted in China – Rodent Meat (http://en.rocketnews24.com/2013/05/15/dubious-school-lunch-ingredient-spotted-in-china-rodent-meat/)
yesterday by Mike
http://sociorocketnewsen.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/ratmeat-header.jpg?w=438&h=321

Surely we all used to joke about the poor quality of school cafeteria food, but a Chinese high school student wasn’t joking when he posted this picture of his school cafeteria breakfast, which appears to contain a fully cooked mouse or rat nestled snugly in his rice ball, to Weibo – China’s native social media site.

Somehow, the post got by the skittish Chinese cyber police, who are known to close down unsavory searches and online postings. One would think depictions of rat meat being fed to unsuspecting kids would pop up on their radar pretty fast.

Other users followed the post with depictions of meals containing everything from rat bones to insects, supposedly from the same Wenzhou meal provider.

Given China’s somewhat dubious history of bending international copyright laws, I’m almost surprised the company in question didn’t claim the rodent-infused rice ball was some grotesque Disney collaboration.

GeneChing
09-06-2013, 11:16 AM
What part of the chicken is the nugget anyway?


Was Your Chicken Nugget Made In China? It'll Soon Be Hard To Know (http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2013/09/05/219377718/was-your-chicken-nugget-made-in-china-itll-soon-be-hard-to-know?utm_source=NPR&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=20130906)
by Maria Godoy
September 05, 2013 6:41 PM

Here's a bit of news that might make you drop that chicken nugget midbite.

Just before the start of the long holiday weekend last Friday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture quietly that it was ending a ban on processed chicken imports from China. The kicker: These products can now be sold in the U.S. without a country-of-origin label.

For starters, just four Chinese processing plants will be allowed to export cooked chicken products to the U.S., as first reported by . The plants in question passed USDA inspection in March. Initially, these processors will only be allowed to export chicken products made from birds that were raised in the U.S. and Canada. Because of that, the poultry processors won't be required to have a USDA inspector on site, as The New York Times , adding:

"And because the poultry will be processed, it will not require country-of-origin labeling. Nor will consumers eating chicken noodle soup from a can or chicken nuggets in a fast-food restaurant know if the chicken came from Chinese processing plants."

That's a pretty disturbing thought for anyone who's followed the slew of stories regarding food safety failures in China in recent years. As we've on The Salt, this year alone, thousands of dead pigs turned up in the waters of Shanghai, rat meat was passed off as mutton and — perhaps most disconcerting for U.S. consumers — there was an outbreak of the among live fowl in fresh meat markets.

What's more, critics fear that the changes could eventually open the floodgates for a whole slew of chicken products from China. As the industry publication notes:

"It is thought ... that the government would eventually expand the rules, so that chickens and turkeys bred in China could end up in the American market. Experts suggest that this could be the first step towards allowing China to export its own domestic chickens to the U.S."

The USDA's decision comes with a backdrop of long-running trade disputes over meat between the U.S. and China. In a nutshell: China banned U.S. beef exports in 2003 after a case of mad cow disease turned up in a Washington state cow. Then, when the bird flu virus broke out widely among Asian bird flocks in 2004, the U.S. blocked imports of Chinese poultry. China challenged that decision in front of the World Trade Organization, which in China's favor in 2010.

And, chicken lovers, brace yourselves: There's more. A report suggests chicken inspections here in the U.S. might be poised to take a turn for the worse. The Government Accountability Office this week it has serious "questions about the validity" of the new procedures for inspecting poultry across the country.

Basically, these changes would replace many USDA inspectors on chicken processing lines with employees from the poultry companies themselves. The USDA has been piloting the new procedures, which will save money and significantly speed up processing lines, in 29 chicken plants. As The Washington Post , the plan is to roll out the new procedures eventually to "most of the country's 239 chicken and 96 turkey plants."

The problem? According to the GAO, the USDA did a poor job of evaluating the effectiveness of the pilot programs it has in place.

As a result, the report concludes, it's hard to justify the USDA's conclusions that the new procedures will do a better job than current approaches at cutting down on the number of dangerous bacteria like salmonella that pop up on the birds that will later end up on our dinner tables.

Still, the USDA maintains that the changes will, in fact, boost food safety. In a published on Food Safety News, USDA food safety and inspections administrator writes, "If finalized and implemented broadly, this new inspection system would enable [USDA inspectors] to better fulfill our food safety mission. Nothing in the GAO's report contradicts this basic fact."

GoldenBrain
09-06-2013, 06:29 PM
Yummmmmy, pressed chicken parts! I'm sure it'll be safe to eat after they decontaminate the chicken parts with ammonia. :rolleyes:

It doesn't surprise me that they are going to allow this. The FDA for instance has known about the addition of arsenic to chicken feed which bulks up the chickens and enhances the color of the meat. I guess as long as everybody, from the commercial chicken farms to the doctors (who will be the ones to treat the disease from all the arsenic) are making money, and our economy is chugging along then it's all okay.

http://www.naturalnews.com/040556_arsenic_chicken_feed_contamination.html


Cows aren't exempt from this treatment. They are commonly given feed laced with bata-agonists such as zilpaterol and zilmax, which are basically growth promoters. They feed cows these chemicals toward the end of their life cycle to bulk them up for sale.
I believe Merck has recently pulled zilmax off the market due to health concerns, though it has been used globally for the last 17 years, so who knows what damage it has already caused.

It would be really cool if home owners would reallocate much of the over 40 million acres of lawns in the US to grow their own food. Not only could could it be grown organically but it would save something like 7 billion gallons of fuel, 30-60% of the countries fresh water which is used for irrigation, and 3 million tons of fertilizer.

Now that's food for thought!

David Jamieson
09-09-2013, 11:19 AM
Horse meat is pretty good.
I think this shock story probably only shocks the people who don't know what the heck they are putting in themselves anyway. lol

GoldenBrain
09-09-2013, 12:10 PM
Horse meat is pretty good.

I'll take your word for it.;) I hear it's lean and sweet, but it's prone to parasites and what comes from the US, at least until recently when the USDA approved it for slaughter, is filled with equine meds which are not intended for human consumption. Also, for the devout bible thumpers out there it's considered an unclean animal due to it chewing cud but not having split hooves, so eating it is a no-no.



I think this shock story probably only shocks the people who don't know what the heck they are putting in themselves anyway. lol


Indeed. That's pretty much the point of the thread. Companies getting caught selling food where the meat is different than what's on the label. It's bad enough to eat those fat-burgers voluntarily but to be served one thing when you think it's another is just wrong.

Jimbo
09-09-2013, 12:26 PM
I'm glad I no longer eat fast food. My gluten sensitivity forced me to eliminate a lot of junk from my diet, even though I'm not necessarily a health food nut, either. So while it's kind of a hassle, especially when it comes to eating out, or visiting, etc.; I do feel a lot better. I also cut out beef and pork about 18 years ago.

A bit OT, but I'm cutting out seafood due to the contamination pouring into the Pacific from Fukushima. The major news media says it's safe, but if you really look into it, things are really a *lot* worse.

GoldenBrain
09-09-2013, 01:12 PM
I'm glad I no longer eat fast food. My gluten sensitivity forced me to eliminate a lot of junk from my diet, even though I'm not necessarily a health food nut, either. So while it's kind of a hassle, especially when it comes to eating out, or visiting, etc.; I do feel a lot better. I also cut out beef and pork about 18 years ago.

A bit OT, but I'm cutting out seafood due to the contamination pouring into the Pacific from Fukushima. The major news media says it's safe, but if you really look into it, things are really a *lot* worse.


I don't think a person should be labeled a health nut just because they use common sense when eating. I applaud you sir!

It's to bad about what happened to Fukushima. I ran across a study the other day that showed a pretty scary model of the radiation plume heading for North America. It appears that the plume is not dispersing in the ocean as much as they would have liked and so it may be more concentrated than expected when it hits the coast. That along with the crap loaded into the Gulf of Mexico and I can understand you not wanting to eat seafood.

Forgive me for saying "you should" but if you want to continue to eat clean seafood then you really should consider a small home aquaponics system. If you have any room on a balcony or porch or in the yard then you can set up a small 250 gallon system which would supply you with all the fish and leafy green veggies you could eat. If you raise tilapia then you can grow up to one fish per gallon, though I'd only recommend about 50 - 100 fish for that size tank. Also, you can set up another small tank to grow duck weed or spirulina which would give you all the fish food you need.

Jimbo
09-11-2013, 09:45 AM
I don't think a person should be labeled a health nut just because they use common sense when eating. I applaud you sir!

It's to bad about what happened to Fukushima. I ran across a study the other day that showed a pretty scary model of the radiation plume heading for North America. It appears that the plume is not dispersing in the ocean as much as they would have liked and so it may be more concentrated than expected when it hits the coast. That along with the crap loaded into the Gulf of Mexico and I can understand you not wanting to eat seafood.

Forgive me for saying "you should" but if you want to continue to eat clean seafood then you really should consider a small home aquaponics system. If you have any room on a balcony or porch or in the yard then you can set up a small 250 gallon system which would supply you with all the fish and leafy green veggies you could eat. If you raise tilapia then you can grow up to one fish per gallon, though I'd only recommend about 50 - 100 fish for that size tank. Also, you can set up another small tank to grow duck weed or spirulina which would give you all the fish food you need.

Cool suggestion! Thanks! Though I rarely ate seafood as it is, though I do like it.

Something also not talked about much is the concept of clouds that form off of the Pacific...the water that becomes the storm clouds. This, of course, makes it a global problem not limited to Japan/the Pacific/west coasts of U.S., Canada, etc. It's really disconcerting that something so small (the Fukushima plants) relative to the planet could likely/potentially create such wide-reaching destruction. I have heard it's much worse than even Chernobyl. Pretty much makes liars out of all those 'experts' who used to say how much cleaner and safer nuclear power is.

Back to eating meat, :) I do still eat poultry. I used to love beef and pork when I gave them up, but haven't miss them at all.

GeneChing
10-10-2013, 11:01 AM
This one is for bawang. :D

UPDATE 2-KFC parent Yum warns of delay in China sales recovery (http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/08/yum-results-idUSL1N0HY21820131008)
Tue Oct 8, 2013 7:25pm EDT
By Lisa Baertlein

Oct 8 (Reuters) - KFC parent Yum Brands Inc on Tuesday warned that it will take longer than expected for its China restaurant sales to rebound, delaying a recovery in the market that accounts for more than half of the company's overall operating profit.

Shares fell 7.5 percent as investors digested the news, which came after months of Yum executives reassuring investors that China restaurant sales would return to growth in the fourth quarter.

Yum's sales at established restaurants in China have taken a beating since last December when a social-media fueled food safety scare over chemical residues in chicken from some of its suppliers pummeled sales. That was followed by a bird flu outbreak that destroyed many diners' appetite for poultry.

The Louisville, Kentucky-based company operates more restaurants in China than any other U.S. brand and said it remains confident in its business in the world's fastest-growing major economy.

"KFC is unquestionably the category leader in China and we remain confident sales will fully recover," Chief Executive David Novak said in a statement.

MIDDLE CLASS AUSTERITY?

Yum attributed its China woes to the December scare, but some analysts suggest that its problems are of a different nature. They say China's middle-income diners - who flock to KFC - have cut their spending due to government austerity measures.

KFC also faces stronger competition from local eateries and the company may have opened too many fried chicken restaurants in China, those analysts said.

"We are seeing a slowing consumer spending environment in China," Edward Jones analyst Jack Russo told Reuters. Yum will "have to continue to run the restaurants really well and get messaging out there that consumers will be fine coming into the restaurants."

Yum's China same-restaurant sales fell 11 percent in the third quarter.

Those sales then dropped a steeper-than-expected 11 percent in September, which is the first month of the China division's fourth quarter that wraps up at year-end.

Yum will launch "an aggressive marketing campaign to fully restore consumer trust in the brand," spokesman Jonathan Blum told Reuters. He said trust in the KFC brand has improved in China since last December, but that it wasn't yet fully restored.

Thus far, Yum has culled all but its highest-quality suppliers. It also is planning a slew of menu items to drive more sales to KFC restaurants, which account for roughly 4,500 of the company's more than 6,000 restaurants in China.

Blum said Yum executives will elaborate on its new marketing plans on a conference call on Wednesday morning. He declined to give a new forecast for a restaurant sales turnaround in China.

Yum's third-quarter net income tumbled to $152 million, or 33 cents per share, from $471 million, or $1 per share, a year earlier. During the latest quarter, Yum had higher taxes and booked a charge related to its Little Sheep restaurants in China.

Excluding items, Yum earned 85 cents a share for the third quarter - missing analysts' call for a profit of 93 cents per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Based on the disappointing sales results from China, and a higher than expected full-year tax rate, Yum now expects an earnings per share decline for 2013 in the high-single to low-double-digit percentage range. It previously had expected a mid-single-digit percentage decline in full-year earnings per share. Both estimates exclude special items.

Shares in Yum fell $5.37 to $66.30 in extended trading.

GoldenBrain
10-10-2013, 12:29 PM
Should I change the title of this thread to "Fast Food Nastiness"?

We've gone way beyond BK anyway so I've got no problem with that. Make it so captain!

Jimbo
10-11-2013, 11:08 AM
In some cases, chicken nuggets are only 50% meat; the other 50% is fat, nerves, blood vessels, and intestines. In other cases, only 40% lean meat, the rest being fat, nerves and bone(!)...basically a mixture of various chicken parts.

mickey
10-11-2013, 11:22 AM
Greetings,

Jimbo:

I understand where you are coming from. I have stopped eating whiting fish since the BP oil spill. I could kick myself for not buying Hawaiian sea salt when I had the chance. I am really afraid to mess with the stuff now.

Japan may become a patsy in the Global warming paradigm. For a very long time. scientists from all over have been mum about the atomic bomb testings and the Hiroshima/Nagasaki bombings as key factors in the global warming we have been experiencing. The blame would cost the U.S. to much $$$.


mickey

sanjuro_ronin
10-11-2013, 11:24 AM
In some cases, chicken nuggets are only 50% meat; the other 50% is fat, nerves, blood vessels, and intestines. In other cases, only 40% lean meat, the rest being fat, nerves and bone(!)...basically a mixture of various chicken parts.

Here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FeB79ynDa0&feature=plcp

Syn7
10-11-2013, 12:15 PM
Greetings,

Jimbo:

I understand where you are coming from. I have stopped eating whiting fish since the BP oil spill. I could kick myself for not buying Hawaiian sea salt when I had the chance. I am really afraid to mess with the stuff now.

Japan may become a patsy in the Global warming paradigm. For a very long time. scientists from all over have been mum about the atomic bomb testings and the Hiroshima/Nagasaki bombings as key factors in the global warming we have been experiencing. The blame would cost the U.S. to much $$$.


mickey

You think Nuclear testing/use contributes more to GW than commercial industry? I haven't really looked into it, but that seems a bit much considering the sheer volume of one compared to the other. I was under the impression that it had an overall net cooling effect. Any legit peer reviewed docs on that I can look at? I ask for that because I'm not really interested in some writers opinion on the subject, I would rather just read the paper.

I think they have been "mum" because they've done the math. But by all means, if I'm wrong about that, show me some data. What info that has crossed my path suggests otherwise.

mickey
10-11-2013, 12:37 PM
Greetings Syn7,

Yes, the testings do lower the temperature; yet, it is the planet that is restoring the balance, hence the warming. I would not expect to find data for that. I admit that there are other factors that contribute as well.

mickey

GoldenBrain
10-11-2013, 12:46 PM
I personally don't think nuclear testing has contributed to climate change. I believe climate change is cyclical and though there are a lot of people and industry on earth we probably haven't contributed much to the process. With that said I do think we should reduce pollution and various emissions as much as possible because that just makes sense.

Now on to the nuclear testing. There have been 2053 nuclear explosions on earth between 1945 and 1998. Below is a time lapse map of every nuclear explosion since 1945. Instead of contributing to climate change maybe all these tests have contributed more to the high cancer rates we find ourselves dealing with.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLCF7vPanrY

Syn7
10-11-2013, 06:36 PM
Yah. I saw that vid a few years ago.
Here are some graphs:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/pics/unscear2000yields.jpg

http://www.skepticalscience.com/pics/2_nucleartesting.jpg

I like them better. The video is good for the whole emotional response thing, but the graphs provide you with a lil more context. I dunno bout globally, but they mos def cause(would that be the right word?) cancer in areas where "very bad things" happened. But that's a topic better suited for SoCo. I really don't know very much about cancer, so I'm not willing to speculate. If you look at both graphs together, you see a pretty clear picture as to what and when. It's not like it's been spread out over that whole time. And that matters, especially when talking about global warming.



Yes, the testings do lower the temperature; yet, it is the planet that is restoring the balance, hence the warming. I would not expect to find data for that. I admit that there are other factors that contribute as well.

Cool. Like what? And how? If there is no data, then what do you base any of this on? Know what I mean? Let's assume that the regeneration does cause heat(is there any data to suggest that toxic environments and/or areas with high concentration of radiation cause a non negligible temp. change over long periods of time? Like multiple decades?). Is that enough to offset the cooling? Again, w/o any data, how would you know? It's also worth noting that we don't really know if nuclear winter would be better or worse than models predict. It's not just the dust created by the explosions themselves, but also the aftermath. A lot of assumptions there. Reasonable, but assumptions just the same. I haven't seen any data to suggest that any nuclear explosion has ever had a non negligible cooling effect. As far as I know it's just an untested theory at this point. So I wouldn't go as far as saying that the testing have lowered temps. in any meaningful long term way. Just like I wouldn't go the other way and say it contributes to warming.

What I do know is that there is tons of data to show us what IS causing(at least in large part) man made global warming. TONS. Like overwhelming TONS. So if what you say is a factor at all, I don't think it's a moderate or major cause.

GoldenBrain
10-11-2013, 09:14 PM
I like the graphs. They definitely add a little more context as far as who and when. And, you're totally right about SoCal being the authority around here on cancers so maybe he'll weigh in on why cancer rates are so high.


What I do know is that there is tons of data to show us what IS causing(at least in large part) man made global warming. TONS. Like overwhelming TONS. So if what you say is a factor at all, I don't think it's a moderate or major cause.

This statement gave me a little pause. I was under the impression that in the last 15 years we have either cooled or at least not warmed up at all so how is this explained in the man is causing global warming evidence? From what I've read the earth is basically going through hot and cold fluctuations which naturally happens at the beginning and end of the warming phases between ice ages. Since we are at the end of a warming phase then it makes sense that we would be warming then cooling then warming...etc until the ice age starts up again. I'm not saying I'm right, just that this is my understanding of what's happening.

pazman
10-11-2013, 09:29 PM
http://en.rocketnews24.com/2013/10/11/burger-king-japan-unveils-a-black-ninja-burger-that-licks-you-back/


Burger King Japan unveils a black ninja burger that licks you back
Michelle Lynn Dinh

Burger King is bringing on the bizarre burgers once again with their new “Kuro Ninja,” a burger with a black bun and long, thick strip of bacon protruding out of one side. We’re not sure if ninjas ever stuck their tongues out at their enemies, but if they did and they were somehow magically transformed into a burger, this is what they’d look like.


The Kuro Ninja, or Black Ninja, is Burger King Japan’s newest sandwich. It has a pitch black bun colored with bamboo charcoal (nothing new), but this time, a huge slab of “King’s Bacon” juts out from the sides, making it look as if your delicious burger has sprouted a pink tongue. What’s more, that tongue is supposed to be that of a ninja…something like this:Screen Shot 2013-10-11 at 12.54.16 AM

The burger also comes with “wide-size” hash browns, onions, lettuce, mayonnaise, and a blackish brown Chaliapin sauce. The Kuro Ninja will be on sale starting October 25 for 680 yen (US$6.93). Customers who purchase a medium or large size set meal will receive Kuro Ninja character logo stickers!

Aren’t they cute?

Set your tongue on this friendly little raspberry-blowing burger while you can starting at the end of October. Like all gimicky Burger King entrees, this one will be gone faster than a ninja can stick out his tongue.


http://sociorocketnewsen.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/screen-shot-2013-10-11-at-12-53-27-am.png?w=495&h=626
I guess I no longer care what meat is in Burger King's burgers. I want myself a BLACK NINJA BURGER

Syn7
10-11-2013, 10:27 PM
I like the graphs. They definitely add a little more context as far as who and when. And, you're totally right about SoCal being the authority around here on cancers so maybe he'll weigh in on why cancer rates are so high.



This statement gave me a little pause. I was under the impression that in the last 15 years we have either cooled or at least not warmed up at all so how is this explained in the man is causing global warming evidence? From what I've read the earth is basically going through hot and cold fluctuations which naturally happens at the beginning and end of the warming phases between ice ages. Since we are at the end of a warming phase then it makes sense that we would be warming then cooling then warming...etc until the ice age starts up again. I'm not saying I'm right, just that this is my understanding of what's happening.

We are warming naturally. But it's a really long process. A ton of data is available with a google search. Stay away from opinionated pieces, layman interpretations etc. Just look at the many many MANY peer reviewed papers that are floating around. When you find one, look up the author, learn what you can so you get an idea of where they're coming from, who vetted it etc. Look at temps. over the last hundred years in northern areas that aren't very populated, if at all. If you can find a graph, even better. Source it, find out how it came to be and if you're satisfied with it's authenticity(cause there is a ton of misinformation out there) then look at the trends. Go learn about the rate at which the ice caps are melting. There are some pretty sweet pictures out there. Lot's of before and after deals. There is a lot to find, so you shouldn't have much trouble. Try from stay away from papers published by anyone with any sort of political agenda. So basically **** think tanks! There is a lot of bull**** on the left and the right of this. That isn't to say the answer is in the middle, I'm just sayin, there are some crazy left wingers out there who are just as retarded as their counterparts to the right. If you find anything good, post it up.

Alex Córdoba
10-12-2013, 02:01 AM
It seems like we are too much people and we live too much years.

They are taking risks to reduce half the population.

Syn7
10-12-2013, 07:55 AM
It's an illuminati eugenic conspiracy. That's why Obamacare is forcing everyone to get chips in their arms!

GoldenBrain
10-12-2013, 09:16 AM
It's an illuminati eugenic conspiracy. That's why Obamacare is forcing everyone to get chips in their arms!

Oh great, you just had to tell him!:mad: I have no choice, but to report you!


7842

Syn7
10-12-2013, 06:51 PM
Guess I'm not in the club anymore. :( Now my only choice for world domination is through the theocrats. ****! They be crazy!

GoldenBrain
10-12-2013, 11:38 PM
If the theocrats aren't crazy enough for you then you could always join up with captain hair.

7846

Raipizo
10-14-2013, 07:25 PM
If the theocrats aren't crazy enough for you then you could always join up with captain hair.

7846

Oh god lol that's funny. That show is ridiculous.

GoldenBrain
10-14-2013, 10:18 PM
Oh god lol that's funny. That show is ridiculous.

:D Totally ridiculous indeed, but I'll admit that I sometimes watch it in the background while surfing the world wide inter-webs. My wife and I like to make fun of it just like we do with B horror and apocalyptic end of days movies. It's all just great fodder but that meme is on another level hilarious.

GeneChing
10-30-2013, 10:03 AM
We've gone way beyond BK anyway so I've got no problem with that. Make it so captain!
This thread was formerly called "Burger King admits selling burgers containing horse meat". I'm changing it to "Fast Food Nastiness" and leaving you with this video (food for thought): The Making Of 'Gutter Oil' (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrv78nG9R04)

David Jamieson
10-30-2013, 11:26 AM
This thread was formerly called "Burger King admits selling burgers containing horse meat". I'm changing it to "Fast Food Nastiness" and leaving you with this video (food for thought): The Making Of 'Gutter Oil' (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrv78nG9R04)

I avoid street food in Canada and the USA.
I for sure avoid it everywhere else.

Sorry any street food vendors here, but I won't eat that stuff. Ever.

bawang
10-30-2013, 12:32 PM
I avoid street food in Canada and the USA.
I for sure avoid it everywhere else.

Sorry any street food vendors here, but I won't eat that stuff. Ever.

when I was a boy a Uyghur woman sold me rat meat shishkababs and told me it was lamb.

mawali
10-30-2013, 01:51 PM
It depends where you are and the visible eating areas or not.
In Parwan Province, I would not eat out in the street of a local village because I never saw water of any kind to wash stuff (food, hands, etc) but I would often eat some local pilau at inside perimeter vendors allowed to sell food only because they were vetted and they had US or UK sanitary training beforehand.

I saw Science edition article that we might be eating pertri dish meat in the coming future:D

GoldenBrain
10-30-2013, 05:49 PM
This thread was formerly called "Burger King admits selling burgers containing horse meat". I'm changing it to "Fast Food Nastiness" and leaving you with this video (food for thought): The Making Of 'Gutter Oil' (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrv78nG9R04)

Thanks Gene! I like the new thread title.

I've never heard of "Gutter Oil." That's just naaaaaaasty!

GoldenBrain
10-30-2013, 05:53 PM
when I was a boy a Uyghur woman sold me rat meat shishkababs and told me it was lamb.

Was it good? I've had squirrel, and it's pretty tasty. We have a bunch of fat squirrels around here, but I'm saving them for the end of days...:D

Syn7
10-30-2013, 07:12 PM
Was it good? I've had squirrel, and it's pretty tasty. We have a bunch of fat squirrels around here, but I'm saving them for the end of days...:D

Squirrel stew! Redneck delicacy.

GoldenBrain
10-30-2013, 09:14 PM
Squirrel stew! Redneck delicacy.

Hahahahaha! At least I'm a cultured redneck. I also eat my own homegrown tilapia, rainbow trout, channel cat, and stripped bass. Yum yum! :p



7898

Spiked
10-31-2013, 06:39 AM
burger king isn't food anyways.

Burger King and other forms of fast food are the only food when you are on a road trip. That is unless you pre-packed your girly lettuce sanshwiches before the trip. :)

GoldenBrain
10-31-2013, 12:40 PM
Burger King and other forms of fast food are the only food when you are on a road trip. That is unless you pre-packed your girly lettuce sanshwiches before the trip. :)


If you don't want the normal fast food then here's a suggestion. When we road trip we see Walmart and other grocery stores along the way, so we sometimes stop at those places and hit the deli or shop the parameter for fresh foods.

Syn7
10-31-2013, 03:16 PM
Burger King and other forms of fast food are the only food when you are on a road trip. That is unless you pre-packed your girly lettuce sanshwiches before the trip. :)

You have no imagination what so ever if all you can find is fast food on a road trip.

GoldenBrain
10-31-2013, 07:01 PM
On the road again…just can't wait to get on the road again...:D


7899

GeneChing
11-01-2013, 04:34 PM
...I could think of several threads to post this on here. But this one is on top, so here it goes.


Slaughterhouse near Shanghai pawns cat meat off as rabbit (http://shanghaiist.com/2013/11/01/slaughterhouse-pawns-cat-meat-as-rabbit-meat.php)

http://shanghaiist.com/attachments/benjamincost/catmeat1.jpg
Police raided a "black" slaughterhouse in Huai'an City near Shanghai that had been selling cat meat to Guangdong and Guangxi provinces under the guise of rabbit, The Telegraph reports:

The discovery was made at around 4:30am on Wednesday morning when a tip-off led police and food safety officers to a clandestine abattoir in Chang'an village in the city of Huaian, around 260 miles northwest of Shanghai. Inside one anonymous residential building, they found freezers packed with the brittle carcasses of dozens of domestic cats.

“The floor was spattered with blood and there was bad smell,” the local Modern Express newspaper reported in a grisly dispatch from inside the slaughterhouse.

The Modern Express claimed the abattoir’s specialty had been transforming the corpses of thousands of “homeless and domesticated” felines into a lucrative and illegal trade. Some of the cats were kept alive and shipped to the southern provinces of Guangdong and Guangxi where they were sold for around 10 yuan (£1) per animal. Others were slaughtered in situ or died in their cages before being sold to butchers or at local markets under the guise of “rabbit”.

The “rabbit” was then served in local restaurants, state media claimed.

This video from Jiangsu TV gives us the gritty details:

Though this may pain cat lovers (author included), the fact that your favorite pet is being eaten is small potatoes compared to the bigger issue that eating meat in China seems more and more like throwing darts blindfolded at a menagerie. With pork disguised as beef, rat disguised as mutton, and cat disguised as multiple meats (it's also posed as lamb), it's hard to tell what you're going to get, and where these substitutes are sourced. Not that the sources of the real meat are always so spectacular.

http://shanghaiist.com/attachments/benjamincost/catmeat2.jpg
There's a vid in Chinese if you follow the link.

Jimbo
11-01-2013, 04:54 PM
On the road again…just can't wait to get on the road again...:D


7899

Years ago, I was given a coupon for a free lunch at a Hometown Buffet (the only time I was to eat there), and the time I was there, almost everyone else I saw was severely overweight. In fact, there was an entire family like that, and the youngest kid looked a lot like that photo! Each one of them had platefuls of food and a few big desserts. The kid, who was around 7 years old and probably outweighed me, started on his cake, and his mom said, "You can eat that after you finish your meal." As I recall, his meal consisted of something like a big burger, a hot dog, pizza, steak/potatoes/corn, etc., plus a couple types of cake and some pies.

I also remember seeing a guy who had to be 7' tall but was morbidly obese as well. While the food itself wasn't bad, I think the buffet-style restaurants make it very easy to habitually overeat due to all the variety in one place at a cheap price.

GoldenBrain
11-01-2013, 05:01 PM
Once I was given a coupon for a free lunch at a Hometown Buffet (the only time I was to eat there), and the time I was there, almost everyone else I saw was severely overweight. In fact, there was an entire family like that, and the youngest kid looked a lot like that photo! Each one of them had platefuls of food and a few big desserts. The kid, who was around 7 years old and probably outweighed me, started on his cake, and his mom said, "You can eat that after you finish your meal." As I recall, his meal consisted of something like a big burger, a hot dog, pizza, steak/potatoes/corn, etc., plus a couple types of cake and some pies.

I also remember seeing a guy who had to be 7' tall but was morbidly obese as well.

This is the sad truth in western society, and the U.S. in particular. I stay FAR away from buffets, but even when I happen to eat at one I have some measure of self control. Just because the food is there doesn't mean I have to eat it all at once.

GeneChing
01-06-2014, 09:41 AM
Happy Year of the Horse!



It’s the year of the horse, so let’s… eat a horse!? (http://en.rocketnews24.com/2014/01/05/its-the-year-of-the-horse-so-lets-eat-a-horse/)
Joan Coello 2 days ago

http://sociorocketnewsen.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/12424412.jpg?w=580&h=435
2014 is the year of the horse, according to the Chinese zodiac. The Chinese zodiac animals play an important role in Japanese new year traditions, even though they no longer follow the Chinese lunar calendar. Themed goods featuring the zodiac animal of the year can be seen almost everywhere you go when the new year comes around. Yokohama originated bakery Pompadour created this adorable horse character bun for the occasion!

Wait, what? There’s real horse meat in it?!

The Japanese have been known to eat horse meat, especially enjoying it as basashi (horse sashimi). But the raw delicacy doesn’t come cheap and definitely doesn’t commonly appear on the dining tables of regular families. This cute snack, Uma no Pan (horse bread), makes the pricey meat available at an affordable price of 189 yen (US$1.80). And word is, it’s selling like hotcakes.

But how does it taste? Our reporter Chie tries it, and this is her verdict:

The horse has an adorable face.

The savory snack fits in the palm, is decorated with shredded leek for a mane, and raisins for its eyes, giving it a cute and kind look. Plus, it’s a charming white horse! Fresh out of a fairytale.

There is horse meat in it!

This horse bun has a savory filling of horse meat stewed in soy sauce and sugar. Horse meat in a horse bun, this thing’s the real deal! The bread has a soft and chewy texture, which matches the flavorful filling in perfect harmony. The raisin eyes add a timely burst of flavor and boosts the overall satisfaction factor! It’s kind of similar to eating a steamed meat bun, but this meat bun would taste just as fine left cold.

There’s also a sweeter “Snake Bun”.

Last year was the year of the snake, so they made a snake character bread to commemorate the passing of the year. This one’s shaped like a coronet, with a comical head attached to it. It has a pudding cream filling (no snake meat, don’t worry). Unlike the horse bun, the bread for the snake bun is slightly sweet, fluffy and soft, striking a great balance with its cream filling. This one’s yummy too!

http://sociorocketnewsen.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/41241212.jpg?w=580&h=435
http://sociorocketnewsen.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/41242141242.jpg?w=580&h=435

The question is, cultural differences aside, could you bring yourself to eat a pastry containing horse meat?

GoldenBrain
01-08-2014, 08:13 PM
Awe, isn't that cute? :D It's kind of like the pigs in a blanket we used to eat in elementary school. You know, before they learned that eating that crap everyday will put you in an early grave.

GeneChing
02-13-2014, 10:03 AM
Cuz nothing says 'tasty coffee' like azodicarbonamide.


Starbucks Admits to Using Food Additive in China While Subway and McDonald's Deny (http://www.thebeijinger.com/blog/2014/02/12/starbucks-admits-using-food-additive-china-subway-and-mcdonalds-deny)
Submitted by Charles Liu on Feb 12, 2014 11:00 am

http://www.thebeijinger.com/sites/default/files/u307891/starbucks-02.jpeg
Add a little bounce to your coffee

With the news yesterday that bread baked at Subway stores in China does not contain azodicarbonamide, we stated yesterday that "if you trust multi-national corporations, you can rest your worried souls." Unfortunately, that's not quite true. While Subway China is joined by denials of azodicarbonamide use along with McDonald's China, other multi-national corporations are taking a different track.

In a moment of corporate candor, Starbucks admitted to news agencies the Global Times and the Beijing Times that they use the chemical additive azodicarbonamide in food products sold in their China stores in an e-mail sent Monday night.

Although approved by the FDA, the use of this food additive has courted controversy after it was found the chemical could release carcinogens when baked at a high temperature. Used in springy yoga mats and bouncy shoe soles, the ambiguousness of the law concerning the use of azodicarbonamide has led to its widespread use in the USA; allegations of other US restaurants using the food additive implicate companies like McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's, Arby's, Jack in the Box, and Chick-a-Fils.

If you must enjoy a pastry while having your weekly language exchange and are still worried, Starbucks wants you to know that they are a multi-national corporation that follows the rules. As detailed in this admission of azodicarbonamide use, Starbucks states that azodicarbonamide is an approved food additive for pastry production according to GB2760 China Food Additive Standard, and as such is fully compliant with local food safety regulations in China. And since when have food safety regulations ever been suspect in China, huh?

Much like how the steady Tweeting of PM 2.5 emissions by the US Embassy in Beijing eventually led to a national awareness of air pollution, it again appears that a proactive US campaign is leading to social change in China. The rise of social awareness can only serve to put a spring in your step.

GoldenBrain
02-15-2014, 04:48 PM
Azodicarbonamide is just one word for why we no longer eat out. Except for really nice restaurants where we know the chefs and know for sure the food is quality.

Here's a fact. If you want to eat healthy then don't eat any food that's in a commercial. Yup, that's fo-sho!

GeneChing
04-11-2014, 04:07 PM
There are nearly 500 mentions of 'pizza' on this forum. Shows you where our minds are at...


China Pizza Passion Has Fonterra Riding Mozzarella Wave (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-08/china-pizza-passion-has-fonterra-riding-mozzarella-wave.html)
By David Stringer Apr 8, 2014 10:56 PM PT

http://www.bloomberg.com/image/iSsVBtRRsCYo.jpg
Photographer: Imaginechina/AP Photo
Visitors taste pizza during the 13th SIAL China show at Shanghai New International Expo...

While China’s economy may be slowing, its love affair with pizza is raging.

And from Hoboken, New Jersey, to Pudong, Shanghai, you can’t make pizza pie without mozzarella. That’s good news for Fonterra Cooperative Group Ltd. (FSF), the world’s biggest dairy exporter and China’s top supplier of the cheese.

The Auckland-based company plans to lift mozzarella output to 50,000 metric tons a year by September 2015, enough to garnish about 350 million pizzas. It forecasts demand for the cheese in China will gain about 20 percent this year and next.

Yum! Brands Inc. (YUM), operator of restaurant chains including Pizza Hut, estimates China’s consuming class will double to 600 million people by 2020, driving demand for fast food. Fonterra, which also supplies Domino’s Pizza Inc. (DPZ), is raising mozzarella output across its two New Zealand plants and aims to more than double the number of its offices and operations in China to 50 locations to meet dairy demand.

“Particularly in Asia, they like the stretch of mozzarella and couple of times a night in a Pizza Hut or a Domino’s, or a pizzeria, they’ll have stretch contests,” Rene Dedoncker, Melbourne-based director of Fonterra’s foodservice division, said in an interview. “The appetite of the consumer in China for Western diets and for pizza, which is seen to be quite iconic,” is forecast to keep growing, he said.

http://www.bloomberg.com/image/ijfM4bQmpr4w.jpg
Photographer: Mario Laporta/AFP/Getty Images
Fonterra Cooperative Group Ltd. forecasts demand for mozzarella in China will gain... Read More

Units in Fonterra Shareholders Fund declined 0.2 percent to NZ$6.17 at the close, trimming their advance this year to 6.4 percent.
City Shift

China is consuming more protein and dairy as changing tastes are accelerated by a population shift to the cities. Urban inhabitants spend two and a half times more on food compared to those in the countryside, HSBC Holdings Plc said in a March report. That’s spurring growth in a global pizza market that was worth about $125 billion a year at the end of 2012, according to Euromonitor International Plc.

Fonterra, which got 13 percent of its revenue in China in fiscal 2013, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, has invested NZ$72 million ($62 million) to raise mozzarella output at its Clandeboye, New Zealand, plant. New technology will enable the company to cut to one day from two months the length of time it takes to make the cheese, Dedoncker said.

“The growth of fast food and processed food throughout Asia is leading to higher demand for processed cheese and mozzarella,” said Mark Topy, a Melbourne-based analyst at Canaccord Genuity Group Inc. “There’s going to be some opportunities in that space for companies that can provide a long term supply of mozzarella.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/image/i0SJqfnLhXJk.jpg
Photographer: Ariana Lindquist/Bloomberg
A Pizza Hut restaurant stands in Shanghai. China is consuming more protein and dairy as... Read More
First Pizza Chain

Louisville, Kentucky-based Yum!, which opened China’s first pizza chain in 1990, will add at least 700 new food outlets in the country this year and swell the number of Pizza Huts to 1,100. Papa John’s International Inc. also competes in China, with about 202 outlets, according to a March 25 filing.

China’s pizza market was worth about $2 billion in 2012, or 1.6 percent of the global market, an increase from 2007 when it accounted for about $822 million of a $111.2 billion world market, according to data compiled by Euromonitor International. Yum! took more than half its sales from China in the 12 months to Dec. 28, according to Bloomberg data.

To be sure, Fonterra faces global competition from Leprino Foods Co. and Saputo Inc. (SAP), Canada’s largest milk processor. Saputo may consider asset purchases to raise its mozzarella output, Chief Executive Officer Lino Saputo Jr. told a Feb. 6 earnings call.

“The majority of our growth in the next five years is all about China,” Dedoncker said in an April 4 interview. “I’d say there’s an 80 percent chance that anytime you have a pizza there, it’s Fonterra cheese.”

hskwarrior
05-01-2014, 12:49 PM
8394
.................................................. ...

GeneChing
05-02-2014, 10:54 AM
Burger King China Release PooPoo Smoothie (http://abcnews.go.com/Lifestyle/burger-king-china-release-poopoo-smoothie/story?id=23356085)
April 17, 2014
By JOANNA FANTOZZI

http://a.abcnews.com/images/Lifestyle/thedailymeal_promo_poopoo-smoothie_wmain.jpg

It may sound completely disgusting, but apparently people who have tried Burger King China’s new PooPoo Smoothie, say it’s actually really delicious. Whether the unfortunate name is a mistranslation, or just an unusual joke, Burger King should hope it doesn’t deter customers. The smoothie is mango-flavored and contains little pulp-like “pearls” which are supposed to explode in your mouth upon consumption.

Kotaku has described the smoothie as similar to a Taiwanese boba tea, also known as bubble tea, which is known for the tapioca balls or pearls inside the smoothie-like fruit tea drink. The Asian culture blog has also said that the name “PooPoo smoothie” is only the English name of the drink, and that in Chinese, the name can roughly be translated to “mango ice smoothie with blow-up pearls cold beverage.”

Joanna Fantozzi is an Associate Editor with The Daily Meal. Follow her on Twitter @JoannaFantozzi
Reminds me of a puu puu platter from Hawaiian pidgin.

Syn7
05-02-2014, 12:10 PM
“mango ice smoothie with blow-up pearls cold beverage.”

Awesome name. They should have went with that. Guess it doesn't fit on the poster. :(

Isn't this just a bubble tea with crushed ice?

I always thought a smoothie was like an Orange Julius but with yogurt. So is a Julius really just a smoothie? They sell both and they are clearly different. The main diff being yogurt. Whattup? The ambiguous nature of many colloquial terms bothers me. I'm a maths/science(applied) nerd, so I like well defined perameters.

I feel like GoldenBrain will know the answer for this in great detail.:p

GoldenBrain
05-04-2014, 11:07 PM
I always thought a smoothie was like an Orange Julius but with yogurt. So is a Julius really just a smoothie? They sell both and they are clearly different. The main diff being yogurt. Whattup? The ambiguous nature of many colloquial terms bothers me. I'm a maths/science(applied) nerd, so I like well defined perameters.

I feel like GoldenBrain will know the answer for this in great detail.:p



Hahaha! You know I can set the record straight on what a smoothie is. :D Just to be sure, I looked up Orange Julius recipes and found this...

1 1/4 cup orange juice
1 cup water
3 tablespoons egg white or egg substitute
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups ice

A smoothie by definition is made with fresh fruit with or without yogurt so to me an Orange Julius is not a smoothie. With 1/4 cup of sugar it would seem to be closer to the soft drink family. It may sound weird but I have been off processed sugar for so long now I actually got a little queasy looking at that recipe.

And, for the record, I'm not consuming anything named poo poo...:eek:

GeneChing
05-07-2014, 08:58 AM
Ever wonder what they do with the chicken that's not nugget?



KFC mystery meat leaves us puzzled, kills our appetite (http://en.rocketnews24.com/2014/05/06/kfc-mystery-meat-leaves-us-puzzled-kills-our-appetite/)
Preston Phro 2 days ago
http://sociorocketnewsen.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/cover1.jpg?w=580&h=221

While KFC Japan recently unveiled their newest menu item featuring a collaboration with soccer player Ronaldo, KFC China has (accidentally) unveiled a somewhat different item: Horrific chicken wings.

The three photos below, assumed to be from China based on the receipt text, show what looks like deformed chicken wings. On closer inspection, it looks as if the wings were somehow combined with chicken feet, almost like the mouse with the human ear grown on its back.

However, according to the folks who posted the photos originally, these three chicken-feet-like protrusions seemed to actually be wing tips.
http://sociorocketnewsen.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/kfc_monster_03.jpg?w=580&h=729

The photos below show what happened after the skin was pulled off, revealing something that looks like a bone underneath.

http://sociorocketnewsen.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/kfc_monster_02.jpg?w=580&h=729

Honestly, the whole chunk of…what is supposed to be meat looks like it would be more comfortable guest starring in a haunted house than on a dinner menu.

http://sociorocketnewsen.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/kfc_monster_01.jpg?w=580&h=729

The person who posted the photos speculated that the deformity was the result of hormones–though we’re not so sure. After all, no one tested it for evil spirits or alien DNA. How do we know that KFC hasn’t domesticated the face-huggers from Alien for their delicious mouth-in-a-mouth meat?

Japanese netizens were understandably baffled by the photos.

“What…what is that?”

“I wonder what it would have looked like if they’d pulled all of the skin off…”

“Wait, is this not normal?”

“Ohh! It looks like they finally found my leg!”

“Hey, if it tastes good, what it does matter?”

Um…well, we guess you have a point. But still, <shudder>…

Maybe some of our readers more familiar with the anatomy of chickens can tell us what this is. Because we’re still leaning pretty heavily towards that face-huggers theory. They look like they’d be tasty, if you ignore that acidic blood thing.

Syn7
05-07-2014, 08:01 PM
Hahaha! You know I can set the record straight on what a smoothie is. :D Just to be sure, I looked up Orange Julius recipes and found this...

1 1/4 cup orange juice
1 cup water
3 tablespoons egg white or egg substitute
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups ice

A smoothie by definition is made with fresh fruit with or without yogurt so to me an Orange Julius is not a smoothie. With 1/4 cup of sugar it would seem to be closer to the soft drink family. It may sound weird but I have been off processed sugar for so long now I actually got a little queasy looking at that recipe.

And, for the record, I'm not consuming anything named poo poo...:eek:

The sugar doesn't surprise me at all. I remember them being rather sweet.

Does cutting up fresh fruit and freezing it in portions count as "fresh fruit"? I like it better when it's frozen. You get the slushy w/o adding a bunch of ice and watering it down.

mawali
05-07-2014, 08:43 PM
For the past few years, I have been trying and succeeding (80% of the time) to make my own stuff or cook it myself.
It is hard to stay away from the easy 'take away' cheap food syndrome. Actually, I went to KFC 2 hours ago and got a Doubleicious Chicken/bacon sandwich:confused::D

GoldenBrain
05-08-2014, 08:51 AM
Does cutting up fresh fruit and freezing it in portions count as "fresh fruit"? I like it better when it's frozen. You get the slushy w/o adding a bunch of ice and watering it down.

That's the way we do it too. Frozen fruit is just fresh fruit locked into a state of suspended animation, so I'd say yes it counts. Do you freeze your bananas also? We buy bunches and bunches and cut them up as soon as we get home. I normally have 2 or three large zips of them in the freezer along with strawberries, mango, blueberries, pineapple and peaches. I think it's smoothie time...

GeneChing
07-23-2014, 08:35 AM
Y'all know how much I luv it when an OT thread goes on topic. To quote MickeyD "I'm loving it". :rolleyes:

McDonald's, Yum Suspend Meat Supplier in China (http://online.wsj.com/articles/yum-brands-mcdonalds-suspend-china-meat-purchases-from-supplier-1405913128)
OSI's Shanghai Husi 'Appalled' by Allegation That Chicken, Beef Was Past Expiration Date
By Laurie Burkitt, Jacob Bunge and Julie Jargon

Updated July 21, 2014 12:47 p.m. ET

http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/AM-BE391_CMEAT_G_20140721122451.jpg
Workers at Shanghai Husi Food Co. in Shanghai. Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

BEIJING—The U.S. owner of a meat supplier in Shanghai apologized and promised a swift response Monday after McDonald's Corp. MCD -1.29% and Yum Brands Inc. YUM +0.47% suspended purchases in China in the wake of allegations it sold expired chicken and beef to restaurants.

McDonald's and Yum, parent of KFC and Pizza Hut, said they halted orders from Shanghai Husi Food Co., owned by OSI Group Inc. of Aurora Ill., after local Chinese media reported that Shanghai Husi was selling meat products beyond their shelf life.

OSI, a longtime supplier to both fast-food companies, said its executives were "appalled" by the report and apologized to its customers and consumers. The company "has formed an investigation team, is fully cooperating with inspections being conducted by relevant, supervising government agencies, and is also conducting its own internal review," it said.

OSI said it thinks the media report showcased an "isolated event" but "takes full responsibility for the situation and will take appropriate actions swiftly." A spokeswoman declined to comment further.

Closely held OSI, which had $6.1 billion in sales last year and ranks among the largest U.S. meat processors, has been active in China since 1991 and currently operates in eight cities there, producing meat as well as produce. OSI began supplying McDonald's Chinese operations in 1992, and Yum in 2008, according to the meat processor's website.

China's official Xinhua News Agency said Monday that government officials suspended the operations of Shanghai Husi, whose officials in China didn't respond to requests for comment.

Food safety is a major concern in China, where food-borne illness and food adulteration are common occurrences and scandals over tainted food products have roiled the meat and dairy industries in recent years. Many consumers shop for import brands and foreign labels, which are believed to have higher standards of quality control.

McDonald's spokeswoman Heidi Barker said Monday that if the practices described in media reports were confirmed, they would be "completely unacceptable to McDonald's."

The company has switched to other suppliers, and was cooperating fully with authorities investigating the issue, Ms. Barker said. She added that a small percentage of McDonald's restaurants in China may have to stop selling a few items on their menus for a day or two while McDonald's obtains meat from other companies.

McDonald's, which has more than 2,000 outlets in China, has been trying to solidify its standing with Chinese consumers. The company faced tough times in the country last year, with sales at stores open 12 months or more down 3.6% compared with 2012.

The development could be a setback for Yum, which has just begun to recover from food-safety issues that had dogged the company for more than a year.

A Chinese media report in November 2012 alleged that two KFC chicken suppliers had been using growth hormones and excessive levels of antibiotics to help chickens grow faster. The claims, which quickly spread online, tapped into widespread consumer fears in China over food safety.

Government officials investigated, and recommended Yum strengthen its poultry supply-chain practices, which Yum said it had done. Still, Yum's sales in China struggled for much of last year, further hurt by a bird-flu outbreak last spring. The company has staged a recovery recently with new menu items and marketing campaigns. Last week, Yum reported that in the second quarter of this year, same-store sales in China rose 15%, driven by 21% growth at KFC. Sales in China account for more than half of Yum's revenue.

Yum said its decision to stop buying meat from Husi would cause temporary supply shortages for two breakfast products at some KFC restaurants and a beef product at Pizza Hut outlets. Yum said it "will not tolerate any violations of government laws and regulations from our suppliers."

Syn7
07-23-2014, 09:11 AM
If you go to a place that sells crap and you order crap, you shouldn't be surprised when you get crap. Every once in a while I forget how bad that stuff makes me feel while at the same time remembering how tasty some of it can be. I'll eat like a KFC meal with memories of how much I loved it as a kid and walk away in shame with the knowledge that real payment comes later. I'm almost over it though. Once or twice a year, usually when with others who don't abstain.


I EXPECT the products to be nasty. So yeah, while some of this thread is over the top gross, most of it seems like par for the course as far as I'm concerned. Some of that stuff in China though.... man.... It will be interesting in like 30 years to see these places that have absorbed western fast food culture so quickly. At least we built up to it, and look at our fat broken down asses.

rett2
07-28-2014, 01:28 AM
I just skimmed the last page of the thread. Did I understand right that US fast food chains are selling Chinese meat in the US?

GoldenBrain
07-28-2014, 01:17 PM
I just skimmed the last page of the thread. Did I understand right that US fast food chains are selling Chinese meat in the US?

Yup. The USDA has green-lighted China to sell chicken meat to the USA. What's worse is they don't have to label it as to where the meat comes from or how it's produced. What's even stranger is how chicken producers here are shipping meat to China for processing which will then return to the USA for consumption.

My answer is either produce your own food or buy local organic...period!

Jimbo
07-28-2014, 02:46 PM
I don't trust any food products from China. Period. If something is from China, it should be labeled, or at least there should be some way to be informed about it. Chinese pet food makers were putting toxic crap in them not too long ago. I wouldn't put it past them to do the same with human food. It makes me wonder if it's incompetence, shortcuts, or done purposefully.

IMO, any American company that sells Chinese food products is negligent.

MarathonTmatt
07-28-2014, 06:09 PM
I don't trust any food products from China. Period. If something is from China, it should be labeled, or at least there should be some way to be informed about it. Chinese pet food makers were putting toxic crap in them not too long ago. I wouldn't put it past them to do the same with human food. It makes me wonder if it's incompetence, shortcuts, or done purposefully.

IMO, any American company that sells Chinese food products is negligent.

Yeah, it's like all these big companies are ruining our health. One mistake I see a lot of "health conscious" people do is they eat Edamame, which usually comes from China (says it right on the package). I like seafood and all too, but after Fukushima disaster I am suspicious of a lot of Pacific Ocean fish (like tuna.)

GoldenBrain
07-28-2014, 07:04 PM
I don't trust any food products from China. Period. If something is from China, it should be labeled, or at least there should be some way to be informed about it. Chinese pet food makers were putting toxic crap in them not too long ago. I wouldn't put it past them to do the same with human food. It makes me wonder if it's incompetence, shortcuts, or done purposefully.

IMO, any American company that sells Chinese food products is negligent.




Yeah, it's like all these big companies are ruining our health. One mistake I see a lot of "health conscious" people do is they eat Edamame, which usually comes from China (says it right on the package). I like seafood and all too, but after Fukushima disaster I am suspicious of a lot of Pacific Ocean fish (like tuna.)


I'm with you both.

The Fukushima thing has me turned off ocean fish permanently. I'll take pictures later in the year when I get the aquaponics operation up and running again. I'm all about raising my own meat at this point. Hahaha, that sounded dirty...:D You know what I mean though. As far as meat goes we only eat chicken, turkey, fish and some wild game that I hunt like deer and some various birds, oh and the occasional organic grass fed bison from a local farm my friend owns. You can't trust anybody unless it's local enough for you to verify exactly how they are running things.

Just because it's raised in the good ol USA doesn't mean it's safe or ethical either. Take the term natural. According to the legal description it is basically anything that isn't synthetic. Organic, well farms can actually add some percentage of synthetic pesticides and these farms are inspected only once a year, so you really can't be 100% on that one either. Free range only means that once a year the farm has to provide access for the animals to go outside. I used to live in chicken farm central in NC and the place right next to me would harvest chickens 3 times a year. They were free range but lived in long barns by the thousands all year long. They would open the doors of the barn but the stupid chickens were ALWAYS too scared to leave. So they closed the door in the evening and fulfilled their obligation to the term free range. It's ridiculous!!!

Here's something that will help a little bit with produce if you don't have a local source. I'm not entirely sure how to tell about meat and other products yet but I'll post that when I find out.

8971


I'm fortunate that I can produce much of my own produce, and have very trusted local organic sources for meat and produce. My hope is by next year we'll be completely self sufficient for both meat and produce.

madhusudan
07-29-2014, 02:01 PM
You can't trust anybody unless it's local enough for you to verify exactly how they are running things.

Living in the current state of total information overload I find it easiest to frame the situation like this: If you don't know the producer, you're certainly eating something you wouldn't choose/don't want. GMO, hormones, antibiotics, fraudulent ingredients, radiation, you-name-it - it's all in there -- guaranteed!

MarathonTmatt
07-29-2014, 07:46 PM
I'm with you both.

The Fukushima thing has me turned off ocean fish permanently. I'll take pictures later in the year when I get the aquaponics operation up and running again. I'm all about raising my own meat at this point. Hahaha, that sounded dirty...:D You know what I mean though. As far as meat goes we only eat chicken, turkey, fish and some wild game that I hunt like deer and some various birds, oh and the occasional organic grass fed bison from a local farm my friend owns. You can't trust anybody unless it's local enough for you to verify exactly how they are running things.

Just because it's raised in the good ol USA doesn't mean it's safe or ethical either. Take the term natural. According to the legal description it is basically anything that isn't synthetic. Organic, well farms can actually add some percentage of synthetic pesticides and these farms are inspected only once a year, so you really can't be 100% on that one either. Free range only means that once a year the farm has to provide access for the animals to go outside. I used to live in chicken farm central in NC and the place right next to me would harvest chickens 3 times a year. They were free range but lived in long barns by the thousands all year long. They would open the doors of the barn but the stupid chickens were ALWAYS too scared to leave. So they closed the door in the evening and fulfilled their obligation to the term free range. It's ridiculous!!!

Here's something that will help a little bit with produce if you don't have a local source. I'm not entirely sure how to tell about meat and other products yet but I'll post that when I find out.

8971


I'm fortunate that I can produce much of my own produce, and have very trusted local organic sources for meat and produce. My hope is by next year we'll be completely self sufficient for both meat and produce.

Wow, yeah, I wish I ate more locally grown food. There are a couple really nice Thai restaurants in my area I like to eat at- the food is surprisingly fresh and the Hindu people who work at the big corporation in my area always eat there. Maybe I should frequent some of the local farms more often too. I never knew about some of those technical things about what it means to be "free range." Also, those produce labels you posted were enlightening- I knew 4 digit was conventional, 5 digit starting with 9 was organic, but I had no idea that a code starting with 8 meant genetically modified.

GoldenBrain
07-29-2014, 10:20 PM
Living in the current state of total information overload I find it easiest to frame the situation like this: If you don't know the producer, you're certainly eating something you wouldn't choose/don't want. GMO, hormones, antibiotics, fraudulent ingredients, radiation, you-name-it - it's all in there -- guaranteed!

I like it. People really should WANT to know where their food comes from and how it's produced. It's always a bit shocking to me when I encounter people who are completely baffled by this process. I've met adults who don't even know what animal a pork chop is cut from. Seriously, "pork" should give it away. :confused: Try discussing GMO, hormones, antibiotics...etc. with some of these sheltered souls and you get the stunned mullet look. At that point I try to create distance between me and them, much like avoiding somebody with a highly contagious disease that I want no part of.

GoldenBrain
07-29-2014, 10:47 PM
Wow, yeah, I wish I ate more locally grown food. There are a couple really nice Thai restaurants in my area I like to eat at- the food is surprisingly fresh and the Hindu people who work at the big corporation in my area always eat there. Maybe I should frequent some of the local farms more often too. I never knew about some of those technical things about what it means to be "free range." Also, those produce labels you posted were enlightening- I knew 4 digit was conventional, 5 digit starting with 9 was organic, but I had no idea that a code starting with 8 meant genetically modified.


I loves me some Thai food!

I couldn't agree more with visiting some of the local farms. If you have a farmers market then go there for sure. Besides buying what you need to eat throughout the growing season you can sometimes set up deliveries of produce to your house as long as you buy in bulk. This is a good way for non gardening types to get a plethora of food at a cheap price for canning, freezing, drying...etc. A few deliveries and you're set for the winter months. If you're lucky you'll find real free range chicken eggs and other goodies like local raw honey, or possibly fresh made yogurt...stuff like that.

It makes me sad, even angry when I think about how large commercial operations treat their animals during production. So, since I can't take back all the support I gave them during my ignorant years I can at least choose to not support them now. That's why it's extremely important to me to encourage home production of food as well as local farmers markets where you're more likely to encounter people who treat their animals humanely.

rett2
07-30-2014, 12:40 AM
Yup. The USDA has green-lighted China to sell chicken meat to the USA. What's worse is they don't have to label it as to where the meat comes from or how it's produced. What's even stranger is how chicken producers here are shipping meat to China for processing which will then return to the USA for consumption.

My answer is either produce your own food or buy local organic...period!

Thanks, good to know.

Not even having to label it? Sometimes I get lulled into believing in progress and then the powers that be go and take an ugly step in the wrong direction.

Syn7
07-30-2014, 07:44 AM
It's always a bit shocking to me when I encounter people who are completely baffled by this process.

I'm not really shocked at all. This is pretty much in line with the attitude towards everything. Out of sight, out of mind. Willfully ignorant. People don't want to think about the suicides at the human farms that produce their electronics, their 3-pack of plastic whatever from walmart, the lives ruined by governments working with corporations to secure mineral rights. People typically don't even think much about the homeless people they walk passed in the morning going to work. So why care about the food?

For the most part, for most people, they don't care about anything like that until it affects them personally on a time scale short enough that even a moron can see the negative change. With food, it's so slow and just the health part alone takes a long time to really become noticeable, and by then it's at the very least almost too late.

I think people are so used to things being done for them as far as the basics go, they don't even want to know because it will force them to take an honest personal inventory and ultimately lead them into having to admit they are wrong.


All that being said, considering how we live, there are some serious logistical problems with feeding everyone with fresh local food. Those of us who are lucky enough to be in an area that will grow food at all, have enough space to grow food and have the time to put into it should totally do so. But what about everyone else?

So here's a question for somebody more schooled than I am in these things... What would be the affects of the human population spreading out more and growing more food for themselves? If we all just spaced out as evenly as we could and went for it. Better for the ecosystem or worse? For arguments sake, let's pretend that everyone would know what they were doing and weren't greedy *****s. So ignore the selfish/moron factor. How doable is this? If it was possible, how much of this would rely on relatively recent technology?

Syn7
07-30-2014, 07:51 AM
Thanks, good to know.

Not even having to label it? Sometimes I get lulled into believing in progress and then the powers that be go and take an ugly step in the wrong direction.

For the most part, people becoming more socially progressive. Some of that is reflected in law, much is not. Popular opinion has less affect on law than you would think. It has very little ability to change or prevent laws that are being bought and paid for by those very few who can afford to buy policy for their own gains. You want a voice? Help end legal bribery. Article V. Do it.

GoldenBrain
08-03-2014, 04:58 PM
So here's a question for somebody more schooled than I am in these things... What would be the affects of the human population spreading out more and growing more food for themselves? If we all just spaced out as evenly as we could and went for it. Better for the ecosystem or worse? For arguments sake, let's pretend that everyone would know what they were doing and weren't greedy *****s. So ignore the selfish/moron factor. How doable is this? If it was possible, how much of this would rely on relatively recent technology?


With consideration to the way you frame the question I'd say it's doable. If we were not selfish or greedy and everybody knew what they were doing we could easily create an environment that could coexist with nature and take care of all our food needs. Technology might play a role especially in aquaponics. We may have already created too many superbugs due to over pesticide and antibiotic use but I think if we practice successful breeding of more resistant plants we could tip the balance back in our favor.

Anybody that has flown over this country knows there's SOOOOOOO much land compared to people that spreading out would not be a problem. In the US, 2/3 of the population lives concentrated in the cities along the coasts. The rest of the country is for the most part wide open.

PalmStriker
08-03-2014, 06:42 PM
:) Time to outlaw greed:https://scontent-a-lga.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xfa1/t1.0-9/10417825_778829608824166_6576242286111124035_n.png

GoldenBrain
08-03-2014, 06:49 PM
:) Time to outlaw greed...

...AND, you can even eat the seed. :D

Dig the shirt.:cool:

Syn7
08-05-2014, 01:36 PM
With consideration to the way you frame the question I'd say it's doable. If we were not selfish or greedy and everybody knew what they were doing we could easily create an environment that could coexist with nature and take care of all our food needs. Technology might play a role especially in aquaponics. We may have already created too many superbugs due to over pesticide and antibiotic use but I think if we practice successful breeding of more resistant plants we could tip the balance back in our favor.

Anybody that has flown over this country knows there's SOOOOOOO much land compared to people that spreading out would not be a problem. In the US, 2/3 of the population lives concentrated in the cities along the coasts. The rest of the country is for the most part wide open.

I know that there is tons of unoccupied space all over the globe, but how much is that land is capable of growing and how much of it is practical? I don't really believe either way, I simply don't know. At what global population would this not be possible?

It's also worthy to note that the extraction of the materials we use to create our newer technologies is quite destructive, let alone the manufacturing and shipping of these products. Can we all have an iPhone too? You know where I'm going with this?

MarathonTmatt
08-05-2014, 06:08 PM
I know that there is tons of unoccupied space all over the globe, but how much is that land is capable of growing and how much of it is practical? I don't really believe either way, I simply don't know. At what global population would this not be possible?

It's also worthy to note that the extraction of the materials we use to create our newer technologies is quite destructive, let alone the manufacturing and shipping of these products. Can we all have an iPhone too? You know where I'm going with this?

It seems that there needs to be a stronger sense of community. And also, in the cities, people would need to stop living in "box" buildings. There would need to be groups, or whole neighborhoods of people, occupying a certain area/town center for this to work, and demolishing most other buildings.

In the suburbs/ rural places, where housing is spaced far apart, people would need to converge and live on say, one particular property. Let's say Farmer Joe has 70 acres of land. Good. An entire town can move onto that one piece of land and abandon all the rest of their properties. Everywhere else can be foraging, fishing and hunting grounds, water supplies, and places of travel.

The theory should not be to get everyone to be spaced evenly apart, but to get people back into concentrated clusters (with total freedom), like small tribes, with a strong sense of community.

GoldenBrain
08-05-2014, 09:48 PM
I know that there is tons of unoccupied space all over the globe, but how much is that land is capable of growing and how much of it is practical? I don't really believe either way, I simply don't know. At what global population would this not be possible?

It's also worthy to note that the extraction of the materials we use to create our newer technologies is quite destructive, let alone the manufacturing and shipping of these products. Can we all have an iPhone too? You know where I'm going with this?


Good questions. Technology may be the answer. We're moving pretty fast with 3d printing so lets say we develop a way to control atoms and molecules in such a precise way as to use 3d printing to recreate the materials we use rather than mine them. We dump in carbon and other wildly available raw materials like trash and pull out lithium or whatever, or maybe even a fully functioning iPhone. When that iPhone is trash we dump it into the 3d printer to re-combine the materials into a new one. Tech like this could completely change they way we dispose of trash and eliminate the need for such destructive mining practices.

Since water never really disappears but rather just changes form it's feasible to pipe inland desalinated sea water to any region that is too dry to grow in. With technology like greenhouses and piping in fresh water the temperature really wouldn't be a problem, so as long as there is sunlight we could grow crops just about anywhere on earth. In my technologically advanced utopia we could even 3d print lights, electronics and other environmental systems to grow crops underground. Heck, we might even be able to 3d print or to use a Star Trek term "replicate" the food and water we need and skip the growing process altogether.

If we get to a point where we master the above tech then population wouldn't be a problem. We could live as high in the air as we want because we would have developed such advanced materials as to make super high skyscrapers possible. We could also carve out entire cities and ecosystems underground and artificially light it using such advanced tech.

Right now in this reality we need to get a handle on our emissions and trash and grow beyond our me me me ideology and learn how to work together in order to preserve what we have. If we can survive ourselves then I have no doubt we will develop the kind of tech I mentioned above and much much more.

GoldenBrain
08-05-2014, 10:09 PM
It seems that there needs to be a stronger sense of community. And also, in the cities, people would need to stop living in "box" buildings. There would need to be groups, or whole neighborhoods of people, occupying a certain area/town center for this to work, and demolishing most other buildings.

In the suburbs/ rural places, where housing is spaced far apart, people would need to converge and live on say, one particular property. Let's say Farmer Joe has 70 acres of land. Good. An entire town can move onto that one piece of land and abandon all the rest of their properties. Everywhere else can be foraging, fishing and hunting grounds, water supplies, and places of travel.

The theory should not be to get everyone to be spaced evenly apart, but to get people back into concentrated clusters (with total freedom), like small tribes, with a strong sense of community.

I like your ideas but to further what I said in the reply to syn, I think technology will allow us to live in our own spaces. These spaces could be very well designed ecosystems within buildings or underground or on the oceans...etc. We could still preserve most of the empty land as long as we build up and down more efficiently. We are reaching the end of suburban sprawl and with the rising populations I think we'll have no choice but to create mega cities. The real question is how much green space can we create within these cities so that we can still enjoy nature. Also, these mega cities of the future need to improve on public transportation so that we can travel everywhere in the city and locally within the city there needs to be more efficient bicycle and pedestrian routes so that most of the city could be "walk up" rather than everybody driving a car. My wife and I drive to Dallas quite often to visit family. We usually take the HOV lane and what we always comment on is the vast majority of cars have only one occupant. This seems like such a strain on our roads and environment. It'd be nice to have some sort of public transportation system between and in ALL cities and towns which would reduce the need for so many cars.

GeneChing
12-15-2014, 12:10 PM
I'm trying to imagine what this would taste like....


McDonald's hosts free banquet in Taipei (http://focustaiwan.tw/news/asoc/201412130019.aspx)
2014/12/13 20:10:55

http://img1.cna.com.tw/Eng/WebEngPhotos//CEP/20141213/201412130019t0001.jpg

Taipei, Dec. 13 (CNA) McDonald's Taiwan hosted a free banquet for 150 people in Taipei Saturday.

Many of the participants were from central and southern Taiwan, including Nantou, Changhua and Kaohsiung, the fast food restaurant chain said.

The event, which took place at the historic Red House Theater in Ximending, was the first of its kind held by McDonald's.

http://img1.cna.com.tw/Www/ChiMPhoto/20141213/20141213000073M.jpg
[CNA photo Dec. 13, 2014]

Although only 150 openings were available, over 10,000 people tried to sign up when registration opened Dec. 1, McDonald's said.

The Taiwanese-style feast was prepared by Huang Ching-lung, a local chef specializing in Taiwanese cuisine, using the same ingredients used in McDonald's meals.

http://img1.cna.com.tw/Www/ChiMPhoto/20141213/20141213000072M.jpg
[Chef Huang Ching-lung. CNA photo Dec. 13, 2014]

By holding such a creative banquet, McDonald's is hoping to overthrow local people's poor impression of the food chain, said Vicky Lee, marketing director for McDonald's Taiwan, adding that 60 percent of ingredients used by the company in Taiwan are purchased locally.

(By Wang Shu-fen and Y.F. Low)