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Post by steev on Nov 20, 2010 20:14:39 GMT -5
I second the suggestion of using lard; it's easier to produce than most oils/fats, and when it's bacon grease, it's heaven. Another wonderful fat is goose-grease, than which nothing makes a lighter, crispier, tastier baked potato skin. I suggest these as a longtime member of PETA, People Eating Tasty Animals. Mindful though I am of potential health concerns, I am convinced that it's the lard on your butt that will kill you, not the lard on your plate. Garden more, worry less. In sweating there is health.
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Post by garnetmoth on Nov 20, 2010 21:32:12 GMT -5
Nice to see you here Steev!
If animals are going to make fat, just render from them IMHO..... rabbits are pretty lean, Im sure we could get away with chickens here, but thats about it.
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Post by seedywen on Nov 21, 2010 10:37:37 GMT -5
I third the use of animal fats. In moderation, of course.
When we used to raise pigs, would render every part, renderable. These days, still save every bit of chicken, duck, goat or rabbit(least of all) for what little frying, I still do.
The rest of the time, use virgin olive oil and a little (daily)butter
on bread. Keep dairy goats but haven't ever made butter from their milk.
With all our animals, I try to feed from our land as much as possible and always looking for ways to increase the options.
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Post by synergy on Nov 21, 2010 12:19:45 GMT -5
I eat a high plant based diet , but living on a farm, I would like to note that backyard raised meat animals could be undertaken with care for the animals comfort, health and socialization. I strongly feel the responsibility one takes for quality of life of the animal is of the utmost importance. Prevailing care and kindness, even if you are raising a pig for slaughter, I can't help but think a nice environment for them, and maybe even niceties like mounted push broom brushes so they can give themselves a good rub when the have an itch, may make a shorter life more comfortable. Well it may seem unimportant to many but I work with animals everyday. I look for ideas how to raise animals efficiently but provide for their needs in such a way that they are relatively well cared for and humanely dispatched.
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Post by garnetmoth on Nov 21, 2010 12:36:27 GMT -5
I read the book Microlivestock www.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=030904295X and really enjoy chickens- we had a carpenter friend build a really tough coop/run and its fenced in against predators. It may make more sense for sustainability to get quail...? We have also had a decent run with our rabbits, who are very easy to keep. |
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Post by bunkie on Nov 21, 2010 12:59:52 GMT -5
catching up here... atash, are there transcripts of Chris Martensen's crash course? .......I have always had a pantry I could live out of for a year at a time = might get tired of what I'm eating before the year is up, but I'll still be eating. that's what we do here too dan. i learned the hard way our first winter when we first moved here and couldn't get to town for supplies for 5 plus weeks due to snow storms. we had plenty on hand, but it taught me to always be prepared. ......... As an example my seed was free this past season and I used my own compost which was essentially free, I produced nearly 400 bushels of corn for use here on the farm, had I the room and resources to grow excess this year with the price of corn say come December or January, I could have made a killing. Figure it like this; you go to the feed store, a 50 lb bag of whole corn is going to cost between 6-7 dollars a bag, meanwhile 50 lbs isn't even a bushel, with a little bit of marketing you could make quite a large profit locally, particularly if like me you live in a small community. Make it a specialty corn (organic, eco-logically grown, high protein, whatever) and you can always mark it up a bit more, particularly if your focused only on actually selling to those people who might have a very small backyard flock and are willing to spend a bit more on locally grown feed....... great idea alan! we are trying to plan to grow feed for our critters next year. i was curious how you harvested your corn? was it manually or with your tractor? .........I'd be happy to provide some recipes, send some starter, or even give advice as desired. ...... jo, i'd love to see a thread with your bread recipes in homesteading. i'm always loving to try new things. btw, your ketchup recipe was great! canned a case of it...but...it was a little sweet, more of a good bbq sauce for me. ......Maybe to get the conversation back on track it's worth mentioning that the point is more along the lines of creating a relatively sustainable, relatively food-secure situation, and then you don't have to worry or be alarmed. Worry does not solve problems; action does.... good suggestion atash! like i mentioned before, mom nature taught us to be prepared. great info here all! |
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Post by atash on Nov 21, 2010 14:49:36 GMT -5
Bunkie, watch my spelling; it's MartensOn not MartensEn. Both spellings are common and for all intents and purposes sound the same. It's on video and it's free: www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourseOne concern I have is he does a good job of talking about the problems, but his solutions are a tad shall we say "optimistic". Nation-wide solutions are not going to happen because our political class have their own solutions in mind which do not help us. We are in a capital-depleting economy which means that Deus-ex-machina solutions like fuel cells and Thorium reactors are not going to happen on a large enough scale to save the day; in fact there are showstopping obstacles to any and all of the technological solutions that have been proposed. Personal solutions will require more than just growing some tomatoes in your back yard. I suggest building up your own personal "survival teams", moving closer to family and friends than is usually the case, and creating partially (impossible to do it on a full-scale) enclosed, partially-self-sufficient economies with enough division of labor among the participants to make it feasible. Remember: "Little House on the Prairie" is fiction. "Pa" was dependent on credit to buy imported tools with. In those days people survived largely by having extended families and more close-knit communities than is now the case. The poor who are not connected to the welfare system, loners, and the elderly will be in for a rough ride. |
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Post by darrellg on Nov 22, 2010 0:47:03 GMT -5
I read the book Microlivestock www.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=030904295X and really enjoy chickens- we had a carpenter friend build a really tough coop/run and its fenced in against predators. It may make more sense for sustainability to get quail...? We have also had a decent run with our rabbits, who are very easy to keep. I haven't read that book, but the title 'microlivestock' brought to mind Guinea Pigs. Didn't South American farms keep, maybe still do, a flock of guinea pigs for meat on the table and fur? They were brought to the USA for the populace to grow and eat, but instead turned them into pets.... too cute to eat I suppose. I can imagine they may be tasty. |
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Post by garnetmoth on Nov 22, 2010 9:18:56 GMT -5
Indeed Darrellg- Its been a long time since I took care of my school guinea pig, but I remember them just eating an alfalfa pellet diet. I dont know specifically about raising them for meat, but meat breed rabbits get to fryer weight at 2-3 mos, and have a good deal of meat on them, and the skins are bigger.
A small local petting zoo was dissolving and listed a pair of capybara for adoption, now those are big and cute. my goodness!
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Post by castanea on Nov 22, 2010 10:10:10 GMT -5
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Post by synergy on Nov 22, 2010 13:00:42 GMT -5
Bunkie, the transcripts of Chris Martensen's crash course are down the page when you scroll down from each video clip. There are many links to videos on you tube on guinea pig production and consumption. As foreign as the idea may be to us whom look at them as petstock or rodents, our mind set is not as advantageous as that in South America. I believe guinea pig range naturally into the Andean mountains so might have some cold resistance. They are a small manageable size and seem rather comparable to rabbit perhaps, excerpt from www.lrrd.org/lrrd9/5/gp951.htmThe meat of the GP is wholesome and delicious. It has a protein content of about 21%, which is higher than the protein content of poultry, pork, mutton or beef. Its fat content is about 8%, which is lower than that of each of the other meats mentioned above (Huss and Roca 1982).
In several countries, the traditional method of preparing GP meat is to roast the whole eviscerated carcass over a low-burning fire with singed hairs being scraped off the skin with a dull knife. Alternatively, the entire body of the GP can be submerged in water that has been brought to boiling for several minutes. With the use of a dull knife, the hair can be more easily scraped off. With this procedure, the intestines are then removed and may be discarded or scrubbed clean and cooked separately or with the meat. The carcass is then cut into several pieces for cooking.
Under either method, there is very little waste: the skin, head, bones, lungs, liver and intestines are all consumed with the meat. Huss and Roca (1982) also estimated dressing percentage for farm-raised GP at 65%, while under improved experimental conditions, Cicogna et al. (1992) reported average dressing percentage of 76% at 15 weeks of age.
In some countries, the skin of the guinea pig is not an important by-product because it is often eaten along with the other edible parts. The GP skins are sometimes used for the home manufacture of handbags, feed bags, knapsacks and house slippers (Huss and Roca 1982). The manure is useful as fertilizer or as a feed ingredient for other livestock. Regarding the latter, it is "naturally pelleted" and contains about 18% protein (Huss and Roca 1982).As well a very ingenious use of the methane made from the manure waste put in a biodigester and harvested for gas fuel is here: wanderinggaia.com/2010/09/05/guinea-pig-power/Looking at food production in the permacultural aspect of being a synergistic system that optimizes the use of resources rather than maximizing the amount of any one production is the direction I am persuing. Being of limited means I have a small acreage and my start has been to begin planting fruit , nut and other beneficial trees and bushes and to start gardening , which I am the typical novice making mistakes. I have been building the soil and generally finding ways to do things with low imputs , repurposed materials, and the like. Watching the video on guinea pig production I wondered if septic tanks could be repurposed to biodigest waste from humans and other animal production and produce methane for use as well as well as safe fertilizer that could actually have a system of retrieving it for use rather than being pumped and removed from site? |
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Post by Alan on Nov 24, 2010 19:55:17 GMT -5
Bunkie, the transcripts of Chris Martensen's crash course are down the page when you scroll down from each video clip. There are many links to videos on you tube on guinea pig production and consumption. As foreign as the idea may be to us whom look at them as petstock or rodents, our mind set is not as advantageous as that in South America. I believe guinea pig range naturally into the Andean mountains so might have some cold resistance. They are a small manageable size and seem rather comparable to rabbit perhaps, excerpt from www.lrrd.org/lrrd9/5/gp951.htmThe meat of the GP is wholesome and delicious. It has a protein content of about 21%, which is higher than the protein content of poultry, pork, mutton or beef. Its fat content is about 8%, which is lower than that of each of the other meats mentioned above (Huss and Roca 1982).
In several countries, the traditional method of preparing GP meat is to roast the whole eviscerated carcass over a low-burning fire with singed hairs being scraped off the skin with a dull knife. Alternatively, the entire body of the GP can be submerged in water that has been brought to boiling for several minutes. With the use of a dull knife, the hair can be more easily scraped off. With this procedure, the intestines are then removed and may be discarded or scrubbed clean and cooked separately or with the meat. The carcass is then cut into several pieces for cooking.
Under either method, there is very little waste: the skin, head, bones, lungs, liver and intestines are all consumed with the meat. Huss and Roca (1982) also estimated dressing percentage for farm-raised GP at 65%, while under improved experimental conditions, Cicogna et al. (1992) reported average dressing percentage of 76% at 15 weeks of age.
In some countries, the skin of the guinea pig is not an important by-product because it is often eaten along with the other edible parts. The GP skins are sometimes used for the home manufacture of handbags, feed bags, knapsacks and house slippers (Huss and Roca 1982). The manure is useful as fertilizer or as a feed ingredient for other livestock. Regarding the latter, it is "naturally pelleted" and contains about 18% protein (Huss and Roca 1982).As well a very ingenious use of the methane made from the manure waste put in a biodigester and harvested for gas fuel is here: wanderinggaia.com/2010/09/05/guinea-pig-power/Looking at food production in the permacultural aspect of being a synergistic system that optimizes the use of resources rather than maximizing the amount of any one production is the direction I am persuing. Being of limited means I have a small acreage and my start has been to begin planting fruit , nut and other beneficial trees and bushes and to start gardening , which I am the typical novice making mistakes. I have been building the soil and generally finding ways to do things with low imputs , repurposed materials, and the like. Watching the video on guinea pig production I wondered if septic tanks could be repurposed to biodigest waste from humans and other animal production and produce methane for use as well as well as safe fertilizer that could actually have a system of retrieving it for use rather than being pumped and removed from site? Now we are talking! New ideas that make us rethink our own status quo! Keep this thread going, I'm really enjoying reading all this stuff. |
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Post by atash on Nov 26, 2010 19:30:32 GMT -5
Just to be clear, and help avoid trouble:
One of my sources of intelligence is predicting a commodities BUST. I do not take this prediction seriously, but it's important to understand what it means.
First of all distinguish between "commodities" and "commodity markets". Most commodity contracts are settled in CASH, and not by taking delivery.
Even if you take "delivery", it's not clear to me that you get anything more than a receipt for a commodity sitting in a generic storage facility, and a bill for storage.
Guess what, you can't just drive up to the depot and load it into your truck.
Back when gold prices were starting to reach around the $800/oz level, there were speculations that there was not enough gold at COMEX to cover all of the contracts. So, a number of goldbug websites published instructions for actually taking possession of the gold that you have ostensibly taken delivery of. The list was long and quite daunting.
Because of the tenuous connection between the commodities markets and reality, they can get out of alignment and probably stay that way for a while.
If things get too out of hand, the commodities markets could always change the rules like they did on the Hunt Brothers, thereby bankrupting them (and sending them to prison).
So, anyway, if the Chinese central bank interest rates high enough to provoke a recession in that country, the commodities markets are likely to CRASH. It's sort of a self-fulfilling prediction.
That does not mean that people will stop eating rice or wheat. It is indeed unlikely that retail prices would fall.
The Chinese central bank might raise interest rates in order to slow down the rate of inflation in that country. So far I seem to recall they threatened to do in a press release, but didn't actually do it. Central banks often do that: they make announcements of actions intended to influence the markets, but then don't actually act on them until they are out of other options.
So by all means, keep growing food, keep storing food that stores easily, don't play in the commodities markets unless you have very deep pockets and political connections...
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Post by atash on Nov 28, 2010 17:56:39 GMT -5
The regulatory agencies are also warning that the commodities markets are not for small investors. seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2013507355_pfinvestors28.htmlThe "cheating" in question runs the gamut. Cherry-picking, front-running, irregularities in the execution of orders, etc. I had a commodities account at one time but would not trade commodities again. The cards are stacked against the small investor. Problem for the small investor is having exposure to commodities without getting burned by the commodities market or the derivatives market. |
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Post by synergy on Nov 29, 2010 4:27:49 GMT -5
My investment has been into my soil. I for one really feel I can turn around how I live and provide for a lot more of my famillies needs right here on a small 4 acre farm . I think once we start expanding our farming repetoires we can do quite nicely, sesame seed can be grown containing 50% oil but takes 90 - 150 days to mature. I honestly think while we need fats and oils , I may be able to do without refined oils but it might take some adaptation to my eating habits and cooking skills, for instance using a mortar and pestle to grind enough sesame to contribute oil to a flatbread or houmus . www.jeffersoninstitute.org/pubs/sesame.shtmlThe more I open my eyes the more opportunity I see. All we can do is change our own actions but what a difference we can make in our own lives. And we can network with others right now who are complimentary to our communities. |
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