What Drugs Was Your Thanksgiving Turkey On?

robert l. bentham

robert l. bentham

Active Member
Member
Joined
Nov 16, 2011
Messages
3,692
Reaction score
863
Since the mad cow and Chinese melamine scandals of the mid 2000's, a lot more people think about the food their food ate than before. But fewer people think about the drugs their food ingested. Food animal drugs seldom rate Capitol Hill hearings which is just fine with Big Pharma animals divisions since if people knew the antibiotics, heavy metals, growth promotants, vaccines, anti-parasite drugs and feed additives used on the farm, they would lose their appetite. Besides, people aren't Animal Pharma's primary customers anyway and the long term safety of animals drugs isn't an issue, since patients supposed to die.

http://www.alternet.org/health/153149/what_drugs_was_your_thanksgiving_turkey_on_
 
As food prices climb through the roof, the amount of meat consumed will decline. What you really have to worry about is the amount of soy your are consuming. Yes, cook the meat all the way through, but just look at what you are stuffing your face with besides the few ounces of meat, it's probably got soy in it.
 
Dammy said:
As food prices climb through the roof, the amount of meat consumed will decline. What you really have to worry about is the amount of soy your are consuming.
Click to expand...

Growing organic vegetables in South Florida is harder than expected. Naturals pests can destroy a plant in a couple days. Practice makes perfect, I hope. My house is on 1/5th acre, which doesn't leave a ton of room for growing your own food but probably enough. I'm hoping the global food crisis is at least 3 years out. I should have enough experience to be mostly self sustaining for growing fruits and vegetables. Raising rabbits for meat looks pretty easy, but I'll have a hard time convincing the wife.
 
redrumloa said:
Raising rabbits for meat looks pretty easy, but I'll have a hard time convincing the wife.
Click to expand...

Here in Vancouver the city council (dominated by the "Vision" slate) changed the bylaws to allow chickens. The NPA slate made fun of the "chicken" issue through the last Civic Elections with the result that every single Vision candidate was elected to council and the mayor is Vision and all the running Green candidates got on council leaving only two seats for the NPA to pick up.

And it's very revealing how the electoral map panned out. The wealthiest areas vote NPA.
 
I'd vote against chickens in the city. They're just flu virus generators. There's a reason why they're banning it across Asia.
 
Glaucus said:
I'd vote against chickens in the city. They're just flu virus generators. There's a reason why they're banning it across Asia.
Click to expand...

My next door neighbor has had chickens for years. I don't see a huge issue if you get the kind that don't squawk much. I'm just thankful he got rid (or it died) of the damn rooster.
 
What I notice more often is they add addictive substitutes in food. Perhaps the US people can learn from a centuries old German law, the "Reinheitsgebot", in the sence that that law didn't come out of the blue.
 
Well, the danger is that wild birds spread avian flu to captive birds and people spend a lot of time around captive birds which increase the chance of spreading avian flu to humans. It's a numbers game. A few people with chickens at home may not make a big difference to anyone. Everyone with chickens at home may cause problems for everyone. It's not likely everyone will have chickens at home, but it's hard to regulate exactly how many will - unless you just ban it.

When hoof and mouth was going around they quarantined and destroyed a lot of animals. It was easy to do because they knew where the animals were and could ensure it was done properly. If you have livestock scattered all over the place and something like that breaks out, good luck isolating it or dealing with it. We'd all be at the mercy of individuals which may or may not care or follow best practices and there would be no way to tell. If everyone had a sheep or cow in their backyard we could expect that disease to rip through the cities even faster than the country side due to the density and close proximity and lack of proper handling.

If you want local produce, check out your farmers market. Great stuff to be found there and it's all local. If you want to grow it yourself, move outside of a city.
 
Glaucus said:
When hoof and mouth was going around they quarantined and destroyed a lot of animals. It was easy to do because they knew where the animals were and could ensure it was done properly.
Click to expand...

Hoof and mouth is a different kettle of fish - however. For one, there is an effective vaccine and, while painful and temporarily debilitating it's not a killer. The "problem" with foot and mouth is that while countries like Iraq (back when Iraq owned it) could and did vaccinate, they were then not able to export the meat because it would carry anti-bodies which would mean it would fail inspection as potentially infectious.
 
Glaucus said:
If you want local produce, check out your farmers market. Great stuff to be found there and it's all local. If you want to grow it yourself, move outside of a city.
Click to expand...

No, people should learn to be as self sustaining as possible and there should NOT be laws against it. What are you going to do when (not if) the food crisis comes? You can't eat your iPad.
 
redrumloa said:
No, people should learn to be as self sustaining as possible and there should NOT be laws against it. What are you going to do when (not if) the food crisis comes? You can't eat your iPad.
Click to expand...
Well, cities only became possible when agriculture got advanced enough that a single person could produce more food then he needed himself. Since that point in time, people have been moving to larger towns and cities and just buy the food from those who still grow it in large quantities. If you have chickens in your backyard, will you have enough to sustain yourself year round? What will you feed the chickens? You'll need to grow that too.

Look it's nice to grow some vegetables but most people just can't do that year round. It's completely impossible here in Winnipeg unless you want to build a massive greenhouse. And of course, people in apartments are screwed no matter where they are.
 
chickens are banned in the town i live in unless you get the surrounding neighbors to agree to allow them... one of my favorite experiences was incubating chicken eggs in one of them little Styrofoam incubators. everyday me and gabriel dutifully turned the eggs twice a day. he was only two then and not really sure what we were doing that for, but as they started coming due and he had about seven days of watching them peck thru the shells, he got it! we ended up with 22 chicks from a 30 egg incubator. bawk bawk he would say to them as they peeped their way into a new world... lol... we ended up taking them to my dads farm out by pfeifer....
 
Glaucus said:
Well, cities only became possible when agriculture got advanced enough that a single person could produce more food then he needed himself. Since that point in time, people have been moving to larger towns and cities and just buy the food from those who still grow it in large quantities. If you have chickens in your backyard, will you have enough to sustain yourself year round? What will you feed the chickens? You'll need to grow that too.

Look it's nice to grow some vegetables but most people just can't do that year round. It's completely impossible here in Winnipeg unless you want to build a massive greenhouse. And of course, people in apartments are screwed no matter where they are.
Click to expand...

Start thinking worst case scenario and plan for it. If you can't grow enough of your own food, buy MREs and/or freeze dried food. Imagine the horror of going to the grocery store and finding the shelves completely bare. Then what do you do? This really isn't a far out concept. As a matter of fact it is looking like a strong possibility within our lifetime and possibly this decade.
 
redrumloa said:
If you can't grow enough of your own food, buy MREs and/or freeze dried food. Imagine the horror of going to the grocery store and finding the shelves completely bare. Then what do you do?
Click to expand...
I'll do what everyone else will do: riot!

I think it's highly unlikely that WE will starve for a long period. It would require a nuclear war or something equally devastating for the entire nation to collapse like that. I can see rationing, shortages, natural disasters, etc, but a complete collapse to the point that we're living like in Mad Max movies? I doubt it.
 
Glaucus said:
I can see rationing, shortages, natural disasters, etc, but a complete collapse to the point that we're living like in Mad Max movies? I doubt it.
Click to expand...

New Orleans. Here in Vancouver a 9 quake should mess things up pretty bad and don't expect gas and electricity to work or roads to be passable for a while. Things will get tight. Obviously a store of cans and dried food is good but you'll also need water (it rains a lot but can you catch it?) or everything could be fine in which case no problem.

When out driving you probably aren't going to crash. It's the same every time you drive, you probably won't crash. You wear a seat belt anyway so that if, in the unlikely event you do have a crash, you will be less likely to die or be seriously injured.
 
Glaucus said:
Well, cities only became possible when agriculture got advanced enough that a single person could produce more food then he needed himself.
Click to expand...

And the kind of social control that comes with people being dependent on others for food only became possible at that time too. And the possibility of starving simply because someone stiffed you on your pay began to happen then also. The idea that there could be plenty of food and you still not be able to get any became possible as speculators rushed to commodity futures.

If food futures went through the roof because of powerful financial companies which do you think would happen first, governments would overrule the financial companies and bring food to the people OR governments would beef up prison capacity and police forces to quell civil unrest?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top