Yummy Treat: Soylent Feed

  For the third time in the last 2 weeks, Brandt meat products has had products recalled by the Canada Inspection Agency. This time, the company is recalling an entire product line and has shut down production because of salmonella and listeria contamination. Brandt also manufactures (I hate that term when we're dealing with animals) pork products for Freybe and others, so be wary. Also since their products are often sold in bulk, deli counters could be affected.

  After hearing of numerous pathogenic outbreaks, I wonder why people purchase sliced deli products at all. Yes, it is far more convenient to rip open a package than to cook up a roast on the weekend and slice it in many minds, but I don't know if it's worth the risk. In most meats, the flesh of hundreds, even thousands of different animals is jammed together and if one of them is contaminated, the whole pile is. This is why you see more outbreaks involving pressed deli and ground meat products than anything else. While cooking may kill many bacteria, the speedy packaging lines ensure that thousands, even millions of packages can be contaminated without notice. Add into this the intensive (factory) farming methods that promote growth of antibiotic-resistant strains and you have a recipe for disaster. And then comes all of the salt and nitrates and G-d knows what else. This stuff is bad for you and you know it.

  So what to be done? First- don't buy heavily processed meat and demand that your meat come from a single animal. If you REALLY must have that ham on rye, buy a whole ham (not pressed roll) and slice it yourself. It freezes well and it's about 60% less expensive than at the cryptosporidium counter. And eschew factory-farmed meat altogether if it's possible. Agriprocessors are capitalists and they WILL give the customer what they want or fail. It's Business 101. But the biggest thing you can do short of going vegan is to support your local farmers. There are mum-and-pop butcher shops out there and farmers markets. It's better for your health, the environment, and the little guy that is the backbone of the economy. They also genuinely care about their customers and value your right to know what is in your food.

  We have become people who insist on consuming flesh that does not remotely resemble the animal it came from. Our parents knew exactly where their steak came from and they respected the animal who gave his life for their enjoyment. They also knew that animals were different because they could see the cow and the chicken and sheep. They tidied the barns and let the chickens out to pick and scratch and chase the dog around. And after they killed one of their coop they didn't mix its meat with that of animals from 50 different farms a thousand miles away. The unwritten code of the local farm was and is infinitely more hygenic than the industrial feedlots and food factories that have nearly taken over.

  Soylent feed is made of pig,cow,chicken, and goat by-products mixed in with the fingertips of overworked workers, industrial chemicals, waste products, and dairy considered unfit. It's tightly packed and smoked and sliced with salt and cheap spices to conceal what it is. And you're the one eating it.