>>>if company comes unexpectedly,<<<
Hmmm Maine - 7 1/2 hours drive... but for Mincemeat, I just might make that trip!!! (I usually make some and can it) The rest of the family ‘tolerate’ it, but I love it! So, when I make a mincemeat pie, they eat a thin sliver each and I eat the rest! Well, not all at one sitting - usually finish it off for breakfast the next morning - Now that’s the way to start the day!!!
>>>>It’s amazing what people waste.<<<<
I know... I usually do 9 or 10 chickens at a time, and it takes me two days. But when I am through, I have 2 cases canned, livers in a package, take de-boned scraps, gizzards and a couple of livers and make chicken scrapple - Get about 16 pounds of that - then I can the broth for cooking veggies and for soups. Feathers, innards, bones and feet go to the chipper/shredder for the compost pile. I know they say not to put meat scraps in compost, but that is the way the commercial chicken farms dispose of theirs regularly. Works great, and I have never had a problem with it.
>>>>Oh the cholesterol!!<<<<
Sometimes I think that cholesterol hype is just that... I eat about 4 eggs a day and my cholesterol is LOWER than it was before. LDL is lower and HDL (the good kind) is higher. Lard is absolutely fantastic for cooking! I cannot eat a french fry from McDonald’s - can’t get past the rancid tallow smell (at least that’s what it seems to me).
I really need to get my wife to reconsider on having a couple of pigs. She isn’t too keen on them, but they would certainly fill a void in my preparedness - AND you can use just about everything but the Squeal. Plus, I miss the lard for cooking, the hams, pork sausage (even though I make venison sausage and am going to do chicken sausage from the next batch) but most of all, I miss a nice slab of smoked bacon... where you can slice it to the thickness you want. Mmmmm Good!
I used to have my deer done at a butcher shop, but they keep going higher and higher in price and you get less and less meat, so this year I went back to doing it all myself. My wife was amazed - couldn’t believe I knew how to do all that... (grin) Gotta keep her surprised... (it’s fun)
Oh my! All of us like-minded people should live close by. When hubby got a moose permit in 2007, he bagged a large moose and was afraid he couldn’t get it processed before it spoiled , so he paid 300 dollars to have a butcher do it and he has been complaining ever since. He says never again-not trimmed to suit him-steaks not cut to suit him. He has a large butcher wheel (?)- a hugh wheel with heavy rope attached to pulleys. You pull on the rope and yout “critter” is attached to the pulleys and as the rope winds around the large wheel it then winds around a log up in the top of our pole barn, the critter is pulled up in the air for skinnig and processing. There must be a name for this apparatus and if anyone knows what it is called, I would love to know. Several game wardens in the area are aware of this device, so they bring road kills for skinning and we usually get a hind quarter for our help.
We also get the most of our animals. Heart, tongue, liver and hogs head cheese are all items the children shudder at whan hubby is processing. They also hesitate to visit when he is processing lard as the smell turns them off. Guess they have never been through hard enough times. I tell them it smells like “money saved” to me. Likewise with the smell of any seafood. Shrimp is real cheap right now if purchased off the boats when they dock. Hubby has shelled over 200 pounds of shrimp purchased at fifty cents a pound. Shelled out, that averages about $1.30 a pound for shrimp.
As I mentioned in a previous post, I get too attached to animals to raise them for food. In a survival situation I know I wouldn’t be that picky but how do ou know in advance? Have always wanted goats and hubby would like chickens but know our numerous gardens would suffer with either of these.
The problem with heart disease is NOT cholesterol.
The problem is Omega 6 oil, or good old vegetable oil. Cooking oil is a relatively new product. Oil (except olive oil) is an unstable compound that breaks down quickly (turns rancid). That’s because the molecules lose electrons over time. But cooking oil has had its electrons stripped off in the manufacturing process, making it more stable.
The problem is that your body does not know what to do with this artificial product. It breaks down poorly and scars your arteries.
Guess what you need in abundance to fix scarred arteries? Vitamin C.
If you don’t get enough Vitamin C (from natural sources like raw tomatoes, green peppers, oranges, etc.), the microphages on the artery walls grab cholesterol (which your body makes when it needs it!) and plasters the scarred walls with it. Better a patch job than scarred arteries that can’t expand or contract and may break and leak.
The solution is to balance omega 3 and omega 6 about 1:1. Right now most Americans, as a result of eating fried foods in excess, are about 1:26. They take a fish oil pill each day and think that will balance out the french fries and KFC. Use fish oil or flaxseed oil on salad and other raw applications. Do NOT cook flaxseed oil!
If you have problems with high levels of LDL, you can get red yeast rice to help bring it down. Better yet, switch to a vegetarian diet and when you want to saute something, use coconut oil. It’s naturally hydrogenated and your body can digest it quite well.
God made our bodies to work right with the foods He put on the earth. He created everything we need to heal our diseases.
I’ve been meaning to research this more, so if you want to have additional information, ping me back and I’ll post some links to articles about this. The topic of cholesterol makes me crazy the way it’s been communicated - full of misinformation!