Posted on 04/09/2014 7:23:36 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Don’t panic. Your prices will probably go up because the free market is awesome and capable of signaling where it needs the most bacon when, and to whom it is most valuable, so there won’t be full bacon stoppage. Or, bacon lines. Though if you were going to queue up for something, certainly that’d be it.
A virus never before seen in the U.S. has killed millions of baby pigs in less than a year, and with little known about how it spreads or how to stop it, it’s threatening pork production and pushing up prices by 10 percent or more.
Scientists think porcine epidemic diarrhea, which does not infect humans or other animals, came from China, but they don’t know how it got into the country or spread to 27 states since last May. The federal government is looking into how such viruses might spread, while the pork industry, wary of future outbreaks, has committed $1.7 million to research the disease.
The U.S. is both a top producer and exporter of pork, but production could decline about 7 percent this year compared to last — the biggest drop in more than 30 years, according to a recent report from Rabobank, which focuses on the food, beverage and agribusiness industries.
Between this and the lime shortage, Bloody Marys are hardest hit. You may have to cut your garnish down to just the two slices.
The disease is thought to have come from China, and large pork-producing states are suffering— Iowa and North Carolina chief among them. Perhaps Bruce Braley can say something mind-blowingly insensitive about pig farmers not knowing how to chair an appropriations committee properly or something during this tough time. Companies are working to create a vaccine, but nothing has been approved by the federal government.
As much as this is tough, particularly for those whose livelihoods depend upon it, it’s a wonderful thing to live in a country where a shortage of any food product is a national news story, not an everyday occurrence. As I said when faced with the Velveeta shortage of 2014:
Many will scoff and say the regular, near-perfect delivery of cheese is nothing, but it’s damn near miraculous, and a historical anomaly to be so well-supplied with cheese of all varieties that those who used to worry about a lack of cheese are now compelled to write laws limiting our cheese intake for us. One of capitalism’s greatest weaknesses is the invisible hand works so well its untold maneuvers are easy to take for granted. Until you’re sitting there, for the first time in your life, with a lonely can of Rotel.
In 2008, when there was another serious wave of food scarcity, most people blamed shop owners for hoarding food as a mechanism to exert pressure on the government’s price controls, a measure that former president Hugo Chávez adopted as part of his self-styled socialist revolution.
This time, however, food shortages have gone on for almost a year and certain items long gone from the shelves are hitting a particular nerve with Venezuelans. Toilet paper, rice, coffee, and cornflour, used to make arepas, Venezuela’s national dish, have become emblematic of more than just an economic crisis.
“We used to produce rice and we had excellent coffee; now we produce nothing. With the situation here people abandoned the fields,” says Jesús López, in reference to government-seized land that sits idle. “Empty shelves and no one to explain why a rich country has no food. It’s unacceptable,” adds the 90-year-old farmer from San Cristóbal, on the western state of Táchira, bordering Colombia.
Well, that’s their loss then...
Bacon is life; life is bacon. And now someone informed me on another thread that there is bacon-flavored Vodka...
Life keeps getting betterer and betterer...
Is it or is it ain't rabies ?
And if he just cranked up the vintage Marshall and used volume to take them out, I’d say he was “The God Of Axes”...
Of course, I’d have used my old Mesa Boogie Mark III to do that... there was a reason it was nicknamed “Pure Screaming Hell” back in the day.
Feral hogs are a plague in TX too. I have not heard about any diseases that they carry. I don’t pass up a chance to kill one, they are very damaging to crops.
We have a place at out farm that is set up to process wild game. Only family and friends use it, but it is well equipped.
There are a lot of indicators that food prices will get higher this year. Some because of drop in value of dollar, some from effects of drought and changing weather patterns (natural variation, not man made) and some due to cost push on production costs due to concentration in industries (anti-competitive regulation).
Smart man! The younger, smaller ones do taste better though!
I hope he has replacement piglets already , because the infection rate is remarkably high ,
and the piglet survival is remakably low .
The virus was first identifed in the U.S. in Ohio last year.
Google is your friend.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudorabies
http://myfwc.com/wildlifehabitats/health-disease/pseudorabies/
http://www.nimbios.org/press/feralswine
Here is another! Swine brucellosis.
You sure you wanna eat that wild hog?
Swine brucellosis is transmissible to humans. Humans with this disease typically have flu-like symptoms including intermittent fever, chills, sweating, headaches, muscle and joint soreness, and weakness. Although few human fatalities occur as a result of infection, the disease is often chronic and debilitating. Hunters should be advised to wear rubber gloves and to wash with soap and hot water as soon as possible after handling a feral pig carcass and to ensure that the meat is cooked thoroughly before consumption.
Processed store bacon isn’t as good as homemade. But the essential ingredient, #2 curing salt, is uncommon in retail stores, but available online. #2 curing salt has both sodium nitrate and sodium nitrite in it, which are essential.
Here is the recipe:
1 Pork Belly
Large zip lock bag
Cure Mix
Here is the standard ratio, quantities can change depending on how much pork belly you want to make, scale up or down accordingly.
Salt 3 tbsp – sea salt, kosher salt are preferable
Sugar 1.5 tbsp – brown sugar, or maple sugar if you have it
Pink Salt #2 Curing, 5 grams. Some kinds include table salt, so adjust recipe accordingly
Mix the cure mix. Put pork belly in ziplock bag with several tbsp cure mix and rub it down completely.
Seal the bag, wrap it in another plastic bag like a grocery bag, and place it in the fridge. After a few days there will be a juice/liquid forming, this is the brine solution. Be sure to the flip the bag at least once to get even distribution. It will take about 7-10 days to cure.
After a week or more, take the pork belly out of the bag and rinse it in the sink under cold water. It is now cured.
Preheat oven for 200F. Place the pork belly on the top rack, with a tray underneath to collect any dripping. It will take about 2 hours; this simulates the smoking/cooking of the pork belly and makes it bacon. The internal temperature should get to 150 F, but I have found this is not completely necessary after 2 hours it should be done.
Let the bacon cool at room temperature for about half an hour. Now cut off the pork belly skin, while the meat is still warm. It should come off easily, but may not.
Freeze it so that it cuts easier with a meat slicer.
cook the hell out of it (get it ?)
Rustling to ensue.
Those feral hogs have tons of parasites. Be careful.
I wonder if some of these viruses were brought in to get rid of the wild hogs?
the sages were not kidding when they decided what animals were unclean..
We got hogs all over the place here!!
Maybe, just maybe, a bacon shortage will wake up the low info voters! Once their comfy lives get disturbed a little bit, that might remove the blinders they willfully don each morning! I kind of doubt it tho, for they will simply blame the Tea Party for their bacon woes....
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