Posted on 07/10/2009 4:43:04 AM PDT by appleseed
No matter how you approach it, summer grilling is a lose-lose situation for Mother Nature.
Are you cookin’ veggie burgers over natural, low-impact lump charcoal that you fired up with a chimney starter? You’re still also cookin' up an ample amount of air pollution.
Are you serving local veggie kabobs expertly grilled over a gas-powered flame? You’re generating less sooty particles but that gas, as you’re probably aware, is a nonrenewable resource.
What about that free-range chicken cooked over an electric grill? If it's plugged in, you're generating greenhouse gases there, too.
If you gotta grill, you gotta grill (but please, hold the lighter fluid). But let’s say you truly strive for eco-perfection and you're a backyard cooking fanatic. Tough one. That is, unless you have a sunny, cloudless sky, plenty of patience, a thermometer, and a solar oven.
Solar cooking and grilling are two different animals. Apples and oranges. It’s like trying to equate fried chicken to chicken and dumplings. One isn’t comparable to the other.
Solar cooking is fun and no cost. Making a box solar oven is a great project for the kids. The long cooking times give food items a very good flavor.
My spouse built a credible sun oven using galvanized and steel. Black tile lines the box.
It cooks pretty well, but don’t try beans in it. They won’t cook down.
The temps will reach those in a slow cooker and it helps to have an oven temp gauge in the box itself.
But grill! Give me propane or charcoal and forget the PC.
Char, blackened and crisp beats all.
Too late, wow, far out, dude.
You cannot defend him. We have found at least three ways he is despoiling Our Mother. If anything he needs a stint in an EccoEducation camp.
This whole thing is gay. Propane is the way to go (When you don't have time for charcoal).
Give me propane or charcoal and forget the PC.u
Except for the fact that my father was much leaner than Hank, Hank looks uncomfortably similar to him. Kind of creeps me out.
I just did a search to see if I could find it on the net to show you what it looks like and found it here. Don't know if you can still buy one, but I bet you can somewhere.
By the way..... thanks for the chuckle over the shopping cart grill. That and someone's comment about its handy bunwarmer and I am still laughing!!
Your link, unfortunately, goes to a site where you have to sign in with a password. What’s the reference so I can look it up later with Pubmed?
The link is bad
repost?
I made one that cooked bacon when I was in the 6th grade! 50 years ago! Probably got the plans from Scientific Experimenter Magazine. Built a Van de Graaf generator the next year.
The EPA has tried to outlaw grilling for nearly a decade now.
How well does it work if you decide to do your grilling in the cool of the evening??
Or in the rain? I am a die hard, I chip ice off the grill in the winter.
Is this it?
http://www.gadgetshop.com/OutdoorGadgets/SummerTime/Notebook+Portable+FlatFolding+Bbq/EPN310599
LOL Not very well I wouldn’t think. A michigan winter probably wouldn’t be a very effective time for cooking either.
Oh my! Between “what’s wrong with this picture” (the original not yours :) and “what’s wrong with the *information* in this article” - what *does* one say? ;)
On January 18, 2001, the Alaska Division of Public Health was informed by a local physician of a possible botulism outbreak in a southwest Alaska village. This report summarizes the findings of the outbreak investigation, which linked disease to eating fermented food, and describes a new botulism prevention program in Alaska.Kind of disguting - which is the point.A case of foodborne botulism was defined as a clinically compatible illness in a village resident with laboratory confirmation of botulism or a history of eating the same food as a laboratory-confirmed case; 14 persons in the village had eaten fermented beaver tail and paw on January 17. Approximately 20 hours later, three of the 14 had symptoms suggestive of botulism, including dry mouth, blurry vision, and general weakness. Two patients developed respiratory failure and required intubation and mechanical ventilation. One of the two intubated patients suffered cardiac arrest and underwent successful cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Approximately 6 hours after the onset of symptoms, the three patients received types A/B and E botulism antitoxin. They subsequently were evacuated to an intensive care unit (ICU) in Anchorage. Two patients recovered without further complication. The third required tracheostomy tube placement and mechanical ventilation for 1 month; this patient had been hospitalized with botulism in 1997. Of the other 11 exposed persons, four reported minor symptoms compatible with botulism, including dry mouth and nausea, and were admitted to a hospital for overnight observation. One was hospitalized for 10 days with persistent ileus. The remaining seven exposed persons were held for observation for 48 hours.
Clinical specimens from the 14 exposed persons were tested for botulinum toxin at CDC. Type E toxin was detected in serum specimens from two of the ICU patients and in stool from the third. Although they displayed minor symptoms, the other 11 persons had no toxin found in specimens and were not considered laboratory-confirmed cases. Type E toxin also was detected in three beaver paws tested from the implicated meal.
Beaver is hunted in southwest Alaska, and certain parts often are fermented and eaten later. In this outbreak, the tail and paws had been wrapped in a paper rice sack and stored for up to 3 months in the entry of a patient's house. Some of the beaver tail and paw had been added to the sack as recently as 1 week before it was eaten.
Reported by: A Horn, K Stamper, D Dahlberg, J McCabe, MD, Bristol Bay Area Health Corporation, Dillingham; M Beller, MD, JP Middaugh, MD, State Epidemiologist, Alaska Dept of Health and Social Svcs. Arctic Investigations Program; Foodborne and Diarrheal Diseases Br, Div of Bacterial and Mycotic Diseases, National Center for Infectious Diseases; and EIS officers, CDC.
Editorial Note This report illustrates how the use of nontraditional fermentation methods is associated with foodborne botulism in Alaska. Botulism results from eating preformed toxin produced by Clostridium botulinum. Botulism begins with cranial nerve paralysis, including diplopia, dilated and fixed pupils, dysarthria, dysphagia, and dry throat. Botulism intoxication can result in death, which most often is caused by respiratory failure. The latent period is typically 12--36 hours but can range from 6 hours to 10 days [1]. C. botulinum and closely related organisms produce toxins designated as types A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. Human botulism is most commonly caused by types A, B, and E. Type E is associated with foods of marine or freshwater origin. Alaska's foodborne botulism rates exceed those in any other state and are among the highest in the world [1]. During 1950--2000, Alaska recorded 226 cases of foodborne botulism from 114 outbreaks. All patients were Alaska Natives, and all cases with known causes were associated with eating fermented foods [1,2]. Approximately 27% of U.S. foodborne botulism cases occur in Alaska.
In traditional fermentation, food is kept in a grass-lined hole in the ground or a wooden barrel sunken into the ground or is placed in a shady area above ground for several weeks to months. Since the 1970s, however, plastic or glass containers have been used and fermentation has been done above ground or indoors. The anaerobic condition of sealed containers and warmer temperatures make fermentation more rapid and production of botulism toxin more likely [3--5]. These nontraditional methods have been associated with increased botulism rates in Alaska during 1970--1989 (Figure 1) [4,5]. Although a plastic container was not used in this outbreak, the beaver tail and paw were fermented in a closed rice sack and stored in a warm area.
(Figure 1 .Early diagnosis and antitoxin treatment have contributed to the decline of the case-fatality rate from approximately 31% during 1950--1959 to no deaths in Alaska since 1994 [1]. However, Alaska continues to have high foodborne botulism rates because fermented foods are part of Alaska Native culture. In a 1999 survey, 107 (77%) of 140 Alaska Natives reported having eaten fermented foods at least once in their lifetime [3].
In 1998, the Bristol Bay Area Health Corporation, a health-care delivery organization operated by Alaska Natives in southwest Alaska, collaborated with CDC's Arctic Investigations Program to design a community-based botulism prevention strategy, including an education video entitled, "A Helping Hand: Keeping Your Family Safe From Botulism." It features Alaska Native elders and botulism survivors discussing the risks of eating improperly fermented foods and recommends returning to traditional methods. The video also suggests boiling fermented foods for 10 minutes to destroy botulinum toxin. Both an English and an Alaska Native language version of the video were produced and distributed to all village clinics and schools in the Bristol Bay region. .htm.
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