When I was young I used to hunt feral pigs on ranches in the NorCal area of rolling oat grass hills studded with large black oaks. The targets were the year old 100 lb shoats that had not yet started breeding. The red delicious meat was the polar opposite to PSE factory pork. Now I just source my pork from 'hippy farms' that run pasture raised pigs. Not a close second but good enough. I source my beef steaks from the northern Sierra Madre mountains of Mexico above Hermosillo. Until you eat this product you will not know what prime grade beef is actually supposed to taste like! (ps: the Romans and Druids were curing meats with potassium nitrite, aka saltpeter, 2000 years ago)
Sure thing! On real deal NorCal hog hunting and eating back in the 70’s? I can send a write up with some pics for primer. How to send? Will take me a week
It is not easy! I go to tiny bordertown south of Ajo, Arizona, in the Sonoran desert and have the local butcher shop order ribeyes from the mother co-op company south of them at the base of sierra madres. It is a class act operation that also has a line of farm to table boutique meat stores. Link below. The company cannot export to US due to lack of bs usda inspection stamp. Plus they don’t need to export. My order is delivered the following week and the butcher cuts to my specs. Then i hand carry 2 30lb boxes of steaks across the checkpoint! A ribeye a week for a year! US customs is lazy there and don’t care or charge duty. i do this every winter. It is a hassle but flavor is out of this world. https://cedasa.com.mx/nosotros/
Not really. I stay in Oregon in summer and winters in Arizona traveling in an RV on eternal camping trip with my wife.stay away from cities and hit Saturday farmers markets to source cottage farmers and homesteaders in quest of natural meats and vegetables. Fun!
Thank you for these informative insights. Taken with many other threads of parallel, intertwining and intersecting warps and wefts, it becomes possible to glimpse patterns in the modern tapestry of our privileged lives; to understand a bit more context and eventually even to tease out a few golden strands of meaning. Such is the great value of this site. I am so very grateful to its creators and contributors (of all species)!
Comes down to we are not an agrarian society. So access to the few "naturally" processed meats is limited and price a big consideration especially on those of us living SS check ti SS check. And anything labeled organic generally much more expensive and given the widespread use of pesticides nearly impossible to guarantee free from wind blown contamination.
Plus water born contamination of pesticide run off. People still do fish and many elderly depend on fishing as part of their diets. That brings up the commercial fishing industry and farm raised fish and shrimp. A good subject for more episodes.
Not really. Many less developed countries have no issue with accessing such meat, and neither do I in California since I buy directly in large quantity from producers (buying in bulk helps to reduce costs). And yes, my meat does still cost more than what I'd pay for it at Costco, but healthy food for me is a priority over other things like coffee, alcohol, cars, etc. So, it's more a matter of setting priorities. Furthermore, do you want to pay for better food now or for more healthcare (or shall I note sickcare) down the road?
Regardless, I included an interesting study I cited in this post elsewhere in this thread:
Micheal, I know food price is a concern, and I weigh the pros for organic over the potential health problems in not choosing wisely. I too live on SS...
Thank you for this thoughtful series! Already it's clear that the product evolution is highly likely to impact on our health. That the related knowledge and implications can be very beneficial, enabling us to select products and frequencies to best meet our needs and long term wellbeing.
One would further conclude these analyses could/should lead to more focused public health oversight and recommendations. One anticipates animals and practices will continue to evolve. So far you haven't covered potential impacts of medications, vaccinations and recent crisper interventions employed in pursuit of animal health. One assumes all will impact the benefits and risks of what we will be eating will be affected.
Looking forward to part 3! and sharing! Again thank you much!
I think it is worthy to include the indigenous Native and how they knew and used many techniques for preservation. They were often nomadic and also needed to plan for the winter months. I've known and avoided synthetic nitrites for quite a while. Nasty stuff.
Fortunately Ana, there are a few nitrite free meats and even some packaged ones. We use Plainville farms brand, organic with just water and sea salt and whatever meat you choose. Applegate brand also has chicken sausage, organic and not, on the package it says "no nitrates, no nitrites" "no antibiotics ever". Just gotta hunt around, your kids would be thrilled. Even bacon with no nitrites...
I don't eat pork either, especially now. I do occasionally feed my cats raw pork, the company uses organic supplementation in most of their raw and cooked animal food. I can even get free range for a little more money. (turkey, beef etc.)
I would be interested to know how brands like Applegate process their meats without nitrites compared to older traditional methods. Are they the same or is Applegate (and similar brands) taking some modern industrial shortcuts? The pigs they use probably are the modern breeds, and that would change how they have to process the meat.
Very informative! The question it raised in my mind is "What is the impact of chronic consumption of sodium nitrite on heart function? Is it a contributing factor to the loss of almost 1 million Americans annually?
This is a fascinating discussion. My family is from Iowa originally. Pigs! They moved to the SF Bay Area. My grandfather worked for Union Carbide selling sausage casings and packaging for hams. My uncle worked in San Leandro In refrigerated warehouses and later ran LA Cold Storage, the largest refrigerated / frozen food operation in the Western US. My sister’s family work with Mario Batali’s Salumi in Seattle. Pork products “Fed” our family in more ways than one. Nice to hear the backstory; thank you Dr Malone.
Imagine if we in America had a "Protected Designation of Origin" rule that applied to heritage products using traditional methods. Applied to meat and fish products, honey, wheat, sugar cane molasses, apple cider, mead, etc. Rules encompassing regenerative farming, using heritage seed/animal lines, analog/traditional processes. A dedicated government office for streamlining the regulatory process that isn't captured or run by Big Food. Niche, at first, but might springboard a Real Food renaissance. Or maybe that's just wishful thinking...
Fascinating. I remember packing in Plumbrose canned bacon into our remote mining claim when I was ten years old. We typically had to boil the salts out of it due to the high salt content. We had to have our bacon and fresh eggs for breakfast though. Each egg carefully sequestered using paper towels too. We used more care than packing in high explosives we typically used on our little copper claim. 😂😂😂
My mom's baby brother died as a toddler after consuming commercially (but improperly) canned fish. That was in 1928. Improvements in food safety are not something to dismiss or take for granted.
I shared this with my wife, Annalisa Kennedy Deering … daughter of Peter Kennedy, Vet. Pathologist, who you undoubtedly ran into at UCD. He was a great foodie, and taught me all about wine.
In case you missed it, here's an interesting paper:
Deoula, M.S. et al., 2019. Consumption of meat, traditional and modern processed meat and colorectal cancer risk among the Moroccan population: A large-scale case–control study
Unfortunately, this paper isn't open source. But its conclusion noted the following:
"...Furthermore, the high consumption of industrially processed meat increased the risk of all CRC subsites while an inverse association was observed between traditionally processed meat and colon
and overall CRC risk. In addition, our study supports a strong association..."
CRC = colorectal cancer.
Now, the positive ASSOCIATIONS with industrially processed meat were still very small in relative risk terms, but what's notable is that there was a NEGATIVE association with traditionally processed meat, meaning that traditionally processed meat may be BENEFICIAL or, at least, not harmful because there was NO association between traditionally processed meat and CRC.
A tragic example of bureaucratic inflexibility involved Stuart Alexander, who had inherited a family business of making linguiça sausages in San Leandro, California. Eventually, the USDA got on his case, arguing that his antique smokers were not acceptable and that he wasn't cooking his meat at a high enough temperature (110 degrees instead of 140 degrees). After a long train of escalating threats, the inspectors showed up to close Alexander down, but he snapped and killed three of them ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_Alexander_(murderer) ).
There was an excellent reason why no one (including me) had ever gotten sick from eating these sausages over the period of nearly eight decades they were made--these sausages were cured in wine before being cooked and smoked. While ethanol won't kill all bacteria, it does kill common foodborne pathogens like E. coil, Salmonella, and Listeria.
Was this family's traditional recipe absolutely fool-proof? Maybe not, but nothing in life is absolutely risk-free, including the cancer-causing chemicals that the regulations influenced by the large food-processors permit. The effect of regulations is to grant immunity to the compliant firms for the harms they inflict while shutting down non-conformists in spite of a complete lack of evidence of any actual harms on their part.
A proper system of justice needs to hold people accountable for the harms they actually have a hand in causing, not punish people because remote bureaucratic authors of rulebooks think they are smarter than entrepreneurs who bear civil and criminal liability for their mistakes but also have the benefit of unique knowledge that the rule-makers don't possess, possibly including (as in Alexander's case) generations of experience using the same methods and equipment. And yes, according to my taste buds his sausages tasted much better than linguiças cooked at a higher temperature.
When I was young I used to hunt feral pigs on ranches in the NorCal area of rolling oat grass hills studded with large black oaks. The targets were the year old 100 lb shoats that had not yet started breeding. The red delicious meat was the polar opposite to PSE factory pork. Now I just source my pork from 'hippy farms' that run pasture raised pigs. Not a close second but good enough. I source my beef steaks from the northern Sierra Madre mountains of Mexico above Hermosillo. Until you eat this product you will not know what prime grade beef is actually supposed to taste like! (ps: the Romans and Druids were curing meats with potassium nitrite, aka saltpeter, 2000 years ago)
Chris- we would like to interview you and write up your story!
Sure thing! On real deal NorCal hog hunting and eating back in the 70’s? I can send a write up with some pics for primer. How to send? Will take me a week
wow I would like to know the name of who you get your beef from Please.
It is not easy! I go to tiny bordertown south of Ajo, Arizona, in the Sonoran desert and have the local butcher shop order ribeyes from the mother co-op company south of them at the base of sierra madres. It is a class act operation that also has a line of farm to table boutique meat stores. Link below. The company cannot export to US due to lack of bs usda inspection stamp. Plus they don’t need to export. My order is delivered the following week and the butcher cuts to my specs. Then i hand carry 2 30lb boxes of steaks across the checkpoint! A ribeye a week for a year! US customs is lazy there and don’t care or charge duty. i do this every winter. It is a hassle but flavor is out of this world. https://cedasa.com.mx/nosotros/
Chris, any particular small farms that you would recommend?
Not really. I stay in Oregon in summer and winters in Arizona traveling in an RV on eternal camping trip with my wife.stay away from cities and hit Saturday farmers markets to source cottage farmers and homesteaders in quest of natural meats and vegetables. Fun!
Thank you for these informative insights. Taken with many other threads of parallel, intertwining and intersecting warps and wefts, it becomes possible to glimpse patterns in the modern tapestry of our privileged lives; to understand a bit more context and eventually even to tease out a few golden strands of meaning. Such is the great value of this site. I am so very grateful to its creators and contributors (of all species)!
Very poetic and visual.
Informative series. Look forward to the next part. Thank you.
Comes down to we are not an agrarian society. So access to the few "naturally" processed meats is limited and price a big consideration especially on those of us living SS check ti SS check. And anything labeled organic generally much more expensive and given the widespread use of pesticides nearly impossible to guarantee free from wind blown contamination.
Plus water born contamination of pesticide run off. People still do fish and many elderly depend on fishing as part of their diets. That brings up the commercial fishing industry and farm raised fish and shrimp. A good subject for more episodes.
No kidding!!
Not really. Many less developed countries have no issue with accessing such meat, and neither do I in California since I buy directly in large quantity from producers (buying in bulk helps to reduce costs). And yes, my meat does still cost more than what I'd pay for it at Costco, but healthy food for me is a priority over other things like coffee, alcohol, cars, etc. So, it's more a matter of setting priorities. Furthermore, do you want to pay for better food now or for more healthcare (or shall I note sickcare) down the road?
Regardless, I included an interesting study I cited in this post elsewhere in this thread:
https://rwmalonemd.substack.com/p/what-does-processed-meat-actually?r=bvp0g&utm_campaign=comment-list-share-cta&utm_medium=web&comments=true&commentId=291382538
===================================
True, priorities are important.
I always say: pay me now or pay me later (with interest) !!!
Micheal, I know food price is a concern, and I weigh the pros for organic over the potential health problems in not choosing wisely. I too live on SS...
And,food not the only expense skyrocketing
We just have to do what we can with what we know. That being said:
I don't think that we can totally eat 100% clean!
Thank you for this thoughtful series! Already it's clear that the product evolution is highly likely to impact on our health. That the related knowledge and implications can be very beneficial, enabling us to select products and frequencies to best meet our needs and long term wellbeing.
One would further conclude these analyses could/should lead to more focused public health oversight and recommendations. One anticipates animals and practices will continue to evolve. So far you haven't covered potential impacts of medications, vaccinations and recent crisper interventions employed in pursuit of animal health. One assumes all will impact the benefits and risks of what we will be eating will be affected.
Looking forward to part 3! and sharing! Again thank you much!
Processed meat?
They take a bunch of chicken parts, wad em' up, and call them chicken tenders.
I think it is worthy to include the indigenous Native and how they knew and used many techniques for preservation. They were often nomadic and also needed to plan for the winter months. I've known and avoided synthetic nitrites for quite a while. Nasty stuff.
When my children were young, I was determined that they would NEVER eat products with sodium nitrates.
Much to my dismay and knowledge, they were exposed to it when they went to visit their MATERNAL GRANDPARENTS (UGH)!
It wasn't long before I realized that I had to be the bad guy to keep them away from their addictive quality.
NO MORE: Hotdogs, baloney, and pressed ham for them.
They weren't happy campers.
My son, the deep thinker, would tell me: I wish that there was no such thing as sodium nitrates ‼️
I would reply: ME TOO‼️‼️
🤷🏻♂️🤷🤷♀️
Fortunately Ana, there are a few nitrite free meats and even some packaged ones. We use Plainville farms brand, organic with just water and sea salt and whatever meat you choose. Applegate brand also has chicken sausage, organic and not, on the package it says "no nitrates, no nitrites" "no antibiotics ever". Just gotta hunt around, your kids would be thrilled. Even bacon with no nitrites...
DD, fortunately I don't have to worry about it because I don't eat pork.
My husband is another story‼️😤🙃😤
I do buy the Applegate brand products for him.
I don't eat pork either, especially now. I do occasionally feed my cats raw pork, the company uses organic supplementation in most of their raw and cooked animal food. I can even get free range for a little more money. (turkey, beef etc.)
I would be interested to know how brands like Applegate process their meats without nitrites compared to older traditional methods. Are they the same or is Applegate (and similar brands) taking some modern industrial shortcuts? The pigs they use probably are the modern breeds, and that would change how they have to process the meat.
Beccar1954, I too was curious about that because if the issues with the FAT FREE & SUGAR FREE products 🤔.
I worried that the substitute is worse than the original.
I guess that we'll just have to eat what we kill in order to not die of confusion ⁉️‼️⁉️
🤪🤷♀️🤷🤷🏻♂️
For one thing, it is frozen. The non-frozen other brands have salt. I'm sure you can ask them.
You might like trying your hand at making Pemmican
That is one of the techniques I was referring to!
I've looked at some recipes -- apparently it was very nutritious but not that tasty
Oh no, I just printed out a recipe ‼️‼️
🙃😩🙃
Very informative! The question it raised in my mind is "What is the impact of chronic consumption of sodium nitrite on heart function? Is it a contributing factor to the loss of almost 1 million Americans annually?
'chronic' consumption of about anything will lead you to an early grave.
This is a fascinating discussion. My family is from Iowa originally. Pigs! They moved to the SF Bay Area. My grandfather worked for Union Carbide selling sausage casings and packaging for hams. My uncle worked in San Leandro In refrigerated warehouses and later ran LA Cold Storage, the largest refrigerated / frozen food operation in the Western US. My sister’s family work with Mario Batali’s Salumi in Seattle. Pork products “Fed” our family in more ways than one. Nice to hear the backstory; thank you Dr Malone.
Imagine if we in America had a "Protected Designation of Origin" rule that applied to heritage products using traditional methods. Applied to meat and fish products, honey, wheat, sugar cane molasses, apple cider, mead, etc. Rules encompassing regenerative farming, using heritage seed/animal lines, analog/traditional processes. A dedicated government office for streamlining the regulatory process that isn't captured or run by Big Food. Niche, at first, but might springboard a Real Food renaissance. Or maybe that's just wishful thinking...
Wishful thinking is typically shared. Especially here. 😊
Fascinating. I remember packing in Plumbrose canned bacon into our remote mining claim when I was ten years old. We typically had to boil the salts out of it due to the high salt content. We had to have our bacon and fresh eggs for breakfast though. Each egg carefully sequestered using paper towels too. We used more care than packing in high explosives we typically used on our little copper claim. 😂😂😂
My mom's baby brother died as a toddler after consuming commercially (but improperly) canned fish. That was in 1928. Improvements in food safety are not something to dismiss or take for granted.
Absolutely ‼️
That is why I limit my consumption of any canned food 🥫 🙃 ‼️
I shared this with my wife, Annalisa Kennedy Deering … daughter of Peter Kennedy, Vet. Pathologist, who you undoubtedly ran into at UCD. He was a great foodie, and taught me all about wine.
In case you missed it, here's an interesting paper:
Deoula, M.S. et al., 2019. Consumption of meat, traditional and modern processed meat and colorectal cancer risk among the Moroccan population: A large-scale case–control study
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ijc.32689
Unfortunately, this paper isn't open source. But its conclusion noted the following:
"...Furthermore, the high consumption of industrially processed meat increased the risk of all CRC subsites while an inverse association was observed between traditionally processed meat and colon
and overall CRC risk. In addition, our study supports a strong association..."
CRC = colorectal cancer.
Now, the positive ASSOCIATIONS with industrially processed meat were still very small in relative risk terms, but what's notable is that there was a NEGATIVE association with traditionally processed meat, meaning that traditionally processed meat may be BENEFICIAL or, at least, not harmful because there was NO association between traditionally processed meat and CRC.
Thank you! Your articles are always so informative and I like the personal ones about the farm as well. Looking forward to part III
A tragic example of bureaucratic inflexibility involved Stuart Alexander, who had inherited a family business of making linguiça sausages in San Leandro, California. Eventually, the USDA got on his case, arguing that his antique smokers were not acceptable and that he wasn't cooking his meat at a high enough temperature (110 degrees instead of 140 degrees). After a long train of escalating threats, the inspectors showed up to close Alexander down, but he snapped and killed three of them ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_Alexander_(murderer) ).
There was an excellent reason why no one (including me) had ever gotten sick from eating these sausages over the period of nearly eight decades they were made--these sausages were cured in wine before being cooked and smoked. While ethanol won't kill all bacteria, it does kill common foodborne pathogens like E. coil, Salmonella, and Listeria.
Was this family's traditional recipe absolutely fool-proof? Maybe not, but nothing in life is absolutely risk-free, including the cancer-causing chemicals that the regulations influenced by the large food-processors permit. The effect of regulations is to grant immunity to the compliant firms for the harms they inflict while shutting down non-conformists in spite of a complete lack of evidence of any actual harms on their part.
A proper system of justice needs to hold people accountable for the harms they actually have a hand in causing, not punish people because remote bureaucratic authors of rulebooks think they are smarter than entrepreneurs who bear civil and criminal liability for their mistakes but also have the benefit of unique knowledge that the rule-makers don't possess, possibly including (as in Alexander's case) generations of experience using the same methods and equipment. And yes, according to my taste buds his sausages tasted much better than linguiças cooked at a higher temperature.