The cost of food

[dalangdon]

I love venison. We used to eat a lot of it when I was a kid. There was a brewery in Omaha that put out some excellent cookbooks for game, and Mom and Dad liked cooking it.

My mom's neighborhood back home is quite wooded, and has way too many deer, but you can't hunt them in the city anymore. One of the reasons it was banned was because our late neighbor used to get a couple of drinks in him, and start shooting at the deer from his back porch.

He wasn't a good aim even when sober, so that caused the neighbors to complain to the city. Plus, he used a shotgun instead of a rifle, so even if he hit one, it would be hard to clean.

We were all relieved when he finally died. He left behind the happiest widow anyone had ever met. ;-)

 

[sudsmaster]

Well, any wild caught fish is by nature "organic". The $20/lb stuff must be farm-raised?

I bought a box of frozen Alaska wild salmon filets a few weeks ago at the Costco Business Center. They're all vacuum packed, so it's easy to take one out a day before, put it in the fridge, and then cook it up for supper the next day. The texture is a little drier and a little tougher than fresh wild Pacific salmon I've eaten (on rare occasion) but it's still good. The price was about $5/lb.

What sort of amuses me is when I see someone buying "organic" produce and then lighting up a cigarette as soon as they leave the market...

 

[polkanut]

I forgot to mention in my earlier post that tonights menu is homemade lasagna made with ground venison, garlic bread, tossed salad, Bavarian Cream, and sugar-free Lemon Poppy Seed Torte, and coffee.

 

[58limited]

I love venison, I've been hunting several times but never shot anything. I have an employee who hunts and has given me quite a bit of venison and wild hog, very good eating. I like to eat well. To do this I cook for myself. I can cook restaurant quality food for much cheaper than eating out. I'm fortunate that I live in a shrimping area so I can get good shrimp, and other seafood, for cheap - even fresh off the boat. I look for sale items. Our local store, HEB, has a complete line of processed precooked foods (their brisket is da bomb) that are good and cheaper than name brand equivalents, and I think they taste better. For Christmas, I invited my sister and her family over, but I had to work the ER on the 24th. I decided to buy HEB's ready made Turkey dinner (feeds 6-8) for $60.00. This included a 10 lb turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, green bean casserole, and fresh cranberry coctail. All you have to do is heat it up. Plans changed and I went to their house instead, so I didn't actually buy it. Could I have made all of this for cheaper? Yes, but I would have spent a lot of time cooking and cleaning instead of enjoying the holiday. If my mom were still alive, I wouldn't hestitate to cook with her all day but now I like to relax on holidays instead of spending all my time cooking and cleaning. Did I mention that HEB's food is quite good?

As far as ethanol for fuel, the U.S. can't possibly grow enough corn to feed its people, livestock, and produce enough gasohol to run the country. I've seen some other web sites showing other potential sources for ethanol or methanol (not sure about methanol's combustion properties but it can be used instead of ethanol to produce biodiesel). There is an algea that can be grown in unused stock tanks and ponds. It can potentially produce amounts much much greater per acre than corn (I'm talking WAY more than corn). I'll have to find the link again, I lost track it last year.

 

[maggie~hamilton]

I have had venison and can't say I'm crazy about it it.

In other news, gas today in West L.A. was $3.79/gal. I asked the proprietor if the price of gas included a tube of KY. He didn't get it.......

 

[tolivac]

I can agree with 58limited-we can't grow enough plant matter to feed us,our livestock ,and our cars.Face it, despite what politicians and others say Ethanol is going to be MORE expensive and less efficient as a motor fuel than petroleuem products.You will have to BURN fuel to raise the product for Ethanol!Maybe the Ethanol can be made up using WASTE plant and wood products as its ferment stock Ethanol fuel would be more economically practical.

 

[tolivac]

I may have to take up deerhunting again-saw lots of hunters around the worksite yesterday morning as I got off work.The cost of the food is low-you do have to "get" and clean it-the hunter out here use dogs to herd the deer to them so they can shoot the deer.A shotgun can be used for deerhunting if you use slug loads in it.Then its much like a rifle.The shotgun with slugloads won't have the range or accuracy of a rifle-Some poorly chosen rifle loads and bullets can tear up the deer meat even worse.You can also hunt them with "archery" season-use the bow and arrow-this is a popular method here.After the bow season the hunter can hunt them, some more during the firearms season.These options are popular with both "meat" deerhunters and those who are more concerned with their "Boone&Crockett" score-how large and how many points on the deer's antlers.

 

[sudsmaster]

The biochemists are hard at work trying to create enzymes and yeast/bacteria that will take cellulosic materials like wood chips and switchgrass to turn into ethanol. Also, the algae previously described, although that will take large amounts of water which might not be readily available in more arid climates. The big problem with wood products is the lignin that holds the cellulose together - as I understand it.

However I think the ultimate answer will have to involve nuclear power - there really is no way around it. Solar production has certain limits, as do other renewable energy resources like wind, tides, hydro, etc. The turn towards electricity will result in more electric powered vehicles - and an improvement in battery technology will be needed there, as well. There have been a lot of apparent dead-end technologies explored for battery storage, including borate-based storage cells and inertial flywheel energy storage. We also need to start building a national high-speed passenger rail network, to rival those in Europe and Japan - which would be far more energy efficient than the private automobile or the airplane. And for regional trips - 500 miles or so - high speed rail door to door will probably be as fast as air travel, what with the delays involved in getting to the airport, going through security, congested runways, etc. High speed rail trains can enter the center of a city, rather than having to be placed outside city limits, usually 10 or 30 miles away.

 

[tolivac]

I agree with Sudsmaster-Nuclear power-this can be renewable ennergy if the breeder program is put to work.We need it now.Remember natural and renewable sources cannot provide all of our energy-Nuke power is the answer for the main central power needs.And the US is still rich in nuclear fuel bearing ore.It can be mined and the area restored like after any other mining operation.Yes,the idea of revamping our RR's is another good one-but difficult.You CANNOT have the hi speed passenger trains trying to mingle with the slower heavier freight ones.They will have to be on separate routes.and road-train grade crossings are another headache for hi speed rail.I feel the future of passenger rail will be in the commuter sector.-priamrily large cities to cut back auto commuting.building all of this costs-and all of the questions are WHO PAYS FOR IT?The rail companies don't want to-and users only want to pay a small fare--or back to their cars they go.And some neighborhoods don't want the trains going thru or near them.And taxpayers don't want to pay for these systems-useful as they would be.

 

[polkanut]

Using dogs to chase and herd wild game is illegal I believe. If you're caught doing that here in WI you might get a harsher sentence than if you committed 1st degree murder, just kidding, but not too far from the truth.

 

[tolivac]

In North Carolina the use of dogs is OK for hunting big game such as deer,bear,feral hogs.In the northern and Midwest areas-the use of the dogs is illegal for big game hunting.In the Southeast the use of dogs for hunting big game is common.Its diffrent than what I was used to .In South Dakota at the time I deer hunted there-use of dogs was a serious offense.The game warden could confiscate them.The hunting laws and methods in the Southeast are very different than those of the Western areas.There are also folks that raise and sell the "Walker Hounds" commonly used here.What I don't like about the deer dogs is some hunters are careless and don't always get all of their dogs-guess what they show up on the doorstep of our transmitter site(now a temp dog pound?)So we look on the dogs tags and call the owner.The dogs also wear radio collars so the hunter can keep track of the dog-but the collar battery may be worn down or out of range of the hunters unit-the dog strayed to far away.Fortunately a vast majority of dogs that show up here are picked up.A couple were taken home by another coworker-the dogs he got were out in the wild for a long time-one had worms and died-the other recovered.The one that recovered is doing fine at his house.

 

[sudsmaster]

I think in California dogs are only allowed to retrieve downed waterfowl. Never heard of anyone in this state using them to help hunt deer or boar. And there's no bear hunting that I know of in California, as well.

Of course it's legal to use dogs to hunt people.