"Legless" Meat and Other Atrocities

First, I stumbled upon this from a recent issue of Wired magazine (which I wouldn't get if MediaBistro didn't send it to me for free...). If you haven't already clicked on the link, it's an illustration of the yet-to-be-invented Ronco Meat-O-Matic, which allows you to grow "meat" from tissue cultures in a vat of nutrient-fortified liquid. The scary thing is that I wouldn't put it past today's feed-lot-crowding, corn-feeding, antibiotic pushing meat producers as a way to further scale up production. And who can blame them when the vast majority of meat-eating Americans are stuffing themselves silly with the cheapest meat they can find. (Why do you think McDonald's has sold billions? It's not the quality of service that keeps people coming back...)

So today, while reading Mouthing Off, one of Food & Wine magazine's blogs, I stumbled upon Rethinking the Meat Guzzler, by regular New York Times contributor Mark Bittman. It's a well-written essay on how harmful the current meat production industry is to the environment and our collective health among other things. In it, Bittman also alludes to the prospect of "legless meat." To quote from the article:

"Longer term, it no longer seems lunacy to believe in the possibility of “meat without feet” — meat produced in vitro, by growing animal cells in a super-rich nutrient environment before being further manipulated into burgers and steaks."

And then there's this gem, an Op-Ed by a farmer who was fined for daring to grow fruit and vegetables on land earmarked for corn. "How dare he!" I say with the utmost level of sarcasm. It's ludicrous that a farmer, who is trying to grow more watermelons to satisfy demand for local, organic produce, is told that he's breaking some law by doing this on land set aside for corn.

This all makes we wonder how I can best work to roll back the "progress" we've made in terms of agriculture. The more I learn about the Farm Bill and its subsidies to the largest corn, soybean, rice, cotton and wheat growers (at the expense of the very small farms those subsidies were originally intended to aid and those farmers wishing to grow the fruits and vegetables that we're supposed to be eating more of) the more I'm disgusted. I just want some antibiotic-free, grass-fed beef (three or four ounces is enough) to go with my local, organic, seasonal vegetables that rest on top of my brown rice pilaf that I made with homemade chicken stock. Is that so much to ask?

Ethanol and what it means to your ketchup

One of the benefits of actually having an office to go to rather than always working from home is that you get to overhear things. Now, I don't read the Wall Street Journal reguarly, but thanks to my cube neighbor at my current freelance job, I now know about an interesting chain of events linking alternative fuels to the stuff you dip your french fries into. (How dare you if mayo came to mind! Cultural obsession or not, that's just gross...) Since the WSJ isn't free, here's an article on the same topic from the San Francisco Chronicle: Heinz hopes sweeter ketchup tomatoes reduce need for corn syrup.

You can read the article yourself for all the juicy details on the economics of the corn syrup price bump. But to me the interesting thing is that the company is busy trying to create a new sweeter tomato variety.

Now, personal preferences aside, Heinz is considered by many—famous chefs included—to be the gold standard to which all other ketchups must be judged against. I wonder what might happen to the taste, texture or general quality of the ketchup once the new tomatoes are swapped in for some of the corn syrup. Will it be a noticeable difference in the same way that Mexican Coke tastes different from the Coke you and I buy in office vending machines?

Time will tell, but it's certainly amazing how something like alternative automobile fuels have a trickle down effect on our food supply. It's like the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon only he has the day off and corn is standing in his stead....