On Sun, 09 Dec 2007 10:07:25 -0700, Ashley Moran  
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> On Dec 09, 2007, at 3:41 pm, Lynnet Bannion wrote:
>
>> Organic pastured pork ...
> Interesting - how much does this pork compare to other organic pork and  
> non-organic pork?  (Quality and cost wise)
The quality is just incomparable.  I stopped eating supermarket pork years
ago; it was dry and tasteless, and hard to digest.  This pork is delicious.

I have been able to buy pork fat, which I rendered down to lard.   
Honestly, the cracklings were better than chocolate.  The lard is so good  
I lick the spoon after spooning some out for cooking.

Price, maybe twice as high, but well worth it for the quality of the meat.
What is the point in pinching pennies to get poor quality meat that is not
enjoyable to eat?

> Well, it's not quite as organised here.  All the box schemes I'm aware  
> of are privately owned companies.  The one I buy from  describes itself  
> as a "co-operative", but it looks like the members are all farmers, I  
> don't think customers can be members.
I guess it is a different concept.  CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture)
have come from nonexistent to nearly universal in the U.S. in maybe twenty  
years.
People sign up in the spring for a share, which entitles them to a box
or bag of fresh vegetables from the farm each week.  Almost all CSAs
are organic, some biodynamic.  The farm I work with sells a share of
18 weeks for $335. A share is enough for a couple or a small family. When  
there
is a bumper crop of something (this year it was chile peppers), you get  
more; if a vegetable does poorly, you get less, but overall it's a large  
quantity of
food, picked on Friday for Saturday delivery.

>
>> With all the recalls, both meat and vegetable, and the refusal on the  
>> part of the USDA to label GMOs or irradiated food,
>
> According to this <http://www.physics.isu.edu/radinf/food.htm>, the food  
> must be labelled.  I don't really know anything about food irradiation,  
> what's the situation with it?
The information in that website came from 1995.  I must admit to never  
seeing
one of the radura logos on any food, and certainly NEVER a label that it  
was
treated by irradiation.  I think they found out that people wouldn't buy
food with that label, so they continue to irradiate food, but dropped the  
label.

> It's ironic but I bet most people would at least double the variety in  
> their diet if they restricted themselves to food grown within 100 miles  
> or less. It's just hard to get over the mental block of "but why can't I  
> have apples in March?"
It's certainly been true for us. I've been fixing a lot more soups and  
salads
now, finally using all the veggies that come in our CSA shares.

	Lynnet