The TV Show "How Its Made" and a Pot of Beans

[ThomWV]

From time to time we make up a big old pot of Pinto Beans and ham. Goes good with hot biscuits on a cold night. Lately its been coming out saltier and saltier. We make it a bunch of ways but usually with beef or chicken stock. That wasn't it though. I'm bad, I use too much salt as it is, but lately the beans are sometimes almost, if not completely inedible; so salty I wouldn't feed it to the dogs.

Last night I was watching "How its Made" which is a TV show that in short segments walks you through the manufacture or processing of familiar items. The show's great, really interesting. In one segment they show the manufacture of two things we have around here, a Penn fishing reel and a Kitchenaid mixer. Both of these things used to be made in the USA. So when we watched that episode it was of some special interest to us. Last night they were processing Hams. Early in the process they have to cure the hams and I expected to see a zillion of them dumped in a vat of saltwater or something. No no my dear friends. The dam hams run down a conveyor belt and Wham! Down comes a ram with 168 brine shooting needles in it that injects god-only-knows-what sort of salty shit into every ham on the line in about a nano-second. Mechanical arms and plastic wrap finish up the process before what appears to me to be a familiar lable is pasted on the top.

Just as my heart rose when in one episode I saw the care with which the reel and mixer had been made years ago I dam near blanched when I saw what they were doing with something I eat today.

[msongs]

1. also known as something you used to eat... :-) nt

[Hoof Hearted]

2. Then you would be really horrified if they followed the whole process starting with the living pig.

Because what you saw at the end was probably one of the more benign steps of the process.

Antibiotics, hormones, pesticides, animals skinned alive - I don't eat that shit anymore.

[Lorien]

5. Me either. Mammals have been off my grocery list for well over a decade

and other animals are severely limited. Can't eat soy and I'm supposed to eat a high protein diet, but beef and ham are two things I'll never have again no matter what! :puke:

[Hoof Hearted]

13. So I'm guessing I could bug you for some great quinoa recipes?

Sorry to hear about the diet issues but it sounds like you're dealing with it very well.

I eat more soy and wheat than I should since foods like quinoa are available to me via mail order only.

[nebula]

15. Is cannibalism a common practice on US farms?

don't read this while you're eating
------------------

Recycling of Dead Animals and Slaughterhouse Wastes

Huge mass killing in modern slaughterhouses create a big pile of carcasses. Rendering plants are developed to get rid of them and other stuff from various sources. Let's take a peak at them...

Rendering plants perform one of the most complementing functions for modern slaughterhouses. They recycle dead animals, slaughterhouse wastes, and supermarket rejects into various products known as recycled meat, bone meal, and animal fat. These products are sold as a source of protein and other nutrients in the diets of dairy animals, poultry, swine, pet foods, cattle feed, and sheep feed. Animal fat is also used in animal feeds as an energy source.

Besides, without running rendering plants nearby each modern slaughterhouse, our cities would run the risk of becoming filled with diseased and rotting carcasses. Fatal viruses and bacteria would spread uncontrolled through the population.

One estimate states that some 40 billion pounds of slaughterhouse wastes like blood, bone, and viscera, as well as the remains of millions of euthanised cats and dogs passed along by veterinarians and animal shelters, are rendered annually into livestock feed. This way they turn dairy cows, other cattle and hogs, which are natural herbivores (vegetarians), into unwitting carnivores (non-vegetarians).

This is a multibillion-dollar industry, and these facilities operate 24 hours a day just about everywhere in America, Europe and other parts of the world. They have been in operation for years. Yet so few of us have ever heard of them.

Raw Material:

The dead animals and slaughterhouses waste which rendering plants recycle includes:

*

Slaughterhouses waste such as heads and hooves from cattle, sheep, pigs and horses, blood, bones, etc.
*

Thousands of euthanised cats and dogs from veterinarians and animal shelters
*

Dead animals such as skunks, rats, and raccoons
*

Carcasses of pets, livestock, poultry waste
*

Supermarket rejects

Along with the above material, the rendering plants unavoidably process toxic wastes as indicated below.

Toxic Waste:

The following menu of unwanted ingredients often accompany with dead animals and other raw material:

*

Pesticides via poisoned livestock
*

Euthanasia drugs that were given to pets
*

Some dead animals have flea collars containing organophosphate insecticides
*

Fish oil laced with bootleg DDT
*

Insecticide Dursban in the form of cattle insecticide patch
*

Other chemicals leaked from antibiotics in livestock
*

Heavy metals from pet ID tag, surgical pins and needles
*

Plastic from:
o

Styrofoam trays from packed unsold supermarket meats, chicken and fish
o

Cattle ID tags
o

Plastic insecticide patches
o

Green plastic bags containing dead pets from veterinarians

Skyrocketing labor costs are one of the economic factors forcing the corporate flesh-peddlers to cheat. It is far too costly for plant personnel to cut off flea collars or unwrap spoiled T-bone steaks. Every week, millions of packages of plastic-wrapped meat go through the rendering process and become one of the unwanted ingredients in animal feed.

Recycling Process:

The rendering plant floor is piled high with 'raw product' all waiting to be processed. In the 90-degree heat, the piles of dead animals seem to have a life of their own as millions of maggots swarm over the carcasses.

First the raw material is cut into small pieces and then transported to another auger for fine shredding. It is then cooked at 280 degrees for one hour. This process melts the meat away from bones in the hot 'soup.' This continuous batch cooking process goes on non-stop for 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

During this cooking process, the soup produces fat of yellow grease or tallow (animal fat) that rises to the top and is skimmed off. The cooked meat and bone are sent to a hammermill press, which squeezes out the remaining moisture and pulverizes the product into a gritty powder. Shaker screens remove excess hair and large bone chips. Now the following three products are produced:

*

Recycled meat
*

Yellow grease (animal fat)
*

Bone meal


(continued)

http://jivdaya.org/rendering_plants.htm

[Champion Jack]

3. Buy local, get to know your local producers

The FFA has an annual ham and bacon sale around easter.
There are alternatives

[knitter4democracy]

12. There might be a local real butcher, too.

We have one not that far away outside of a farm town to the south of us. Great stuff and almost the same price. We got our bison from there last summer.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

4. Factory farming and processing...

are two things you really don't want to ever know about if you want to continue eating those foods. I saw that episode too -- I think you'd be a fool to eat that shit. I am a vegetarian, but I can at least have a small bit of understanding for meat eating if it is grow and butchered by the person eating it.

But, as a vegetarian, that episode depressed the shit out of me -- with those hundreds of those hind legs flying through the machinery a minute, all I could think of was how many wonderful pigs that represented. :cry:

[Lorien]

6. Million and millions of animals, each as intelligent as anyone's pet dog

it depresses the hell out of me too. :cry:

[alfredo]

7. I always wash, then cook the ham before putting it into the

soup. It removes some of the salt and fat. With Ham Hocks, I change the cooking water several times. It also makes the ham more tender.

I do the best I can to find local and organic meats. If my wife didn't eat meat, I wouldn't. What I have done is taken over the cooking duties and use that to limit the amount of meat, and control the quality of the meat we eat.

[and-justice-for-all]

8. Good reason not to eat processed meat or meat at all..nt

[Snarkturian Clone]

10. Didn't realize beans were made of meat. NT

[and-justice-for-all]

20. they're not, but Ham is..nt

[Snarkturian Clone]

24. Acknowledged. NT

[and-justice-for-all]

28. LOL...nt

:silly:

[OneGrassRoot]

9. LOL. My biggest complaint about that show...

is the background music! It drives me crazy!!! I feel like I'm sitting in a high school sociology class watching one of those reel-to-reel films. Oy.

But the show itself is quite enlightening...wish I could mute the music. My SO called from out of state today just to say, "Here, honey, listen...your favorite song is on." I'm expecting something funky from the 80s. Nope, it was the theme music from "How It's Made."

[China_cat]

11. See if you can find sugar cured ham.

Or a farmer that cures his/her own.

[ThomWV]

25. I hate sugar cure ham - won't eat the stuff.

[high density]

14. "How It's Made" is a very good show

I have recently started watching it because of the WGA strike. Everything is just succinct enough to keep it interesting. It's also nice that the writing never seems to be insulting the audience.

[SoCalDem]

16. Use hamhocks instead.. better flavor too

or smoked turkey necks :)

Then just add cubes of ham to each bowl you serve :)

[Le Taz Hot]

17. My Sister-in-Law

sent us a locally-grown ham that was packed in salt and I had NO idea how to get it out of the ham. I finally called my Great Aunt who told me that that was the way they used to preserve ham and to just set the ham in water and let it soak. After it soaks an hour or so, dump the water and repeat maybe 6-8 more times. I know it's a PITA but it's the only way I know of to get the salt out and be able to utilize a perfectly good ham.

[catnhatnh]

18. The injection of brine IS the preservation process....

and what converts fresh pork into a ham....even the best slow smoked and hand prepared ham will have been brine injected first....I'll take the 168 hydraulic machine controlled needles over a bored line butcher who only hits a hundred and fifty some odd spots, if you get my drift...

[tammywammy]

19. I use salt pork

1/2 a salt pork for 1 lb of beans. Add pinto bean spice. Serve with cornbread.

[Skittles]

21. that show just hooks me, no matter WHAT they're talking about

but I was particularly fascinated by the glass eye one since my brother has had a glass eye since age 3

[Enthusiast]

23. All this serves to illustrate.................

All this serves to illustrate how important it is to maintain proper "country of origin" food label requirements. This is being heavily resisted by the corporations.

Soylent Green is next.

[Blue Diadem]

27. I like that show too. I missed the glass eye show though.

I'll have to look for a replay of it.

I read a newspaper story a few years ago about a man who makes them. He was making one for a woman who had lost her eye after someone threw something off an overpass and it went through her windshield. I was fascinated with the detail.

My brother lost his eye too, 40 yrs ago.

[Skittles]

29. yes - my brother had one made to match his other eye

I think the guy in the show is the same guy you are referring to

[riverdeep]

22. Faster, faster, more, more!

This is the rallying cry of modern industry. It doesn't matter if it's a piece of ham, or a pig, or jeans or a person. You're just a product now. The powers that be simply will use you in a way that maximizes their profit, nothing else is relevant. Turn up that conveyor belt, speed up that line, feed that pig so it grows to market weight as fast as possible, and as for you, we had to let some people go, so you won't mind taking over a few more duties?

[rucky]

26. You'll have to go to Spain for the good stuff...

[nonconformist]

30. KitchenAid mixers aren't made in the USA anymore?

Well that REALLY sucks if that's the case. I got mine for Christmas in 2005 after longing for one for years. I absolutely LOVE it and it was made in the USA.

eta: I use salt pork when I make pinto beans, and pair them with homemade cornbread. Yum! I also add a bit of sweet pickle relish to my bowl of beans, just like my Poppa taught me to do. :)

[Warren Stupidity]

31. To retain respect for sausages and laws, one must not watch them in the making

— Otto von Bismarck (attributed; also given as "People who enjoy sausage and respect the law should not watch either being made" and many other variations).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sausage

Basically a vegetarian for the last 40 years or so. This avoids having to consider just what goes into 'processing' of slaughtered animals.

[musette_sf]

32. don't ever watch the Tofu episode

you will never, ever want to eat tofu again.

the concept of "soybean curd" seems so innocuous... until you watch (or try to watch) the process.

:puke: