"A Chicken in Every Pot"

We've all heard it, but exactly where did that phrase come from? A little research and I found that in 17th century France, King Henry IV wished that each of his peasants should enjoy, "A chicken in his pot every Sunday." Later on, in 1928, though President Hoover never actually said the phrase, the Republican Party used the phrase in a 1928 ad campaign touting a period of "Republican prosperity" that provided a "chicken in every pot."

Yeah, and we know what happened shortly after that.

The metaphor of the chicken in the pot brings up all kinds of warm thoughts of visiting Grandma on Sundays and the closeness and joy of a family meal together, scents of home made foods wafting, and the crisp autumn air just right for a friendly game of football in the yard.

Go to the grocery store today and try to set that lovely Norman Rockwell scene with a factory farmed bird and you have to add some not so pleasant images and words. Let's see, "Arsenic in 70% of pots," "Salmonella in every pot,"  "Campylobacter in every pot," "Antibiotics in every pot," you get the idea. 

For several years now, my wife and I have been watching the quality of food we purchase. We raised chickens at home and grew a lot of our own food, supplementing it with high quality local food when at all possible, and in general, being very careful what we bought and how we cooked it.

We recently spent 105 days camping, and in that time we ate a dozen meals out. You read that right. Sometimes we needed to stop in and use a wi-fi, and occasionally, we just wanted some fried chicken or a burger. Otherwise we did as Lewis and Clark would have done, as they were a great inspiration as we traveled through South Dakota and Nebraska, and a hard act to follow. We cooked our own, we also packed our own, and we bought high quality food as we traveled.

Raising one's own food supply is not easy or convenient or stylish, but it's high time a lot more of us did it, and none other than the main stream media has inspired me to post this today.

MSNBC.com posted an article today that everyone needs to read, then decide who you want to provide food security for you and your family. Clearly the USDA isn't doing a good job for us. Just take a look at the e. coli and salmonella contamination issues we have been faced with in recent years. As funding is cut to monitor food quality (and it WILL be) and food factories cut more corners in production (and they WILL), we will face a point in time where we're playing Russian roulette on our dinner plates.

Take your fate into your own hands and grow your own. It is the only way to insure that you will get good quality food. Grow your own vegetables and grow your own chickens. Find a way and make it happen. Start small, and learn your way as you go. Visit Harvey Ussery's site and get all the information you need to have to make it work for you. Do it today. This is really important stuff. If you can't grow it yourself, try to buy your food from a source you trust. 

Here's that link to the msnbc.com article again

Gulland

Broadforkers on the road

My wife and I just made a road trip to Wisconsin to pick up another load of blacksmith shop tools and household items from their storage place in a friend's barn. Along the way, we spent the night in a motel and ate at their breakfast bar on the way out the next morning.

I always hate those breakfast bars because everything there is usually pre packaged in far too much plastic and styrene, but it's there, it's 'free' and we're in a hurry, so we drop our usual standards of food quality and move on. After a little discovery, I believe we'll be much more careful next time.

We picked up a couple of Dole fruit cups to eat with some yogurt. We read the label, and the sliced pears in light syrup passed our basic test of ingredients by containing no high fructose corn syrup, and minimal ingredients consisting of the following: pears, water, sugar, ascorbic acid (vitamin C) and citric acid. The label also stated that the package was manufactured for Dole Packaged  Foods Corp, ... Westlake Village, California.  Karen ate hers, then noticed some writing on the side of the plastic cup. It says: 

"PEARS F/CHINA    

PACKED IN THAILAND"

Karen asked the question, "So we don't have pears here?" 

Apparently ours aren't cheap enough, my dear.

So, how can they grow a pear in China, ship it to Thailand, process and package it, ship it to the US, and get it to a motel in Oglesby, Illinois for less than an American grown and processed pear?  The answer is that someone or something was exploited along the way. For the life of me I can't figure out that level of the economy, but as a result of this discovery I have clicked my food shopping quality filter up a few  notches. I don't want to eat food that has traveled that far and has come from a place with potentially lower standards for food processing.

In fact, I think I'll start processing my own pears and begin to take my food supply with me when I travel. How difficult can it be? After all, there was a time when travelers didn't have 'free breakfast' bars at motels. WWL&CD??*

Be careful of what you eat, grow any food you can, and what you can't grow yourself, try to purchase locally or at least regionally.

Gulland

*What Would Louis & Clark Do?