Tag Archives: Horse Shit

Humanure: It’s extreme, like Mountain Dew, if it was derived from human poop

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For more than a decade, 57-year-old roofer and writer Joseph Jenkins has been advocating that we flush our toilets down the drain and put a bucket in the bathroom instead.

When a bucket in one of his five bathrooms is full, he empties it in the compost pile in his backyard in rural Pennsylvania. Eventually he takes the resulting soil and spreads it over his vegetable garden as fertilizer.

"It’s an alternative sanitation system," says Jenkins, "where there is no waste." His 255-page Humanure Handbook: A Guide to Composting Human Manure is in its third edition and has been translated into five languages, but it has only recently begun to catch on. His message? Human manure, when properly managed, is odorless. His audience? Ecologically committed city dwellers who are looking to do more for the earth than just sort their trash or ride a bike to work.

Night soil is rumored to be used in the production  of fresh veggies , especially for upscale restaurants, in many large cities.

I’ll stick with riding my bike to work, and thank engineers for sewage treatment.
 

Hinting at food safety – marketers play games but invoke consumer concerns

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I shop at Dillons in Manhattan (Kansas), owned by Kroger. I’ve gotten to know the staff, we talk food safety stuff, and I’ve really enjoyed the few times I’ve chatted with Gale Prince, who used to be head of food safety at Kroger.

But I don’t understand the press release Kroger sent out today about its new line of salads which includes new technology on the packaging that enables customers to learn where the produce was grown as part of Kroger’s "Quality You Can Trace" program.

I don’t really care where it was grown. I do care if it was grown in cow shit.

The Kroger’s Fresh Selections are the only salads with HarvestMark technology sold in the U.S. today. Each bag carries a 16-digit code shoppers can enter at HarvestMark.com to learn more about the salad’s origin, packing location, ingredients, date and time the product was packed.  Customers can also offer their feedback on the product.

The PR BS goes on to say,

"Kroger continues to be a leader in offering customers innovative food safety tools and resources," said Joe Grieshaber, group vice president of Kroger’s meat, seafood, deli and produce departments.  …  Food safety is a top priority at Kroger.  Our partnership with HarvestMark makes it easy for customers who are interested to learn more about the food they purchase for themselves and their families. 

This has nothing to do with food safety. A food safety program for leafy greens would provide at retail – or at least through a url – practices on irrigation water testing, soli amendments and human hygiene programs for the workers. Market food safety directly and stop dancing.

Left, is a bag of Dole spring mix, purchased at Dillons. Included on the package is a salad guide that says taste, 4, on the mild to bold scale, and texture is 2 on the tender to crunchy guide.

The label also says the spring mix pairs well with balsamic vinaigrette, crumbled goat cheese, julienne sliced sun-dried tomatoes and a pinch of Mediterranean herbs. It’s thoroughly washed, preservative free and all natural. And Kosher certified and has a recipe for Balsamic vinaigrette.

I want to know if it has E. coli and is going to make me barf. Don’t eat poop. And if you do, cook it.

I could eat a horse

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In the wake of news that some in south Florida are taking to butchering horses, here are some tips from Australia on how to eat horse.

Horse Steaks
The world’s most famous horse steak eaters, the French, have only gained that reputation since the 1789-1799 revolution simply because the horses of aristocrats were an easy source of protein for a country in turmoil. Its popularity was reinforced during food shortages post World War II. Traditionally, horse meat is sold from boucheries chevalines (horse butchers), although now it can also be bought from supermarkets. In French-speaking Quebec, in Canada, horse meat is also popular (above, right, a horse butcher at the Toulouse market, 2007).

Chips Cooked in Horse Fat

Horse with Noodles

Pastissada de Caval
In northern Italy, the traditional horse meat stew from Verona known as Pastissada de caval is made with wine and paprika. Legend has it that the dish originates from the town’s inhabitants marinating the meat from dead horses in the local Valpolicella wine and herbs and spices after a battle between the Ostrogoths and Barbarians in AD489. In Italy, horse – and donkey – meat has traditionally been cured to make bresaola or carpaccio.

The Original Steak Tartare
Needless to say with horses being central to life on the central Asian steppes, so it is central to their diet. For those magnificent horsemen the Tartars, the most famous being Genghis Khan and his army, the horse was also a living meal. They would slice meat from the horses’ hindquarters for sustenance, sewing-up the wound, and continuing on their rampage. Another legend has it that the Tartars tenderized their meat under their saddles, the origins of the classic French raw meat beef dish steak tartare.

Alcoholica Mare’s Milk
This reliance on the horse on the central steppes also means a reliance on mare’s milk. Fermented, mare’s milk becomes a mildly alcoholic yoghurt-like drink known as Kumis or Airag. When visiting Mongolia in 2005  President Bush was apparently offered Kumis although there is no record as to whether or not he actually consumed it.

Horse Jerky
Commercially produced packets of horse meat jerky is an easy introduction to horse meat for squeamish tourists in Kazakhstan. For the locals though, horse flesh is a real treat and made into sausages including Kazy and the smoked sausage Shuzhuk.

Horse Sashimi
In Japan, barbecued, horse is simply called horse meat: baniku; or skewered horse: bagushi. But raw horse meat is poetic, named after its cherry-red colour and known as sakura (cherry blossom) or sakuraniku (cherry blossom meat). Sakura served sashimi-style with soy sauce and ginger is known as basashi.
 

Horse meat increasingly on the menu in Florida

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I still miss my hockey friend Steve. His tales were – and still are — so outrageous, his job with the provincial government so boring, and his life with four kids on the farm near Guelph so … comical?

I know he misses me because he can’t find reliable goaltending – and the faculty team hasn’t won the annual tournament since my shattered nerves backstopped the team to victory in 2005, despite Naylor’s total lack of defense.

He was defense in name only.

At one point Steve and his wife had 19 horses. He used to say that it started out, every time they had another kid, the wife got another horse.

Steve had four kids, not 19.

He’s been cutting back on the horses over the past few years, but not in the way they are doing it in Florida,

Today’s USA Today reports that South Florida is seeing a jump in the horse meat market as restaurants quietly serve up the illicit fare, butchers provide it to trustworthy customers and police officers find slaughtered horse carcasses on roadsides.

At least 17 butchered horse carcasses have been found in Miami-Dade County this year, the highest annual number ever recorded in the county and the year is not over, said Detective Edna Hernandez.

Richard "Kudo" Couto of the South Florida Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. – and I have no idea why his handle is Kudo — said there has long been an underground market for illicit horse meat, mostly in the rural areas of South Florida. In recent years, sales have become more widespread, he said.

He said some butchers in Miami have stolen frozen horse meat in their stores for trustworthy customers. Sometimes the meat is sold in neighborhoods out of coolers.

Hendra virus claims fourth Australian

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The Australian Animal Health Laboratory (AAHL) may see an increase in demand for research on the bat-borne Hendra virus (HeV). On Sept. 1, 2009, Hendra claimed Australian veterinarian Alister Rodgers (pictured right).  Dr. Rodgers is the second vet to die from Hendra, and the fourth of seven humans to succumb to the virus (below).

VIN (Veterinary Information Network) reports:
There is no known cure for Hendra virus (genus Henipavirus, family Paramyxoviridae). The disease gets its name from the Brisbane suburb where it was first isolated in 1994, from specimens obtained during an outbreak of respiratory and neurologic disease in horses and humans, reports the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Humans become ill after exposure to the body fluids of horses infected with the virus. The natural reservoir for Hendra virus is suspected to be Australia’s flying foxes.

Veterinarians are more at risk to contract Hendra since they are the most likely to spend time with sick horses. A survey of 4,000 vets conducted by the CDC through the American Veterinary Medical Association found that even though vets were concerned about zoonotic disease, the concerns didn’t translate to better biosecurity practices. The results of this study highlight the need for veterinarians to put biosecurity practices into action and establish standard procedures to reduce infection of vets and their staff.

The Compendium of Veterinary Standard Precautions for Zoonotic Disease Prevention in Veterinary Personnel was published in the Aug. 1, 2008 Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association. The 18-page document gives guidance on everything from isolating animals with infectious diseases to cleaning and decontamination. Its appendixes address zoonotic diseases of importance in the US as well as the characteristics of disinfectants.

The Australian Veterinary Association said:
Vets around Australia are mourning the death of Dr Rodgers.  It is absolutely devastating to lose another vet so soon, and we must do everything within our power to stop this from ever happening again. All indications are that Hendra is here to stay. It is probable that cases will emerge in states other than Queensland. Governments around Australia need to take this disease seriously right now and invest in measures to address the problem.

Learn more about Hendra through ABC’s Catalyst.

Watching the trainwreck that is diarrhea

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There’s a certain appeal to trainspotting – or watching an impending trainwreck. It’s appalling and compelling at the same time. Ben and I went to a Sloan concert in Guelph several years ago and we wanted to leave they were so bad – and Sloan is usually great – but had to stay and watch where they would descend to next.

It was worth the wait.

Amy the French professor has a similar obsession. There’s some woman who writes a blog about her meaningless life in France and Amy is hooked. Amy finds this woman’s blog posts meaningless, facile and unbelievably stupid. And she reads it every day.

Recently, French blogger’s daughter had, as Ben likes to say, the squirts: diarrhea at daycare. Mom says, “Our daycare is pretty cool about letting her (diarrhea daughter) come.”

Diarrhea in a daycare is not a good thing, but hey, poop happens. Not so sure about the quality control when the kid’s runny poop ends up on the bandage of her finger that mom had accidentally attempted to sever using a bedroom door. Read the blog and it may make sense; or want to kill yourself.

Surprisingly, the newspaper in Pembroke, Ontario, near the Barry’s Bay cottage owned by the parents of my high school girlfriend, has some tips for kids with the squirts.

Prevent the spread of viruses. Clean your hands and your child’s hands often, especially after using the toilet or changing a diaper. Use soap and warm water, or hand sanitizer. If hands are dirty, hand sanitizers won’t work, you’ll need to wash with soap and water first.

Amy and I have been changing a lot of diapers. We wash our hands. And despite some fantastically explosive messes, haven’t gotten baby shit on the kid’s fingers.
 

Manager served ice cream allegedly containing poop; chef offers his DNA for testing

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The gelato caper gripping Australia had several twists and a couple of great soundbites Tuesday morning (Australia time).

The Sydney Morning Herald reported that security camera footage of an incident in which staff at the Coogee Bay Hotel allegedly served a family a cup of gelato laced with human faeces shows the dessert being delivered to the family by the restaurant’s manager. …

"She was concerned about the family’s experience and she had the idea of offering a complimentary dessert to try and make some amends," said the hotel’s general manager, Tony Williams.

Meanwhile, the family’s lawyer, Steven Lewis, of Slater & Gordon, also rubbished newspaper reports the family had links to a rival pub as a "Kevin Bacon … six degrees of separation [defence]. My question is: ‘Did Kevin Bacon put the faeces in the ice-cream?"’.

Stephen and Jessica Whyte, along with their three young children and another family, were at the hotel to watch the NRL grand final, but after a series of complaints became suspicious when they were given a free bowl of gelato. "The real issue is that we were fed, as a family, shit, at someone’s pub," Mr Whyte told 2UE.

Yesterday the NSW Food Authority announced it was investigating, and the hotel’s management confirmed it had contacted Maroubra police in preparation for possible criminal charges against anyone who might have tampered with food at the hotel.

Meanwhile, the head chef at the Coogee Bay Hotel, Adam Wood, who had tendered his resignation before the incident and had continued to work at the hotel for several weeks afterwards, offered to put himself up for DNA testing.

Mr Wood’s arrival was trumpeted by the hotel’s general manager, Tony Williams, in a media statement about the hotel’s revamped beer garden this month.

"Executive Chef Adam Wood [was] poached from Japan where he headed up kitchens for the Swissotel, Osaka and Foreign Correspondent’s Press Club of Japan in Tokyo and brings extensive five star international and three hat experience with him," the statement read.

Why he resigned only weeks after being heralded as the hotel’s most senior chef remains unclear.

Los Angeles drowning in road apples

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Not just the title of the 1991 album by Canadian rockers, The Tragically Hip, road apples is slang for horse shit.

And Los Angeles has lots of it (and doesn’t even freeze to use as a makeshit hockey puck).

Bloomberg reports that zoning restrictions have resulted in the closure of all the traditional "manure mulcher" businesses in Los Angeles County, forcing stables to haul their horse poop to ordinary land fills, which charge up to US$47 a ton, or roughly five times what the mulchers used to charge.

L.A. County is home to about 45,000 horses and almost 10 million people. Horses generate an estimated US$900-million a year in revenue from things such as riding lessons, blacksmiths, feed sales.

But more about the Hip.

Released in 1991, the original title of the record was Saskadelphia, but the record label considered it "too Canadian." As a joke, they re-titled it Road Apples, slang for horse dung. After the album was released, they created the Another Roadside Attraction festival — another joke referring to "road apples."

The album is often cited by fans and critics as the band’s finest work. As with most Tragically Hip albums, Canadian themes appear in the album’s lyrics. "Three Pistols" is an English translation of the name of the Quebec town Trois-Pistoles, and refers to Tom Thomson, a Canadian painter, as well as Remembrance Day, the Canadian commemorative day for its war dead. "The Luxury" refers to the fleur-de-lis, provincial symbol of Quebec, while "Born in the Water" is about the controversy surrounding Ontario municipalities (particularly Sault Ste. Marie) declaring themselves "English-only" in the dying days of the Meech Lake Accord debate.

Three Pistols is used in the opening and closing credits of our safefoodcafe videos. Like this one: