The RAnts of RA

I’ve been listening to the Monsanto Annual Shareholders Meeting, just what I wanted to do. Not! I’ve been keeping tabs on various companies for years and you have to get to know them, listen to them, and understand how they think.

David Clevinger spoke from Texas  [starting at 52.54],  a grower of Monsanto products.  You’ve got to listen to this man. Not only is he wrong about glyphosate, it’s harming him and his family. He is just plain wrong headed.

The only way they can afford to sell this GMO crap is because it’s government subsidized. Organic farmers have to pay a price to call themselves ‘Organic’. This, in turn, drives up the price of organic. Organic food should be cheaper to buy than GMO, or at least conventionally-grown, fruits and vegetables. It’s a scam, and if we refused to buy the GMO “simulated” food it would not be long before their whole scam would come crumbling down. Listen to what he says, it’s infuriating!

Monsanto has no integrity… Nothing to watch, but please take an  hour and a half  and listen to this. You can listen in the bathroom, in the car, while you’re cooking. You can even fast forward through some of it. 🙂

Thank you for taking the time out of your day to listen to their words.  Do they convince you of their sincerity and honesty? Buy organic and right the food world.  Together, we can do it. Dump GMO!

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I signed up for a trial membership of  The America’s Test Kitchen Cooking School.  I stayed about an hour and tried out two of the lesson plans.  Boy was I disappointed.

Oh, they have thought of everything.  There was more reading to do than I like.  I have to read stuff all day long and the videos work just fine for me.  Yes, I admit to being lazy. The lessons include:

* IQ Quizzes – These fun quizzes appear at the start of Technique Lessons and In-Depth Course sections and are designed to both gauge your current understanding of the topic and teach you some basics before diving into course material. Detailed feedback is supplied for each response and a summary of your results is supplied at the end.
* Concept Reviews – These are interactive quizzes that test how much information you’ve learned. Do you understand the key concepts that will ensure good results in the kitchen? You’ll receive detailed feedback as you answer each question and a score at the end.
* Core Technique Videos  – These videos, found in Technique Lessons and In-Depth Courses, are focused on a single important core technique and will help build cooking knowledge. You will learn techniques that apply to thousands of recipes, such as how to sauté chicken or how to make risotto, as well as more specialized techniques, such as how to tie a roast or how to blind-bake a pie shell. Watching these videos will prepare you for the recipe tutorials where you’ll be applying many of these core techniques. Most importantly, these videos review key concepts that will increase your understanding of course material.
* Recipe Tutorials – Recipe tutorials are where the cooking happens. After we introduce a recipe to you and list the required tools and ingredients, you’ll watch Bridget cook in an extensive step-by-step video tutorial and hopefully, cook along with her – that is if you’ve got an ipad or laptop and can bring her into your kitchen.
* Discussions – Class discussion is a key part of your learning experience. Clicking the discussions icon in the upper right-hand corner will allow you to start/or contribute to these at any point in a lesson. As a student and peer, your participation is key. You will add valuable insight by participating in discussions, enriching the learning that takes place, and allowing other students to learn from you. We encourage you to participate in class discussions often!

Instructors are available, but that’s extra.

The reason I didn’t stay a member?  I took the tutorial on Eggs.  They had the nerve to say that store bought eggs were just as good as farm fresh eggs.  Excuse me?  I raise farm fresh eggs and nothing could be further from the truth.  They also claim there is no nutritional difference.  Saying it does not make it so, you can see the difference.  I don’t care what they say.  Just crack an egg open.

They are being politically correct and not telling people the truth.  Most store bought eggs come from chickens who are eating GMO’s.  You can’t talk about food and not hit on this subject and pretend it doesn’t exist.  So, I cancelled my free membership, that I had to give a credit card number to get.  It’s so not worth it, when you can get good accurate information for free.

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We had a bunch of errands to run in Merced and decided to stop off at Costco. They were having a sale on Nutiva Coconut Oil – 74 oz. for $14.99 – organic.  For that price  I can’t help but wonder if there isn’t something wrong with it. I’ve got five in the pantry and I’ve been using one for what seems like forever.  I can’t find a thing wrong with it.

Extra Virgin Coconut Oil (There is no such thing as extra virgin…)

I have to say I was pretty dismayed at the amount of organic food available.  I was looking for organic staples: flour, sugar, corn meal, rice and beans. What I found was crackers, soups, cookies and other assorted items of prepackaged food that I don’t trust anymore.  I’m tired of buying stuff with things I can’t pronounce and ingredients I have no idea what they are.  If I can’t make it in my kitchen, our family is not going to eat it.

I was happy to see they had packages of grass-fed ground beef that were very reasonably priced. Sadly, they didn’t have any other types of organic beef or any other organic meats.  The Modesto location seems to have a better selection, but I haven’t been there for awhile, so it’s hard to say.

There are deals to be had in the organic market.  Look for deals on beef during the month of October.  When you find them though, stock up because once the supply is gone, the price shoots back up, and it’ll stay up until Spring.  Consider canning the beef, chicken, pork, etc… instead of freezing it.  The meat will last longer and will be tastier, and most of the cooking will already be done.  It’s just a real nice thing to have on hand.

I think we’ll find a lot of organic food to choose from come Spring. Plan ahead.  What does your family like to eat?  Make a list! What items would you like for them to start eating? Search for recipes that use those items. Buy extra when items are cheap and either can, freeze or dry them for later.

Get to know your neighbors, plant a garden. If we demand organic food, things will change, slowly…

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