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Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Pork Products

I’ve always had an aversion to taking antibiotics unless someone could really convince me they were worth it.

A few ex-girlfriends might say otherwise, but it’s a good thing I’m not a pig in the United States.

Nicholas Kristof wrote a recent zinger about big agriculture’s use of antibiotics in animal feed that can lead to an antibiotic-resistant staph infection called MRSA, which, as he notes, “kills more than 18,000 Americans annually, more than AIDS does.”

In an article full of jaw-droppers, he also cites a 2008 article in Medical Clinics of North America that said “more antibiotics were fed to animals in North Carolina alone than were administered to the nation’s entire human population.”

Go get ‘em Tar Heels!

On March 17, New York State congresswoman and microbiologist Louise Slaughter reintroduced legislation to curb the use of antibiotics in agriculture.

First read the article, then give your congressperson a call.



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Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Pork Me One More Time!!!

After finding pork and seafood variations on recent trips to Barcelona, Paris and Belle-Ile, clams and ham struck again during my first moments in Lisbon.

“We eat our words,” says my friend Pedro who’s shared a lifelong favorite place to eat, O Cacho Dourado, while explaining why the ‘o’s are often lopped off of either end of ‘obrigado’ when some Portuguese say thank you. We also eat carne de porco à alentejana with my lesson in local Portuguese 101.

As opposed to Cal Pep’s take on things, where the flavor the pork fat lends to the dish steals the show, here, it lends subtle depth of flavor, almost like tucking an anchovy or three into a slow-cooked meat dish.

Or, as Pedro puts it, “It keeps it from being boring.”

O Cacho Dourado - MAP
Rua Eca de Queirós, 5
Lisbon
+351.213.543.671



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