What Do You Never Cook or Wish to Eat?

I'm with Ann and Joe. Lose the tripe.

A little while back, I ran a convienence store out here in the wilderness, surrounded by tomato farms, orange groves, watermellon fields, and strawberries, peppers, cantalopes. I had two crock pots that I kept full of Menudo for the customers. Some of the people would stand there at the crock and pick out every bit of tripe for their own self and leave the hominy for everyone else. I was not up to telling anyone to leave the tripe for all.

The truth is that people of different cultures who are not so bathed in the luxury we Americans are have learned to love foods of the entrails. Many cultures do not waste a single thing of an animal they kill for food.

Here, I have seen floating in the river under the little bridge the carcasses of dear and hogs that the hams have been cut off and the body dumped in the shallow river. the buzzards take full advantage of that. Mostly, people come out here and shoot out of season, using big and blinding lights. These are not hunters that need the food. They are people who want to drink, have a party with the meat they have stolen from this earth.

The police got involved when some cattle were found in the pasture with just their prime cuts hacked out with a chain saw. To my knowledge no one has ever been arrested for this.

When I was a child, people gave the guts to my family. I have eaten lungs of goats, stomachs, ears, and every little bit of meat that could come off a hogs head. The lovely black people that my parents so disdained gave us the heads for nothing. I have eaten an eyeball.

The eyeball of a frog is like a small yellow marble. I will never forget the beauty of it nor will I ever forget the cry of the frog when it was clubbed in the dark. Things change a person forever. the sounds of dying are as poignant coming from a frog as they were from Wooffer in his last moment. I loved Wooffer more, but he would understand my words here. Life is life. It is all important. If your are going to eat it, respect the life that has been given up for yours.

Sorry for the tirade.

Love,

Betty

I hear you, Betty, and mostly agree with you. We have become jaded, I think, and do not respect the lives and souls of the animals, even the plants, that give us the very food we eat. We ignore the reality that life feeds on life. This is something that indigenous people knew and respected. They revered and prayed for and to the animals even as they killed them, and every bit of the animal was put to use. What happened to the buffalo, killed by white hunters for their hides and left to rot when just one or two of the whole animals would have fed an sheltered a band of American natives for a season, was unconscionable.

I love the ingredients that go into a pot of menudo. Forgive me, please, but I would be happy to be left with the hominy and broth. My mother cooked tripe sometimes while I was growing up, and while she was generally a very good cook, the tripe was not well seasoned, and was not cooked long enough to keep it from being, shall I say quite chewy. If I think about it, I can still remember the feel of it in my mouth.

Still, when one is hungry enough, it does not matter if the food is a little tough or even tasteless.

I know from watching my father tend his plants with care and gentleness that they grew brighter and stronger because of his loving attention. I have read several studies which indicate that plants are conscious beings and respond to human touch and sound. So we cannot get around it by becoming vegans. Life feeds on life. In order for each of us to stay alive, something else has to die.

We live in a world of plenty, and yet some people starve. Others of us acquire more stuff, including food, than we can use, and when it gets old, we toss it out as though it never had any value. Considering the plans that some of our politicians endorse, that could one day be the fate of us older humans as well.

I even started a thread on the three "S's" - Simplicity, Sufficiency, and Sustainability. The other day I added a fourth S: Spirituality.

So I do hear you. I have never been in a position where I had no food, so I can only imagine what that kind of hunger must be like.

I do understand.

But,...I still gag on tripe.

I eat both the tops and bottoms of my root veggies.

Ann

I have never been hungry--I have been lucky.

Enjoyed Betty's post and Ann's response. I agree and can relate to much of what was said.
Waste of food happens to be the subject of a TV program where I live. Tons of edible food thown away daily while people in other countries are starving.

One thing of particular notice is the dating placed on products. There is usually a date that says (depending on the country's language) "Best before" (date). Some people take this to mean that after that date the product is not good and throw it away. That is not the case.
Once you witness people searching garbage cans for bits of food, your attitude changes.
People who have lived throught wars are very conscious of food and little goes to waste. When food markets only accept unblemished fruit, it means that much edible fruit never even gets picked.
I see an opportunity for a new type of food market with good foodstuffs rejected by other stores. Since the food in some instances would be dumped and wasted, the purchase price for the merchant would be very low and that could be shared with the customer. Having an apple rejected because it has some discoloration or a few blemishes is waste.

The grocery stores in NW Houston, when I lived there, had a practice I would like to see happen here.

They would put a table of large paper bags, filled with imperishable foods, stapled with a price tag on top. The usual price was about $5. Anyone who came into the store could pay the purchase price, and the store would deliver the bags, or have them picked up, by one of the local charities to be distributed to people who couldn't afford to buy them.

Our night school had a food drive every year before the holidays, and several of our students would talk to the store managers, and usually get a trunk load of the bags donated to our drive. I loved to see how enterprising our students were, especially since most of them could qualify for receiving the donations themselves. Sometimes it takes a period of having to go without to develop the empathy needed to want to help. Our little school always won the food drive award, in spite of having only a few students compared to the big high schools in the district.

There are usually places where anyone can donate food, like the Salvation Army (a personal favorite).

Ann

Quote :

Our little school always won the food drive award, in spite of having
only a few students compared to the big high schools in the district.

I wonder if the big schools did service projects. My kids' high schools weren't/aren't big on food drives, but they encouraged sweat-labor type things. It seems more appropriate than asking kids to ask OTHER people to do their charity for them, which is what food drives essentially are.

How much sweat-equity type things did your students do for charity?

I am having a sense of deja vu. Didn't we have this discussion before?

These kids worked during the day. That's why the night school was made available. they were usually legally independent, and had very little parental support. Most of them were parents themselves, working during the day and going to school at night.

Yes, the larger high schools had student organizations that sponsored various activities in addition to the annual food drive.

Ann

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From my edit to the above post:

These kids worked during the day. That's why the night school was made available. they were usually legally independent, and had very little parental support. Most of them were parents themselves, working during the day and going to school at night.

Yes, the larger high schools had student organizations that sponsored various activities in addition to the annual food drive.

I think this was my answer then, too.

They didn't claim the donations as their own.

Ann

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Quote :

They didn't claim the donations as their own.

By saying they amassed the most food, more than other schools, you/they are taking pride in this achievement -which is tantamount to claiming it as their own, IMO.

You're losing me.

Let's let it go.

Ann

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Could be the countries where people are starving lack birth control as well as food.
Maybe they should have both donated to them.

Hungry people should be aided --not blamed.

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My point was not to select a country whose people were starving, but rather make a point about waste of food. The fact that people are starving makes the waste significant.
I don’t disagree with you about people having kids they can’t afford to feed. Some of that has to do with religion where contraceptives are forbidden. China is an example of a country that controlled birth rates. They limited the number of children per family to control overpopulation. Now that China is growing economically, that policy has changed, however when it was in force, the west criticized their policy to control birth rate.

Some of the countries with no birth control have a high rate of sexual disease, i.e., Aids, and that is transmitted to other countries. Disease control is everyone’s concern. Planned Parenthood had good intentions; however I don’t know how effective it was/is. When someone got the hots, they don’t think of the end result. Shit happens. Sterilization may be appropriate with some.

Back to the food thing. There is often reference to third world countries where food is lacking. What about countries in the west? There are many poor people in our own country who struggle to feed their families. There is no excuse for wasting food. Just because one can afford food is no justification to throw it away. With meat, an animal gave a life. For vegetables, someone worked hard to plant and harvest it. There was a time when it was fashionable to leave something on the plate when dining out. In my opinion, that’s simply dumb and wasteful. One should eat what they order. If they have a small appetite, then they can order a small portion. They can always take home what they didn’t eat. There are some restaurants that offer a buffet and have a sign that reads, “Eat all you want, but please eat all you take.” That makes sense. Just because you paid for a buffet is no excuse to waste food.

I realize that my opinions are not shared by everyone. I see wasting energy also as a problem. A friend who drove a gas guzzler when we had a fuel shortage told me that he was advised to get a more fuel efficient car. He said, “If I can afford it, what I drive is my business.” Conservation is often seen as something someone else should do. That kind of arrogance has contributed to problems with our environment and shortages.

Those who are concerned about waste of food can take action. They don’t need the approval of others to do it.

It was merely an observation.
It is sad that some people have excess money, food etc and others too little.

As to, "What's the point?"
My answer: Empathy.

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Clearly the obese are not starving. The babies and children who are starving, have had no part in the causes. No one needs to tell anyone he/she is wrong--just feed him/her and maybe he/she will become an engineer or a farmer.

We need to help the less fortunate--it is good for us.

The poor people are obese because they cannot afford healthy food.

Ann

If you have ever seen a bloated dead human, you'll never forget the sight. Many deadbeats are fat. Many poor are fat due to poor nutrition as Ann mentioned. Then there are those whose skin and bones tell their own story. Poor is poor and hunger is hunger. Do we treat them based on their looks? When you learn of people who ate bark of trees to survive, it makes one aware of the strong survival instincts. The stomach may be full and one is still hungry. Precious clean water can fill the stomach and satisfy for a short time, but that is still not enough.

Having compassion is good. Helping those in need is better.

I know a lot of fat, poor people. Often, it is not because they cannot afford good food, it is because of the way they were raised back in the 40's and 50's and what they ate then. Lots of starch like potatoes, rice and bread.

Many families fed their children with nothing but cornbread and milk in places that were very rural and not easy to get to the government commodity office.

People who were raised on fatback and beans grow up to like to eat fatback and beans. It is part of their preferences.



Now the poor who recieve food stamps CAN eat better than a lot of people who do not recieve this assistance. People, poor or rich, are fat because they eat too much and do very little physically. IMO

I, personally, know a family who has four children, all under 7 years old. The father is unemployed and they recieve 800.00 a month in food stamps. Little children of that age do not eat a whole lot, and the two parents are of normal weight and eating habits. They have a hard time spending all that money on just food. They get that much because our government does not distinguish four toddlers from four teens.

They also get a cell phone with 250 minutes, financial help paying their rent and unemployment. I do not think they are suffering much.

BUT! Not every poor person accepts government help, and unemployment runs out and the kids and the parents still need to eat and have a place to live. I know very few people who rely on public assistance. For most people, it is a matter of pride. They would rather dig a row in the dirt and plant potato skins and greens, fish the little creeks than be associated with public welfare. A lot of older people are like that.

Love,

Betty

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Good gracious, what is with us these days? Poor Alice innocently started a thread asking us what we did not like to eat.

Look where we have taken it. It seems, in one way or another, to have pushed everybody's buttons. I've never seen so much venting over such an innocuous concept.

How did we get from not wanting to eat something to being obese because of overeating? and WTF led to all the stuff in between?

I challenge everybody to back up, reread these posts, and listen to ourselves. I just did, and I don't get it. Something weird is going on here.

This is not fun, folks.



Ann