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[QUOTE=dbalch;926075]RE veggies I would certainly pay attention to the "filthy fifteen". For example, I never buy non organic peaches. which supposedly use alot of pesticides. But some fruits and veggies require fewer pesticides, so that's where you compromise for the lower price.
.[/QUOTE]
Wash and/or peel your produce! Most if not all pesticides wash or peel off. Organic or not, I'm more concerned with fecal matter and hepatitis from the farm worker and 17 year old stock boy hands that touched it from field to shelf, than I am with pesticide residue.
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This family of 6 eats 6 dozen eggs per week. I switched over to pastured from the local health food store. They get them from a local operation that operates "chicken tractors", so the chickens do see pasture. Otherwise, I try to get as many as I can from a local farm stand just up the road - from the farm stand itself, which is in a tiny town, I can see the chickens in question. The cost for the health food store eggs is about $2.65 per dozen, and for the farm stand is $2.00 per dozen. I would get a steady supply from the farm stand, except they only have a few to sell as the lady who raises them uses most in her baking, and doesn't have a regular supply left over.
As for the taste - no comparison, in favor of the pastured. The yolks are deep in color, the shells are super sturdy, the flavor clean and not of some godawful fishy-smelling feed the factory chickens must have been fed to produce such a stink. Pre-Primal, I got my cheap eggs at the Dollar General Market for $1 per dozen, and would sometimes get a stomachache off of them. For my money, it is now the pastured all the way.
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[QUOTE=JoanieL;926162]Thanks for the tips. I already eat liver and I have been since my 20s. The only difference now is that instead of the cheap staple it once was, it's organic and is about $4.00/lb. I do keep a list of the clean 15 and dirty dozen in my purse for when I go shopping.
As to gluten free bread, when I made the commitment to myself to stop eating processed foods (before I'd ever even heard of PB), one of the things I committed to was to not eat anything cooked that I couldn't eat raw. If it's processed, it's processed. As I get rid of the processed foods that I was used to eating, I'm not going to replace them with new processed foods just because they're primal approved. IOW, I'm not going to replace wheat flour with another flour. I'd rather just learn to live without flour. That's just me. I also don't eat anything from a can - also not a PB directive.
I also don't currently have the storage to buy half an animal. I do currently have an order in for 20 lbs of wild salmon from an online company that will save me about 25% over local prices.
I'm as against agribusiness as you are. I actually kinda think that Monsanto should be renamed, "Satan, Inc." So we're not that far apart in beliefs. I guess I just figure that a lot of people on this board are doing the best they can. And if someone wants to hold the line on the cost of some things, they should be able to do that without feeling bad about it. Anyway, it's all good.[/QUOTE]
I use some gluten free bread and pasta products because I feel too deprived eliminating all bread and baked products from my diet. These foods keeping me from "falling off" my primal diet, so they are very important for me. They are mostly tapioca and potato starch, with some rice flour. Not much of a compromise.
It would be nice if liver was cheaper, but it's the cheapest meat I buy. I have a really good beef supplier who sells me ground beef for $4.99 a lb and occasionally has a 20% off 5 for 4lb. bulk sale. I'm thinking of buying a half a goat for $150. It should yield about 18 lbs. of meat. That's a little over $8 a pound. Expensive, but that's as cheap as you can get local, pastured lamb and goat around here. I feel lucky I'm even able to buy it, given that the FDA/food industry is trying to run all these guys out of business with bogus food saftey regs.
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I would never buy caged eggs - the chickens are rammed into cages and treated like sh!t. I don't know how anyone could buy caged eggs knowing this, it is incredibly cruel. Over here there are laws being brought in to ban battery eggs, thank god. It won't come in yet but laws are getting more strict concerning animal welfare which is good for both animals and people who will eventually eat those animals. I can't afford organic eggs every week but we can afford free range and they are worth few extra euro. Many of the supermarkets over here have a "no battery/caged eggs" policy which is great and it helps bring down the price of free range and organic eggs.
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[QUOTE=HazelPrimalNut;926419]I would never buy caged eggs - the chickens are rammed into cages and treated like sh!t. I don't know how anyone could buy caged eggs knowing this, it is incredibly cruel. Over here there are laws being brought in to ban battery eggs, thank god. It won't come in yet but laws are getting more strict concerning animal welfare which is good for both animals and people who will eventually eat those animals. I can't afford organic eggs every week but we can afford free range and they are worth few extra euro. Many of the supermarkets over here have a "no battery/caged eggs" policy which is great and it helps bring down the price of free range and organic eggs.[/QUOTE]
Hazel, I see you also live in Ireland so perhaps a quick question. I haven't really looked into this myself, but what are the eggs like that are sold as "free range" in supermarkets in Ireland and the UK? Sometimes I have the impression things are much better in Europe than in the USA (where most members of this forum are from). For now I am sticking with duck eggs (yummy, you should see those yolks!!) that I buy from a local market here in Antrim, but I do buy the free range eggs from Asda without really knowing much about the origin.
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This is older information, but I don't see anything updated when I search: [url=http://www.humanesociety.org/issues/confinement_farm/facts/guide_egg_labels.html]Egg Carton Labels : The Humane Society of the United States[/url]
So, if I'm reading correctly, the best you can hope for [I]health wise[/I] in a grocery store or any producer where you haven't actually seen the farm, is Certified Organic, because basically that's the only [I]legal[/I] definition of what is described on the box/container of eggs. The chickens are still treated badly, but the product falls within the US "organic" guidelines.
All of the guidelines pertaining to living conditions (including the ones by the American Humane Association) are so vague as to be merely marketing terms/ploys.
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[FONT=Book Antiqua][SIZE=3]there are egg farmers, working on a certain scale, who do have websites, explaining their methods and philosophies. worth checking out imho.
my go-to in the supermarket is nellie's eggs:
[url=http://www.nellienest.com/]Nellies Nest: Nellie's Nest Cage-Free Certified Humane Eggs[/url]
this discusses the maze that is current egg labeling.
[URL="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/17/dining/17eggs.html?_r=1&ref=dining"]http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/17/dining/17eggs.html?_r=1&ref=dining[/URL]
[/SIZE][/FONT]
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[QUOTE=Crabbcakes;926300]This family of 6 eats 6 dozen eggs per week. I switched over to pastured from the local health food store. They get them from a local operation that operates "chicken tractors", so the chickens do see pasture. Otherwise, I try to get as many as I can from a local farm stand just up the road - from the farm stand itself, which is in a tiny town, I can see the chickens in question. The cost for the health food store eggs is about $2.65 per dozen, and for the farm stand is $2.00 per dozen. I would get a steady supply from the farm stand, except they only have a few to sell as the lady who raises them uses most in her baking, and doesn't have a regular supply left over.
As for the taste - no comparison, in favor of the pastured. The yolks are deep in color, the shells are super sturdy, the flavor clean and not of some godawful fishy-smelling feed the factory chickens must have been fed to produce such a stink. Pre-Primal, I got my cheap eggs at the Dollar General Market for $1 per dozen, and would sometimes get a stomachache off of them. For my money, it is now the pastured all the way.[/QUOTE]
Wow, I live in canada, and my cheap grocery store eggs are $2.50 per dozen on sale! "free range" or " veggie fed" or " omega 3" are 4 or 5 dollars per dozen
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[QUOTE=FlyingPig;926442]Hazel, I see you also live in Ireland so perhaps a quick question. I haven't really looked into this myself, but what are the eggs like that are sold as "free range" in supermarkets in Ireland and the UK? Sometimes I have the impression things are much better in Europe than in the USA (where most members of this forum are from). For now I am sticking with duck eggs (yummy, you should see those yolks!!) that I buy from a local market here in Antrim, but I do buy the free range eggs from Asda without really knowing much about the origin.[/QUOTE]
Free Range eggs - The Irish regulations state that hens must have continuous day time access to open-air runs on ground which is mainly covered with vegetation. The maximum stocking density is not greater than 1,000 hens per hectare of ground available to the hens and the land must be dedicated to the free range flock, so no other animals can graze it. The hens must be accommodated in a well constructed insulated house with a floor space of one square metre per seven birds.
The UK regulations could be different. I only buy eggs produced in ROI.
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[QUOTE=HazelPrimalNut;926789]Free Range eggs - The Irish regulations state that hens must have continuous day time access to open-air runs on ground which is mainly covered with vegetation. The maximum stocking density is not greater than 1,000 hens per hectare of ground available to the hens and the land must be dedicated to the free range flock, so no other animals can graze it. The hens must be accommodated in a well constructed insulated house with a floor space of one square metre per seven birds.
The UK regulations could be different. I only buy eggs produced in ROI.[/QUOTE]
Thanks. It looks like it is less strict in the UK indeed: "continuous daytime access to runs which are mainly covered with vegetation and a maximum stocking density of 2,500 birds per hectare. The hen house conditions for free range hens must comply with the regulations for birds kept in barn systems, with a maximum stocking density of 9 hens per square metre of useable area." Oh well, time to find some local people who have their own chickens, or I might just stick with the duck eggs (even though I also need to find out how exactly those are kept).
