Try This on for a Pasteurization Cure--Ultraviolet Juice...and Maybe Milk
Monday, October 15, 2007 at 10:01PM
One of the things I didn’t mention in my previous post concerning New York state’s shutdown of the Apple Farm’s unpasteurized juice sales is owner Munir Bahai’s solution to his state-created mess.
He has rush-ordered an ultraviolet (UV) machine for $18,200 to carry out his pasteurization, in hopes that he can still sell apple cider this fall. The juice passes through a small refrigerator-size machine with UV tubes, and, presto magic, the pathogens are killed. The method is approved by both the state and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as an approach for pasteurizing juice.
To Bahai, it is the lesser of two evils. Conventional pasteurization seems harsher and more likely to alter the chemistry of the juice, besides being energy intensive with its high heat and quick cooling. “People are concerned. I have no choice,” he says. “I am required to buy a machine that will cost $18,200.”
While the UV process actually does kill E.coli 0157:H7, it also degrades the juice’s nutritional benefits, according to a Health Canada web site, which states, “It is known that only certain vitamins are susceptible to degradation by UV light.” While apple juice has primarily Vitamin C, the site concludes that vitamin degradation isn’t a big concern. It doesn’t try to assess the impact on enzymes and other microorganisms.
This is the second time in the last few weeks that the matter of using UV for pasteurization has come up. When I spoke several weeks ago with Mark McAfee of Organic Pastures Dairy Co. in California about possibly obtaining financing so as to expand his operations, he mentioned UV as a possible method to minimally treat milk so as to gain approval from state agriculture officials in neighboring states into which he would like to expand. He cautioned that he didn’t know a lot about its application as a milk pasteurizer—said he had heard about it being used in South Africa. There doesn’t seem to be a lot about it when searching under Google.
All I can say is it sounds like just another wonderfully American solution—guaranteed to make money for producers of the technology, with all kinds of uncertainties about the integrity of the end product eventually fed to us consumers.
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I’ve pointed out the difficulties of trying to capture the complexities surrounding Greg Niewendorp’s refusal to have his cattle tested for bovine tuberculosis, in any writing or discussion of the situation. A Michigan public radio station has done an admirable job of explaining the underlying issues, thanks to an extensive interview with Michigan lawyer Steve Bemis.
One of the main points Steve makes is that Michigan is aggressively linking the testing to mandatory involvement with the National Animal Identification System (NAIS). He explains that NAIS wan't approved by the Michigan legislature, but simply imposed as a rule by the Michigan Department of Agriculture. He also explains that NAIS might be useful as a voluntary program for factory farms that want to sell their beef nationally and internationally, but is inappropriate for a small farm like Niewendorp's, which sells its beef privately. He makes a connection to raw milk, which also tends to be sold privately.
The question I find myself asking more often is why small farms can't be exempted from such wide-ranging programs ostensibly designed to protect the masses of people partaking of the factory-farm system.
I ask it regarding farmers who want to slaughter their own pigs and cattle, and then sell the meat directly to consumers who not only have no problem with the on-farm slaughtering approach, but welcome it. As several comments on my previous posting suggest, we are heading toward a situation where small farms can't even gain access to state and federally approved slaughtering facilities. Maybe not so terrible from the view of a government that really doesn't want us buying locally and direct.
By the way, the traditional unrefrigerated aging and handling of meat is much more common in Europe and othercountries. A friend who just returned from a two-week retreat in Greece, at a site without electricity, says she was amazed (and at first grossed out) that uncooked chicken was stored for several days without refrigeration. And no one got sick.
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And congratulations to those who are weaning themselves from refined sugar and carbs. I thought I had accomplished a lot by getting refined sugar and wheat out of my diet. I didn't realize that it's pretty much all carbs. (Even the brown rice?) A foodie's work is never done...
Reader Comments (31)
Rice is the most digestible of all grains, but even so it's a good idea to soak your brown rice in water for 24hrs before cooking. The soaking process will ferment and pre-digest the grains, making them even easier for your body to process and also will also speed up the cooking time to about fifteen minutes. We buy our brown rice in bulk from a Chinese grocery, usually cook three cups at a time and store the left-overs in the refrigerator. The day we finish the left-overs we soak another three cups and cook it up for dinner the next evening.
http://www.steripen.com/
Quite simply, your body does need carbs. That's how you get your serotonin going, among other things. It needs fat, it needs protein, it needs carbs. Not white bread and all that bad stuff, but still.
I have fallen into that trap many times: I would read or find out about something and then be absolutely convinced that it is right for me. That applies to supplements, food, milk etc. But, in fact, everyone is quite different. Life is very complex and there are harly any absolutes or sharp 90 degree corners in nature. So these days I take it slowly, make sure I listen to 'my' body first - and not to my brain, which is always easger to run off into the sunset with some new great idea that will make me energized etc etc.
Among other things, I go to a great kinesiologist, who also practices chinese medicine. So far, he has tested me on a number of foodstuffs as well, as he has been right on the mark. No wheat. No commercial dairy. No corn or soy.
However, I purchase local raw goat milk and their kefir, as well as Amish milk flown in from PA, and their cottage cheese and they work like a charm.
I do have to say, however. There was one other time I was into trying raw milk - and here in LA it's Organic Pastures, of course. I don't know if maybe I was just unlucky, but that one time I got myself a day of fever and diarrhea after drinking some of it. Not fun. Put me off raw milk for a while. Then, I tried the Amish stuff and lo and behold - it is wonderful. So, it's not an exact science, either, I imagine, and that's what scares people here: this is a litigious society. If you legalize something, the system is set up so that anyone can sue anyone for anything.
ELLY, welcome to the world of OP Milk! You are lucky it was just diarrhea that you got.
My understanding from those who know Taubes and read drafts of the book, is that the book was edited down from 700+ pages. That would have been some tome. :-) I'll bet what was omitted would be of great interest to many of this blog's readers, but not perhaps to the masses. I was interested to see his acknowledgement of Weston A Price's book, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, which wasn't included in the text or index, yet was most influential in altering his perspective. I feel quite sure that Taubes is familiar with Price's writings on food preparation such as fermentation, but perhaps those detials strayed too far from his main points.
Also, there are no "essential" dietary carbohydrates. None, at least not in the usual sense the word essential is used in nutrition. Essential amino acids, fatty acids, vitamins & minerals, yes, because the body cannot synthesize them so they must come from the diet/beneficial gut bacteria, etc. But the body can and does make glucose and other carbohydrates in the body (gluconeogenesis), albeit a bit less efficiently than can obligate carnivores, such as felines.
If one doesn't eat much carbohydrates (mine mainly come from non-starchy veggies so total grams stay quite low) then the body becomes very efficient without dietary carbohydrates, either using stored body fat or dietary fat and perhaps utilzing protein for energy (hopefully dietary, not body protein mass). But the body doesn't burn fat or protein for energy if excess carbohydrates come down the gullet, because the insulin/glucagon hormone responses do not happen simultaneously. And the body can and does make whatever carbohydrates are needed to process amino acids into serotinin.
I'm also curious about not only the diets of other, healthier cultures, but the lifestyle habits of these people groups as well. WAPF foundation advocated high calorie, high fat diets but Americans (or western civ in general) don't do the same types of manual/physical labor like traditional cultures that are removed from so called "civilization." I know this must play a factor. Furthermore, I was rather displeased to see that some of the board members of WAP eat things like bacon and shellfish (both known to be toxin rich foods). Kinda makes a person a bit skeptical, I think. Has anyone read the book entitled "What the Bible Says About Healthy Living?" That was my latest read, and I really liked it. It's low meat though (but not low egg or milk). I will be looking more closely at Taubes book now, as well as the WAP material.
All traditional cultures fermented or sprouted their grains before cooking or bread-making. The fermentation process breaks down difficult-to-digest proteins, lectins and other anti-nutrients present in the whole grain. Over time consumption of these anti-nutrients and other proteins can cause long term inflammation and other chronic diseases, which is why quick-rise whole wheat bread and other modern wheat products have been linked to Celiac disease, rheumatoid arthritis, epilepsy and other auto-immune disorders.
Don--I have heard that tradtional cultures fermented their grains (and beans) but I've also read information countering this argument (see the Bread Beckers website). Fermented grain is still grain though--is it not? And what about legumes. I am just very leary of a diet that totally leaves out natural God-given foods like these and says that all carbs are bad for you. I'm not of the belief that "everything in moderation" is okay, because I believe some things are simply not okay (like sugar, white bread, hot dogs, fast food in general, etc) but I'm not sure that being so restrictive as to exclude all carb sources is correct either. Limiting them and using them properly--yes. But total elimination--the jury is out for me.
I'm sorry, I didn't mean to imply that grains and legumes are bad for you. I eat oatmeal and a fried egg every day for breakfast, but I always soak the oats for 24hrs first. Likewise I only eat French Meadows bread, which is baked from wheat that has undergone a four-day souring process. Likewise legumes should also always be soaked in a slightly acidic medium to break down the complex carbohydrates and other proteins.
Humans didn't evolve biologically eating grains, but we've been cultivating them for the past ten-thousand years and we've culturally evolved methods for safely preparing them. Through a process of trial and error, tradtional cultures realized that soaking, sprouting and fermenting made grains safe to eat and increased their nutrient load. It's only our culture, biased by money and industrial techniques, that has turned our back on our cultural knowledge and forgotten the link between grain and disease/disorder.
A transcription of an excellent, easy to understand lecture called "Insulin and Its Metabolic Effects" given by Dr. Ron Rosedale some eight years ago can be found at http://www.biblelife.org/rosedale.htm . It discusses insulin sensitivity, how it affects many other hormones and body systems, and how it damages the body. It demonstrates why we all should be eating low-carb.
Unfortunately, the lecture must have been transcribed from an audiotape and is somewhat poorly punctuated, but even so it's fascinating.
Imagining that you're hearing the lecture as you read along helps a lot,
I can't really comment on the Biblical issues of food and diet, since I don't view the Bible as a credible food reference (no offense intended for those who do). Likewise, I don't think there really is much scientific evidence that properly raised pork (not facotry farmed) is toxic. In fact, pork has been a food staple of peoples the world over, especially in parts of Europe and Asia and Polynesia and later in the US (the book Cold Mountain has great descriptions of how important the family pig was to Southern families in the Civil Ware era). Being omnivores, pigs were perfect animals to keep a family fed through winter, even an urban family in many cases, as it could eat scraps, didn't need so much space or any pasture, and provided long-lasting meat, fat for food, soap, and other things, and leather. Pork fat is almost 50% monosaturated, which is probably as much a part of the exalted Mediterranean diet as Olive Oil, yet it is more stable. Joel Salatin has lots of good things to say about pigs as animals, too. They are good rooters, so they turn over the compost piles for him in search of fermented corn kernals, saving man-power and machine poser, not to mention time. So personally, I think pork is unfairly maligned.
if you're not working from a Biblical worldview, I can understand that you wouldn't necessarily be interested in anything the Bible has to say. I however, hold a strong Biblical wv and I know there is a reason for all of the dietary laws in the OT--they are not arbitrary. I don't think they were negated by anything in the NT either (if anyone wants to know why, I can entertain that but it's kinda off topic here). Anyhow, I choose to keep everything I do in the context of a Biblical framework. That is where my solid beliefs lie. I have no doubts that people have been eating pork all over the world throughout history. And given the atrocious SAD that we have here, there is no doubt you can eat pork and be healthier than someone else who is eating pure garbage all the time (read: sugar, white flour etc). I too had GD and that was when I really became more aware of the poor food supply we have in this country with all the refined products, plus additives, and who knows what in even the "fresh" foods at the store. I do my best, but I admit I get frustrated because everyone seems to have their own "evidence" and "studies" indicating their diet is right. I don't think there is a magic bullet for health and wellness, but I like to know what's true and what isn't. Sometimes it seems pretty hard to know in this area. But since I do have a Biblical worldview, and that, to me, is the only solid truth I can rely upon, I always have to ask if any other info I read/hear lines up with that teaching. Hope that makes sense:)