Thoughts after watching a food documentary

[jevs]

My teenager hasn't eaten hotdogs since he watched a documentary about how they were made. He refuses to believe other foods are made similar though.

 

[bcla]

A lot of heritage breeds are genetically manipulated for other reasons. Plenty of chicken and rabbit breeds are not raised for meat. They're like dog breeds. My family's rabbits weren't raised for meat but I don't know if the life of a show rabbit is significantly better than the life of a meat rabbit.

Still - a lot of older meat animal breeds aren't as ridiculously contrived as a lot of modern breeds. I was really thinking of the older breeds that are generally healthier like Rhode Island reds.

I had to look up the name for the big white-feathered turkeys (broad-breasted white) with huge amounts of breast meat. I'm sure that it could have been achieved 200 years ago, but back then it might have been a question of "what's the point"? These days are when most meat is just turned into parts and breast meat is sold at a premium as a cut for restaurants to serve as turkey breast or as cold cuts. I guess white feathers mean that they don't have dark spots on the skin when plucked.

 

[bcla]

My teenager hasn't eaten hotdogs since he watched a documentary about how they were made. He refuses to believe other foods are made similar though.

I've seen factory farms. I know how sausage is made. I cook my own foods and go to butchers where I see them cut the meat and put meat in the grinder. I guess a lot of people are too squeamish about things being "dirty". We worry too much about little things that are insignificant. I've gone backpacking. Sure I disinfected and/or boiled my water, but in the end I knew it probably had some sort of fecal material or dirt in there. Big deal. You get a little something in your food that seems kind of gross? Big deal. You're cooking it. Heck - eating raw oysters means eating everything including its waste products.

However, I will say that one time I decided to be adventurous at a Chinese restaurant and I ordered "assorted insides noodle soup". I thought it would be tripe or something that had been cleaned. It included some small intestines that hadn't been cleaned. I ate it knowing it was thoroughly cooked, but that was a bit on the nasty side based on the taste.