June 13th, 2009 by admin
NY Times: The New Caveman Life
An engaging overview of the emerging paleo movement. The idea is that humans should live and eat as they did when they were hunter-gatherers, since that is what we evolved to do, and modern food (cooking, dairy etc) and society have only come about relatively recently.
I agree completely with the spirit of living in a way that is more connected with nature; after all we wake up in our air conditioned houses, get into our air conditioned cars, and into our air conditioned offices sitting in a cube in front of a monitor all day...We don't even know what the climate is like and if we need to check the weather we rarely push aside the blinds and take a peek out the window, or venture outdoors, we'll log into a website! According to many sages modern man is disconnected, from each other, ourselves, nature, food that sustains us and ultimately reality.
Their alternative view on working out also makes a lot of sense, most traditional forms of exercise engaged the full body, and of course you didn't really need to exercise when you were hunting and gathering. I recall seeing mountain villagers from the Kashmiri highlands, and they were amazing physical specimens that lived long healthy lives (that is for another post...).
From a diet perspective we obviously agree in eating well, and eating meat that has been raised naturally to ensure its wholesomeness. We do have some quibbles (like raw meat, no grain, no dairy), but nonetheless its quite an interesting movement that is highlighting some of the challenges we face.
We'd all agree that reconnecting modern man with reality is important, and by returning to traditional methods of living that have sustained humans for centuries we could benefit greatly.
June 13th, 2009 by admin
We are excited to announce that Green Zabiha has been awarded Green America’s Certified Green Business!
We’re especially happy since we are the first organization of any kind focused on organic grass fed meats to receive this certificate! And the first halal company to ever apply, much less get awarded! So we're on the national Green Pages!
Green America (formerly Co-op America) is one of the leading organizations working towards a more sustainable and greener America. Established in 1982, the not-for-profit has been a leader in improving our world and making millions of people more aware of alternatives to ‘conventional’ ways of doing things. Green America has played a critical role in championing Fair Trade, sustainable agriculture, social justice and alternative energy initiatives in the US.
Green America also maintains the authoritative list of sustainable businesses in the US, the Green Business Network, and are also one of the key partners in the wildly popular Green Festival.
We went through a rigorous screening process as part of the certification to show that our principles and business processes are in line with Green America’s standards.
More about Green America
www.greenamericatoday.org
June 13th, 2009 by admin
June 13th, 2009 by admin
June 13th, 2009 by admin
****Thank you for all the orders! Turkeys have been sold out!*****
Mmmm….Few things bring a family together like a turkey dinner. The stuffing, basting, aroma and plenty of tender flavorful meat seems to transcend the meal into a memorable bonding experience everyone loves!
Mmmm….Few things bring a family together like a turkey dinner. The stuffing, basting, aroma and plenty of tender flavorful meat seems to transcend the meal into a memorable bonding experience everyone loves!
It’s even more enjoyable when you know the story of your turkey…Our turkeys are raised on open green pastures on certified organic farms. They run around chasing bugs, eating grass, breathing fresh clean air and are served vegetarian, GMO free, and certified organic feed. We believe giving them natural foods and treating them with dignity makes for healthier happier birds, and better tasting meat as well.
You’ll be comforted as you sit to carve the turkey to know they weren’t cooped up by the thousands barely able to move, with feed that may have included all sorts of unhealthy stuff.
We do not package the turkeys with any preservatives, solution etc., up to 10% of the weight of conventional turkeys can be such agents, so you get lets meat for your buck.
They are hand-harvested, one by one, in a zabiha halal manner, with a care, consciousness and thankfulness we believe is a part of halal principles.
You will receive them the week of or week before Thanksgiving, the exact date to be determined based upon the number of orders. There is a limited quantity, and the last day to order is November 11th!! We'll contact you about shipping.
Some more information:
Turkey factory farming-(in case you want to see how the other side lives)
June 13th, 2009 by admin
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If you haven’t yet, read The NY Times recent article about ground beef and E.Coli. It highlights many of the factors why E.Coli recalls still are quite common, in fact according to some it’s a problem that’s getting worse. It tells the story of one young lady who was tragically paralyzed by eating a hamburger.
The article made a lot of interesting points, here are a few gems to chew on, many of which you may have heard before:
- Packaged ground beef can be composed of the meat of hundreds of different cows that are not just across the county, but even from outside the US. They follow one batch of ground beef and its pretty amazing to see what they find.
- Some processors actually use ammonia, AMMONIA, in ground beef to kill E.Coli. Ever wonder what that slight chemically taste was? This was news to us!
- Most meat used is from spent dairy cows or steer too old to put in the feedlot system.
- Big meat industry players are not doing much to address this issue, in fact they lobby hard to ease testing for E.Coli
- One of the main sources of E.Coli is that cattle from feedlots are smeared with feces, after all they don’t see pasture, they are just knee deep in their own excrement, so wouldn’t you guess it’d find its way into the meat? Especially since slaughthouses kill thousands of animals in a day, rarely slowing up the production for animal welfare, or as we see in this case ensuring healthiness of the meat
We did feel there was one unfortunate omission, they never addressed the question: ‘Why is there E.Coli in the first place’.
Well according to study after study, the high grain diet that is fed to cows in feedlots is a major culprit. Grain is fed since it will get cattle to slaughter weight faster and cheaper than grass but it also make cows very sick since their stomachs are suited for grass, not grain. Grain diets help to promote the development of new strains of E.Coli that are toxic to humans.
The point here is not to add ground beef to the growing list of things to be scared of; everything has some danger, riding a car, chewing gum etc. But the key here is that it doesn't have to be this way, cattle do not have to be feed food that makes them sick and causes public health issues. They dont need to be kept by the thousands in packed stockyards with no access to pasture which causes significant environmental issues. But that is the modern food industrial complex's means for providing $1.50/lb ground beef. Is it worth the price?
In case you are wondering, our beef is from cattle that are strictly grass fed, they never get any grain. And of course no use of antibiotics, hormones, ammonia or irradiation is ever used.
Some more information:
No E. Coli or Mad Cow Disease in Grass-Fed Beef
Diet And Disease In Cattle: High-Grain Feed May Promote Illness And Harmful Bacteria
Power Steer by Michael Pollan:
Most of the microbes that reside in the gut of a cow and find their way into our food get killed off by the acids in our stomachs, since they originally adapted to live in a neutral-pH environment. But the digestive tract of the modern feedlot cow is closer in acidity to our own, and in this new, manmade environment acid-resistant strains of E. coli have developed that can survive our stomach acids—and go on to kill us. By acidifying a cow's gut with corn, we have broken down one of our food chain's barriers to infection. Yet this process can be reversed: James Russell, a U.S.D.A. microbiologist, has discovered that switching a cow's diet from corn to hay in the final days before slaughter reduces the population of E. coli 0157 in its manure by as much as 70 percent. Such a change, however, is considered wildly impractical by the cattle industry.
June 13th, 2009 by admin
The founder of the most famous DC eatery, and the #1 ranked chili in America returned to his Lord
[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="450" caption="Bill Cosby and Ben Ali"]
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[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="424" caption="President Obama at Bens Chili Bowl"]
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From God we come and to Him we return....
Mahaboob Ben Ali passed away Oct 7th in Washington DC. Ben founded 'Ben's Chilli Bowl' in DC in 1958 which was perhaps the best known eatery in the Metro area. Celebrities and politicians ate along side common folk in an establishment that saw the ups and downs of a DC neighborhood.
Ben was born in Trinidad to family that hailed from Northern Indian, and moved to DC to study dentistry at Howard University. He missed the spiciness of his Caribbean island and decided to open a restaurant to showcase the culinary tradition he grew up with. He created his own chili reciepe which is still a closely guarded family secret. When it opened U Street was known as 'Black Broadway' and regulars included such famous names as Duke Ellington and Red Foxx . Through the years the neighborhood had its ups and downs (riots, drug addiction), but Ben never moved locations, he was committed to the neighborhood and would see it through thick and thin.
Bon Appetit magazine ranked Ben's Chili as the best in America, and it has remained a location where celebrities such as Shaquille Oneal, to Bill Cosby to President Obama have frequented.
Ben was an American Muslim, and in his life he manifested many noble qualities that we can all learn from.
He moved into the inner-city, and instead of opening an liquor store (sadly many in the inner-city are Muslim owned), he opened a restaurant where people could eat food that was prepared with care and love (and no pork products were ever on the menu). He helped to improve his neighborhood, in that way he was part of the solution not part of the problem.
He married an African American lady (who became Muslim), in doing so two constituents of the American Muslim experience, African American and Immigrant, were united in the most intimate of bonds.
Ultimately Ben was an entrepreneur, a neighborhood advocate and an American Muslim who rose to become nothing less than a DC institution we can all learn lessons from.
District Councilman Kwame Brown called Ali a civil rights pioneer and entrepreneur. "Through the best times and the worst times in our city's history, Ben was eternally optimistic," Brown said in a statement. "It was 51 years ago, with the sale of Ben's first hot dog, that a place was created that to this day transcends cultural, racial and political divides."More: Ben's Chili Bowl Website NPR Story
June 13th, 2009 by admin
A new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reveals that life expectancy rises in tough economic times, and declines when the economy is going strong.
The basic finding of the paper is that mortality rates tend to evolve in parallel to the economy," said lead study author Jose Tapia Granados, an assistant research scientist at University of Michigan Institute for Social Research. "When the economy goes up, mortality tends to go up. When the economy goes down, mortality rates tend to go down, too."The study did not dig deeper as to why people lived longer, however several possible reasons have been given, including more disposable income means more money for food (overeating), cigarettes and alcohol. Some also think that increase in traffic accidents may play a factor. And, it is postulated, in times of economic prosperity people have more work to do and the stress levels are higher. Though in my experience during bad economic conditions there are less people to do the work so the ones that are left are overworked, I guess you could go either way with that. Not surprisingly, the one type of death that increased in the Great Depression (which this study mainly focused on) was suicide, up 2%. but overall that has little impact on life expectancy. I was always under the impression that the increase in suicide was much higher during that time. So its an interesting study, and certainly counter intuitive. It would be revealing for someone to pick up where this left off and help to answer the question 'why'. I'd also like to see some trends regarding this not just from a physical health perspective, but mental and emotional as well. While no one would argue being broke and unemployed is a desirable state, the opposite assertion--that being rich and materially 'successful' is the key to happiness--is similarly untenable. You can't buy happiness as they say. There have been studies I've seen previously that clearly indicate people who are less affluent (though not in grinding poverty) tend to have a higher level of satisfaction, contentment and happiness than those who are classified as rich. One reason I came across was that the more people had, the more they desired. Its also interesting to note that poorer people were more philanthropically generous as well. On a deeper level, all these physical states come and go (rich, poor, healthy, sick etc.), indeed a single individual might expect to experience all of them several times in their life. So regardless of someone's opinion about this study, the question is how do we effectively deal with all that life throws our way, how do we attain that happiness which we know instinctively we cant buy? One might assert that the key to tranquility is a spiritual connection with the Divine which provides a rudder as we navigate through whatever material state we may find ourselves in... **** Reuters: Recessions may be good for your health: study
June 13th, 2009 by admin
But this convenience, unfortunately, comes at a price. Previously nitrites have been linked to cancer, since under certain conditions they can be turned into carcinogens. Now in a startling new study, evidence suggests they may also be a factor in the rising rates of diabetes, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. So unfortunately its another case of where industrial food gained some production benefits...but at what cost? Is some extra shelf life and improved color worth the risk? No doubt we'll be getting some additional studies telling us how safe they are, but who knows, perhaps as time goes on nitrites will go the way of other food additive miracles, like trans fats, remember them? They were in everything, and no one mentioned any potential health risks, then all of a sudden..poof! Almost overnight every product proudly displayed the 100% trans fat free seal. There is a bigger issue here regarding science and nutrition. It seems like every year or so what was safe is found to be dangerous (remember margirine was good, butter bad? how'd that turn out?), of course you could always play it safe and just stick to natural foods!
Well, with nitrites we're not waiting for any more research, we strive to eat food that doesn't have any sodium nitrates or sodium nitrites (or any preservatives, additives, high fructose corn syrup etc. like our prepared beef products) playing it safe and natural is the safe way. A general rule of thumb is that the less processed/additives in food the better.
June 13th, 2009 by admin
If you landed on this site, chances are you are already very familiar with Polyface, after all it is perhaps one of the best known farms in the US, and certainly the most high profile biodynamic/organic/sustainable/grass farms around. Joel Salatin, and his son Daniel, are tireless evangelists and heroes to the grass fed movement and their passion is really contagious. He is considered one of the most innovative and influential 'beyond organic' farmers, and many of his practices have been adopted across the world. It's never a dull moment with Joel, a self described lunatic farmer, who is also a very prolific writer.
For those in the DC area or those who have been in the grass fed 'movement', Joel Salatin has been a well known figure for many years. For others Polyface was really put on the map by the New York Times bestseller (and we'd say a truly 'must read' book) The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan. In the book, Pollan contrasts what he terms 'industrial organic' with Pastured organic operations such as Joel's. In a nutshell, big business sniffed an opportunity to make money in organic, and by doing so essentially industrialized it, which in many ways went against the spirit of the organic movement itself. That is a long story which we can address at another stage; suffice to say that Joel eschews the organic certification.
Joel was also prominently featured in two recent documentaries, Food Inc and Fresh. Food Inc is now playing in a theatre near you, and we'd really encourage everyone to check it out. He has been featured on too many news sites (NPR, USA Today...) to name, but all you need to do is a Google to see dozens of articles, speeches and videos about or by Joel Salatin. Joel is very vocal and articulate; his speeches are well worth a watch.
So what makes Joel so different? There is a lot that can be said, but essentially he treats his farm as a single organism, with all the animals working symbiotically as a cohesive unit. It is a beautifully harmonious ecosystem, and at its core he sees his job as a grass farmer, since everything begins with the sun. Grass (and how much diversity there is in grass!) harnesses solar power, and converts it into food for animals.
He practices management intensive grazing (or rotational grazing), a method for pastured farming in which cows are moved daily to new paddocks to allow the ones they ate to recover. After three days, he brings the laying hens on the paddock using the Egg-Mobile to allow them to scratch through the cow pies for bugs, thus feeding while at the same time spreading the manure as fertilizer. Additionally by taking this approach, since the cows do not stand in their own manure, he does not need to use any de-wormers (and he doesn't use any vaccines either, much less antibiotics or hormones!). This approach is also called 'natural pattern' farming, since the animals are allowed to follow the patterns they follow in the wild. He views his role with the land, and animals as a steward, one that transcends just physical but reaches a spiritual connection as well. There is so much more that can be said, and we'd encourage you to explore more by reading Omnivores Dilemma, as well watching additional videos.
For Green Zabiha, working with Joel is coming full circle. We first visited Joel many years ago (prior to The Omnivore's Dilemma) to harvest some animals, and have been in touch on and off since then. We are very excited to feature his beef, and he is excited as well to provide his meat to those who seek halal harvesting. We will also plan at some point of having a tour of the farm for GZ'ers, something that Joel is more than happy to arrange with us.
To see some pictures click here.
Here are some videos we'd recommend:
Joel at UC Berkeley "Beyond Organic-The story of Polyface Farms"
Joel and Daniel on USA Today on Natural Pattern Farming
Joel and 'Rise of the Sissy Farmer'
Green Zabiha at Polyface
June 13th, 2009 by admin
Salam and Peace,
Green Zabiha is a member of the Farmer To Consume Legal Defense Fund, a legal watchdog that fights for the rights of small farmers across America. Increasingly regulations are being put in place which could seriously affect the ability for small farmers to survive, it should be no surprise that many of these are being pushed by big Agri-business and if they get their wish our food choices will be severely affected. Stand up for small farmers! One of the most disturbing provisions of this bill is the ability for the government to conduct random, warrentless searches of business records of farmers. I don't even think they can do that for drug dealers. I know many of you are familiar with 'action alerts', but usually they are about civil liberties, etc. While those are very important, we should also take part in these types of alerts because they affect all of us, and if passed they can have very significant implications for us moving forward.
Please read the below action alert and spread the word, additionally we'd encourage as many people as possible to join FTCLDF to support their important work.
Green Zabiha is a member of the Farmer To Consume Legal Defense Fund, a legal watchdog that fights for the rights of small farmers across America. Increasingly regulations are being put in place which could seriously affect the ability for small farmers to survive, it should be no surprise that many of these are being pushed by big Agri-business and if they get their wish our food choices will be severely affected. Stand up for small farmers! One of the most disturbing provisions of this bill is the ability for the government to conduct random, warrentless searches of business records of farmers. I don't even think they can do that for drug dealers. I know many of you are familiar with 'action alerts', but usually they are about civil liberties, etc. While those are very important, we should also take part in these types of alerts because they affect all of us, and if passed they can have very significant implications for us moving forward.
Please read the below action alert and spread the word, additionally we'd encourage as many people as possible to join FTCLDF to support their important work.
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June 13th, 2009 by admin
June 13th, 2009 by admin
June 13th, 2009 by admin
