It’s Time for Farmers to Tweet

In addition to farmers, the social media interface can allow all others involved in animal agriculture to tell their stories.  Seedsmen, veterinarians, butchers, traders … the list goes on! The article below was written by Sarah Hubbart of the Washington, D.C.-based Animal Agriculture Alliance and appeared in their most recent letter (posted with permission).  

What is #meatcamp?

The hashtag feature with Twitter allows Twitter users to search for topics or keywords marked with a hash/pound mark. The #meatcamp is exactly such a designation we are using to organize questions and answers anyone has about meat.  Questions about cuts? Flavors? Tenderness? Cooking?  You can ask them at an online weekly forum if you’re a Twitter user.

Clean field dressing

The image below is of a poorly handled field-dressed deer.  As you can see, the body cavity is heavily contaminated with leaves, dirt and sticks.  A few ticks were noticed crawling about, feasting.  Such extreme contamination can be minimized with more careful handling.

Overcoming the Meat Language Barrier

Farmers and butchers sometimes speak different languages, especially when it comes to how meat is cut.  There are a variety of common names for the same cut which can lead to miscommunication and consequently, frustration for everyone involved.

Strategies to Improve Venison Safety

The “first rule of food safety” is:  KEEP IT CLEAN.  The average field dressed deer when it makes it to the garage or to camp site is never nearly as clean as it could be, yet there a few things you can do to help improve its cleanliness and subsequent safety (remember, deer can harbor the same pathogens as beef cattle and other meat animals, including E. coli O157:H7).

Do You Raise Cattle or Beef?

That’s an interesting question, isn’t it? Do you raise cattle or beef? I recently completed the Master’s of Beef Advocacy program (so much very good information in those training modules) and noticed that a three-part mantra was reiterated over and over:

On the Environmental Sustainability of Food Production

This morning via Meatingplace.com I learned of an academic paper that addresses the some challenges animal agriculture faces in regard to the environmental sustainability of food production.

Safely Thawing the Holiday Turkey

Thanksgiving will soon be upon us, and soon frozen turkeys will be in household freezers across America.  Properly thawing said turkey is an important step in keeping your family food safe and thus, here is some information about safely thawing a frozen turkey.

“It” Happens: Nutrient Management

Tracing back from fork (the meat about which I usually blog) to the farm (the livestock that become the meat about which I usually blog), I realized there are many important components to livestock production that aren’t often talked about, one of those being nutrient management.

Meat ‘n Culture: Barbecue

In the ‘States and elsewhere in the Western World, meat is has traditionally been a very celebrated center-of-plate item.  Envision some Norman Rockwell -esque images of holiday meals and you might notice how we tend to identify certain meats with certain holidays.