Processing Day

Last Saturday was Processing Day. Here’s a rundown on how it all unfolds…

The day starts with a big, hardy breakfast of sausage, potato and egg tacos made with our own free-range eggs. Most of the set-up  happens the night before, so after breakfast, Mom cleans up the kitchen and starts lunch in the crockpot while the guys do the last bits of set-up outside.

We set up a canopy, there’s a processing table and a rack where the “kill-cones” hang, and our brand-spankin’ new plucker! If you’ve ever plucked chickens by hand, you’ll know how easy it was to get these guys to smile next to our plucker.

Once we’re all set, we get started. The boys are our chicken-getters, they cart the chickens over from the nearby pen and we keep them covered with a netting to keep them calm until it’s their turn. Dad handles the execution process – the rest of us are all glad to leave that to the expert.

Next is the scalder. The key to a good pluck is a good scald. 145-150 degrees is the ideal temperature. We keep a digital thermometer with an alarm in our water at all times because scalding a chicken in water that is too hot will result in the skin tearing off with the feathers. Not desirable. We dunk in and out of the water several times, I’d say for 30 seconds to a minute. After the thirty second mark, we give the wing-feathers a tug. If they don’t pluck right out with ease, in we go for a couple more dunks. Then comes another tug of the wing-feathers and so on and so forth until the feathers easily come free of the wings.

Ian is our little helper. He is such a trooper, all day long pitching in where he can. In one particularly industrious moment, I took the time to encourage him, saying, “Ian you have been such a great helper today! Thank you for all your hard work!” He turned to me and with this very intense furrow of the brow and a slight grin, said “I wanna get paid!” I just busted out laughing. What’d ya say to that? Here he is working on a little side-project he had going on.

Okay, so I got whisked into the business of processing and forgot to take anymore pictures. But, the next step is obviously plucking which is amazingly easy with our new plucker. Set 2-3 chickens in, feathers and all, and thirty seconds later we have a perfectly naked bird. It’s just amazing – there’s no other word for it. If you don’t agree, I’ll let you come to my house and pluck about thirty birds by hand. You’ll be kissing the plucker before you leave. I almost did.

The rest is the dirty part. Removing the heads and feet, cleaning out all the innards. This whole process is a great science lesson for the kiddoes. That sounds gross, but hey, they’re intrigued and it’s easy teaching it when, well, there it all is – right there before you. A few things not to forget: when you pull the insides out, a portion of the crop usually stays behind. You have to go back up to the head-end of the chicken to remove that clear bag-like thing attached to the top of the breast. Then, back inside the chicken the lungs never come out willingly. That requires some work. And then there’s the oil gland on the tail. This is where the chicken releases the oils that water-proof his feathers and is not something you want flavoring your dinner. Cut from the top of the tail, into and down toward the bottom leaving no trace of a greasy, yellow substance you will see if you have not cut down deep enough.

Once the birds are empty and washed, we drop them in an ice bath and there they stay for a few hours until we bag them and then usually freeze them. And now our day is done…

a2

a2 is one-half of a patented term I can’t use, referring to a product I can’t market because (well, one I’m not certified to sell milk), but two, because a big-money corporation has attempted to monopolize the market for a product that has the potential to help thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people suffering from auto-immune and other types of disorders.

Sounds crazy doesn’t it?

I used to ask – how can something God made to nourish His people, and which has done so for thousands of years, all the sudden be linked to heart disease? autism? schizophrenia? diabetes? Celiac disease? the list goes on… but here’s how:

Take a tail hair from a European derived breed of cattle and a tail hair from a goat, an Asian cow, heck, you could take a hair from a monkey, a human and a cat if you’d like. We could do a genetic test on all these samples and one significant difference would stand out in the European cow-hair from all other samples. In a chain of amino acids, at position number 67 – everyone in our little sample group would have an amino acid called Proline. Our European cow however, would most likely have an amino acid called Histidine. And here lies the problem.

If you want further technicalities, I’ll send you off to the experts from here – Read “Devil in the Milk” by, Keith Woodford * (see below).

I will simply add that, who knows how long ago, a mutation occurred in European cattle. Those nations in which the mutation is prevalent in their cattle have a heart disease and Type I Diabetes rate that closely corresponds to their intake of the “bad” milk. Below are some charts from Devil in the Milk by, Kevin Woodford.

Why are the facts in these charts significant? Because Heart Disease and Type I Diabetes are not related to one another. The fact that they correspond to one another points to an outside factor driving the occurance of both conditions up in the same populations of people. With a great deal of information pulled from his extensive research – all of which he notates in his book,  including personal testimonies, Keith Woodford makes a very strong case for the fact that the “outside factor” is the “bad milk.” He is not by any means the only guy going around declaring these facts, but his book pulls all the facts together into a concise, comprehensive source of information for anyone wanting to learn more.

Okay, so there was a mutation… but what does that have to do with me?  The result of the mutation – beta-casein 7 – affects different people in different ways, depending on what your unique genetic makeup is. Not everyone will be affected, in fact most people aren’t. However, if your body is sensitive, it could be sensitive in a plethora of ways. Beta-casein 7 acts like an opiate in some individuals, resulting in neurological disorders like schizophrenia and autism. Beta-casein 7 is also more easily absorbed into the gut and can result in something as simple as lactose intolerance, or even go so far as to contribute to Celiac Disease (gluten intolerance). Other auto-immune disorders like Multiple Sclerosis and Crohn’s Disease can also be linked to beta-casein 7.

Where’s the good milk? Holstein cattle are highly affected by the mutation. Jersey cattle, slightly less so. Unfortunately, these are the two breeds that are predominately used here in the USA. If you buy milk at the grocery store, you’re most likely getting the “bad milk.” If it’s not hurting you, then it’s not bad for you. But, if you suspect it may be affecting you – your best bet is to look for a local supplier of milk. Ask them about A2 and A1 milk. If they don’t know what you’re talking about, then don’t stop there. Your safest bet is goats milk, simply because the mutation never occurred in goats – only in European cattle. However, some heritage breeds are still predominately carriers of the good milk – Guernseys and Milking Devons being a couple of examples. Still, if the dairy doesn’t know what you’re talking about – his cattle probably are affected. In order to have an A1-free herd, you would have to very deliberately put that herd together using genetic testing to cull bad cows and do genetic screening on each and every new cow brought into the herd.

But doesn’t goats milk taste funny?  Not if you treat it right. We strain our milk immediately upon bringing it in from the barn and put it straight into an ice bath – this prevents any “goaty” flavor. Pasteurized goat milk – yeah… it’s pretty awful, I must agree -unless you’re just one who has an affinity for that strong flavor.

For more info please check out the Weston A. Price Foundation.

* Woodford, Keith, Devil in the Milk. Nelson, NZ: Craig Potton Publishing, 2007; White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing Company, 2009

Why Pastured?

My husband’s the one with the passion for the poultry. In high school he judged poultry & eggs  in FFA  – and was pretty good at it. I too was an FFA-er and 4-H-er, conditioned to believe that all the conventional forms of agriculture were necessary evils in order to feed the biggest population that had ever existed on our planet.

I have nothing against FFA or 4-H, much good to say about them in fact. But they lean heavily toward conditioning kids to buy into the conventional, industrial food model that is… well, let’s just say faulted.

So, back to “Why Pastured?”

All my husband had to do in order to have me on the Pastured Poultry Bandwagon, was to read this excerpt to me from page 10 of “Pastured Poultry Profits” (*see below) by, Joel Salatin:

“…9 percent of the weight on department-store chicken is fecal soup.”

Feecuh… Huh… How can that be?

Apparently when chickens are raised in confinement conditions with little to no natural light, their muscle structure is, well, spongy – as opposed to the more developed structure on a pastured chicken who has had the freedom to move about, foraging and frolicking in the daylight. This spongy state of the confinement birds’ tissues causes their carcasses to absorb the chill-water they are placed in – the chilling being a necessary phase in the processing. As Joel further explains, “mechanical evisceration breaks open the intestines and pours fecal material all over the carcass, inside the body cavity, and contaminates the birds. Large chill tanks often have several inches of fecal sludge in the bottom.” Thus resulting in the absorption of what Joel calls “fecal soup.” I sure didn’t order that with dinner!

To address the issue, Joel goes on to add, the industry could opt for air chilling. This wouldn’t fix the “fecal material all over the carcass,” but it would at least alleviate further absorption of additional fecal matter from the tanks. However, the very absorption of the chill water adds weight to each carcass, thereby adding to the price each bird brings. Go figure.

So, the industry opts for up to 40, yes I said 40, chlorine baths. If the fecal-filled chillwater is absorbed into the spongy carcass, how much of that chlorine gets in there? One can only wonder.

* Salatin, Joel. Pastured Poultry Profits. Swoope, VA : Polyface, Inc. , c1993