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Login to post Forums » Off-topic discussion » Obama and corn fuel: bummer

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June 23, 2008 6:57 p.m. oldopelguy HalfDork

The latest generations of corn hybrids are engineered with genetic traits that the FDA won't allow to go directly into the human food chain because they don't or won't test them. These corns are only good for non-food oil and fuels and such, and sometimes feeds. These corns can grow nearly 300 bushels to an acre of IA or SD farm land.

The best of the food chain, corn syrup-types, grow just over 200 bushels to an acre.

The best of the sweet corn, the stuff you actually eat as corn, is hard pressed to get 70 bushels to an acre.

Without sweet corn selling for over 4 times what fuel corn goes for, there's no good reason to grow food if you're going to grow corn. It's just not worth it. When a farmer is trying to decide what to plant in the spring he has to hedge his bets for what's going to earn him the most when the crop comes in, and while there is some science to it it's always a leap of faith.

By far the best solution to a food corn shortage is one of the easiest for all of us to make: A CO-OP. If you find a local farmer who has a good head on his shoulders and a group of similarly minded locals, it's pretty easy to convince most farmers to plant a pass or two of sweet corn if someone else pays for the seed and can get it harvested and sold. (Modern harvesting equipment doesn't work well on sweet corn, it would have to be done by hand.) He might lose an acre, or $1500-2000 gross worth, of field corn profits, but that acre of sweet corn would be enough for 50 families, and it woud cost them each $30 and one afternoon mid-summer for all the corn they could put up and eat for a year. Offer to pay the farmer up front, and he'd probably even go cheaper, a sure thing now is always better than a maybe later.
June 23, 2008 7:12 p.m. foxtrapper SuperDork

Keep going back in time. None of you have gotten back to the origin of ethanol as a fuel.

Henry Ford designed the venerable Model T to run on ethanol because that was expected to be the fuel, not gasoline.

Gasoline got it because of a fella named Rockefeller.
June 23, 2008 7:13 p.m. NYG95GA Dork

Actually. it sounds like the market system is working; more $ for hi-yeild corn = more demand. Less demand for homegrown corn on the cob = higher price.

Then it turns out we shouldn't eat it in the first place, even thought it has, at times, sustained large populations.

I can grow enough to eat, but I can't grow enough to run my cars. I have to buy that from somebody else, or not drive my cars. I choose to pay @&%#% to fuel my cars.

The guy that sells the fuel I can't make (but want) makes a living. I don't see where that's a bad thing.

At some level it becomes sustainable, which is a very good thing.. IF I'm willing to pay the price he needs to make a living. If not, we are back into the supply/demand loop.

I'm not speaking of fossil fuel here, only of using corn in it's place.

On a different but related note, cane syrup and honey are the only TRUE sweeteners.
June 23, 2008 7:59 p.m. ignorant UltraDork

http://www.texasgrassfedbeef.com/corn__it_s_what_s_bad_for_you.htm
June 23, 2008 9:34 p.m. Twin_Cam Dork

Politics and health benefits of corn aside, ethanol in gasoline is retarded. It requires more energy to refine the ethanol than the energy it saves mixing it with gasoline. Plus the cost of food worldwide skyrockets because corn is a staple, and it is used to feed every kind of livestock imaginable. Not to mention the biggest producer of corn in the US is half underwater. So the crop will be uber-small this year.

Oh, and it makes cars run like crap. Summer isn't a problem, but winter morning starting with E10 in your tank is always a gamble.
June 23, 2008 9:36 p.m. RXBeetle New Reader

Salanis wrote: My girlfriend read his book ("The Omnivore's Dilemma"), so I got some highlights, although I haven't picked it up yet. I heard his interview on NPR too. Quite interesting. I believe his final verdict was, that generally the best foods to eat are the local/seasonal ones, and that "If it's something your great grandmother wouldn't have been able to identify as food, you should probably leave it alone."

After reading his book, my girlfriend got on a real kick to find places that sold/cooked locally raised meat. She was interested when I told her there were local ostrich, emu, and even buffalo farms. This lead to us finding what has become our favorite burger grill, which specializes in buffalo burgers.
This thread has made me very hungry... My neighbor raises emus... I'll let you guys know how it cooks up
June 24, 2008 10:43 a.m. WilD New Reader

ignorant wrote: http://www.texasgrassfedbeef.com/corn__it_s_what_s_bad_for_you.htm

I like this guy's point of view. Heck, I'm almost primed to start an all grass ranch just so I can eat better. It's almost lunch time, so I'm probably just hungry...
June 24, 2008 10:46 a.m. ignorant UltraDork

I had some grass fed beef the other day. It was great. the flavor was so different from regular steak. Wondferful and I don't really even like steak.
June 24, 2008 11:03 a.m. Salanis Dork

Had a girlfriend at the end of highschool whose family raised a few head of cattle. They grazed in some back acreage on their property. Best steak I've ever had.

Edit: I love how innocuous topics turn into politics, and this political one turns into food. Food>Politics
June 24, 2008 12:46 p.m. Gearhead_42 HalfDork

Werd. My parents raise a head or two of cattle a year, along with 2-3 pigs... I can't eat mass market meat without commenting on its lack of flavor.
June 24, 2008 1:29 p.m. Salanis Dork

Interestingly though, we didn't actually eat their cows. My girlfriend wasn't totally comfortable with eating something she'd raised and given names. So they swapped meat with other families at a local co-op and ate the cows that someone else had raised and given names.
June 24, 2008 2:22 p.m. John Brown UltimaDork

So they say... You were eating Bessie!
June 24, 2008 2:25 p.m. Salanis Dork

I don't care who's Bessie I was eatin'. Bessie tasted damned good.
June 24, 2008 2:29 p.m. spitfirebill Reader

I've always been told that grass fed beef is tough. My father majored in animal husbandtry and was a livestock buyer for 20 years for a meat packing company.

I did not read the link.
June 24, 2008 3:07 p.m. John Brown UltimaDork

I always giggle when I pass the Poultry teaching center at MSU... What chicken can afford to go to college?
June 25, 2008 5:24 a.m. ignorant UltraDork

John Brown wrote: I always giggle when I pass the Poultry teaching center at MSU... What chicken can afford to go to college?

frank purdues chickens work out... Not everyone can be a gym rat.
June 25, 2008 5:28 a.m. ignorant UltraDork

spitfirebill wrote: I've always been told that grass fed beef is tough. My father majored in animal husbandtry and was a livestock buyer for 20 years for a meat packing company.

I did not read the link.

Seemed to have a hell of a lot less fat to me...

I want to try some Belgian Blue Steaks. Its ultra low fat with higher protein beef from some special breed of cow.

http://www.bellebrook.com/faq.html

The belgian blues look rather muscular! ?!?!?!?
June 25, 2008 8:53 a.m. doitover New Reader

Same here, and milk from corn fed cows tastes better too. I suspect some of that is due as much to the breed as it is to the feed though.

I wonder if what the perceived difference was freshness of the meat? I haven't experienced itmyself but other farm kids have told me there is nothing like the beef that they had raised themselves and had butchered.

I like the idea of being vegetarian and was for a few years but storing food on the hoof is very practical.

spitfirebill wrote: I've always been told that grass fed beef is tough. My father majored in animal husbandtry and was a livestock buyer for 20 years for a meat packing company.

I did not read the link.
June 25, 2008 9:05 a.m. Dr. Hess UberDork

Before I was a vegetarian, we visited my family in Alberta who owned a farm. They also raised pigs when farming times were tough. They would get with their neighbors and swap out butchering and other chores. What they had for bacon, which would be "Canadian Bacon" by definition, was totally different than anything I've ever had here that was labeled "Canadian Bacon." I eventually gave up trying to find anything as good.

There's a herd of buffalo about 4 miles from my house. They are big. An article on raising buffalo in our electric Co-Op magazine said "A cow will hurt you. A buffalo will kill you." You also have to use steel fence because barbwire doesn't even slow them down.
June 25, 2008 3:46 p.m. foxtrapper SuperDork

spitfirebill wrote: I've always been told that grass fed beef is tough. My father majored in animal husbandtry and was a livestock buyer for 20 years for a meat packing company.

I did not read the link.

Grass fed beef is normally ranging, so it's tough(er) because the animals aren't flabby. Has nothing to do with the grass itself, has to do with exercise.

Try eating a free range chicken some time. Virtually indistinguishable from a rubber band.

Meat gets soft and tender from being flabby. That's why it's very important ot keep an animal caged up and essentially immoble for a few weeks before slaughtering them. Even a few days can make quite a difference.
June 25, 2008 3:54 p.m. Salanis Dork

Dr. Hess wrote: There's a herd of buffalo about 4 miles from my house. They are big. An article on raising buffalo in our electric Co-Op magazine said "A cow will hurt you. A buffalo will kill you." You also have to use steel fence because barbwire doesn't even slow them down.

There's a guy that keeps a herd outside of Sacto. I heard that he'd tried pretty much every material he could for fencing. Nothing really worked any better. If a buffalo wants to check out something on the other side of a fence, it walks to it. The fences are just kind of suggestions to a buffalo, so the guy used the least expensive, and easiest to repair materials he can find.
June 25, 2008 7:43 p.m. MrJoshua Dork

Either no or a severe reduction in myostatin (the bodies "off switch" for muscle growth) through selective breeding. There was a bodybuilding supplement company that claimed to have created a myostatin inhibitor for humans, but it was quickly pulled from the market.
June 26, 2008 1:14 p.m. Dr. Hess UberDork

Regarding the whole food quality/farming thing, I buy my whole wheat flour directly from the farmer in Colorado http://www.ewpiepergrains.com/ . Red winter wheat. He grows it, dries it, grinds it, puts 23 lbs in a bucket and UPS' it to me for $29. The flavor this adds to my bread is increadible. You can not buy flour like that anywhere. Yeah, it cost more than what you can get whole wheat for at wally world, but it is worth it. I use 1 cup per loaf, so that comes to about twenty cents extra per 1 lb loaf. My total costs are still well under a dollar, and you can't buy bread like that for $5/loaf. I'll send him and email: Hey Eddie, I need another bucket of flour. He replies: Oh, I'm busy right now, but I'll grind you up some and get it out Monday.
June 26, 2008 2:22 p.m. RX Reven' New Reader

Hi Salanis,

Have you ever flown into Catalina airport and had one of their Buffalo Burgers. Talk about local meat…over shoot the runway and the chef will immediately check the freezer for space availability.
June 26, 2008 4:28 p.m. dmitrik4 New Reader

an article i was reading the other day suggested kudzu root is another good source for ethanol. now to just figure out a way to efficiently harvest it and make a lot of Southern friends.

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