Going up in the world

I've decided to move away from Blogger so here is yet another new address for your favourites list.

I am now over here at primarilyprimalfamily.com 

Never mind what we eat, what is our food eating?

Last week there was an interview with a pig farmer on the TV. Despite the fact that there should not be genetically modified food in the shops in Denmark, it seems that farmers are importing GMO soy products from South America to feed their pigs.

This is soy that has been modified to be immune to Round Up weed killer so that it can be liberally sprayed in the fields without damaging the soy crops but killing everything else. This unfortunately means that the soy is contaminated with weed killer.

Back to the pigs. It turned out that whilst the GMO soy was much cheaper than the feed he had been using before, it gave the pigs permanent diarrhea, reduced litter sizes and caused general poor health in the pigs. That meant that his veterinary bill went up by 300% and more or less wiped out the savings the farmer made on the food. In the end he went back to the non GMO feed and
healthier pigs.

I'm left wondering how it can be allowed to import food for pigs that makes pigs sick, but I also wonder how many pigs are ending up in the shops for us to eat that have had sick and unhealthy lives. It seems more than a little optimistic to think that eating meat that has been reared on food that makes it sick is not going to have at least some impact on us.

Fresh air

We are getting a bit of sea air for the weekend but it's cold.

Danish Cottage Pie

Why is it Danish? Well, it's made with minced pork rather than lamb or beef for starters.

The filling was onions fried up with the minced pork, a couple of fat garlic cloves and 3 really big portabello mushrooms. Then the topping was a mix of different root vegetables boiled and mashed with some butter. There were mainly potatoes and artichokes with some left over carrots, parsnips and pumpkin for good measure. The beans were frozen, but at this time of year, they're better than anything else you can find around. I can also (smugly) add that it was all organic.

Welcome to a new venture

It's time to move on in the blogging world. I have been writing at Williamslittleworld since 2006 and I seem to have run out of steam in terms of sharing my thoughts and what we are doing as a family. I am also very busy these days and don't often have the time write on a daily basis.

After some consideration and a little prompting from MK, I have decided to have a go at a more specifically focused blog discussing our family lifestyle.

We have been working at living in a paleo or primal lifestyle in our family for a couple of years and we are all feeling the benefits of it. We are in good health and happier than we used to be when eating a more standard diet and not thinking about other health factors. Now we are (or at least I am) more conscious about what we eat, how much sun we get, how much sleep we get and how we exercise. The idea is that there should lots of interesting things to write about and discuss along with meal ideas and no doubt still some updates on family life.