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HomePosts Tagged "alternative food"

I will never understand how restaurants can get away with charging a hundred bucks for a piece of old beef steak. Sure, it’s delicious, melts in your mouth, but, c’mon, does a man have to sign an arm-and-leg lease to enjoy a good steak? Anyway, should’ve started by saying that I’m a big fan of aged food; cheese, fish, meats.

You name it! The bad news is that these are not the types of foods one can make at home. Or so I thought after stumbling upon this recipe. The funny part is that I was actually looking for a way to clean the freezer without using anything, well, toxic, when this little jewel sprung right into my eyes.

So, why should you try aged meat? Well, because it’s easy to make. On top of that, get this: the oldest beef cut in the world is 13 years old! Imagine having ready-to-eat meat at home without having to brine, refrigerate, go shopping, or hunt. Well, it’s possible, and I’m going to show you how to do it.

So, without further ado, here’s how to make your own aged beef.

Gathering the ingredients

As I’ve said, this recipe doesn’t require any special ingredients like salt, vinegar, or whatever else people use to preserve meat (not touching that topic with a ten-foot pole). Still, the cut of choice will ultimately determine the taste. The recipe I mentioned about involved large cuts of meat – the bigger, the better. Would be a good idea to go to a butcher’s instead of hitting the supermarket. Anywho, avoid small cuts, and choose meats that pack some fat – whole ribs, porterhouse cuts, rib steak, or New York strips.

That’s basically it as far as the ingredients are concerned. For aging, I would advise using a zip-lock bag instead of food wrap – does a better job at keeping the air out; meat should age on its own. The last thing you’ll need is more air.

Arguably, refrigeration’s the best way to go about aged beef, but considering that our grand used to prepare meat long before fridges were invented, I would venture to guess that the root cellar is also a good choice.

As for quantity, a two pounder’s more than enough in my opinion – if you’ve never eater aged meat in your life, better make a smaller batch. Otherwise, you’ll get stuck with something with an extra chunk of meat.

All done gathering your stuff? Great! Let’s get to the ‘cooking’ part.

How to Prepare Aged Beef

Step 1. Prepare the fridge or designate a shelf in the root cellar.

Make sure that fridge’s clean. Stinky food, molding, and, grime will affect the aging process. So, if something smells bad in there, better toss it in the trash. One more thing: remove cheese, garlic, onion, or fish from the shelf assigned to the aged meat. Garlic and onions are fine, but not during the aging process (gives the meat a funny taste).

Step 2.  Set temp and check humidity

The funny thing about meat: if it’s kept in above 40 degrees Fahrenheit temps, it will go rotten. On the other hand, if you stick it in a below 32 degrees Fahrenheit enclosure, it will freeze. So, in this case, the sweet spot would be 36 degrees Fahrenheit. Set the fridge’s thermostat accordingly and don’t forget to check the humidity inside (should be around 60%, give or take).

Most modern setups can display values such as temp and humidity. Still, if you have an older model, I would strongly recommend buying a hygrometer (a device that measures indoor humidity). It’s quite affordable and can be used around the house as well.

Step 3. Preparing the meat.

If you decide on paying a visit to your local butcher, ask him to leave the meat as it is; most tend to trim the excess, which is a definite no-no in this case. Wash the meat a couple of times, dry with paper towels or something, and place in a zip-lock bag.

Advice: if you want to hasten the aging process, try wrapping your meat in cheesecloth. Keep in mind that the cloth must be changed each day to prevent sudden dehydration.

Step 4. Store the meat in your fridge or root cellar.

Grab a small oven tray from the pantry, put the meat inside, and stick in the freezer. That’s it! All you need to do now is wait for the meat to age.

Additional considerations on aged meat

Color’s very important in figuring out how long should the meat age. For instance, if your cut has a darker color to it, the aging process takes anyway from a couple of days to one week (don’t forget to check up it each day). On the other hand, if the beef cut has a lighter color, it needs at least 7 days to age. Still, I wouldn’t advise you to keep it longer than 30 days. Always remember that there’s a fine line between edible aged meat and a spoiled chunk of something.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the fridge’s thermostat might not be able to keep up with the process. When you’re done checking the meat, recheck the temp and humidity.

The whole idea is to allow the meat to dehydrate on its own – that’s why it’s a good idea to turn on the fridge’s fan and to set it on low. In some cases, the in-build fan may not be enough. Not to worry – just grab a laptop or desk fan and place it inside the fridge on the same shelf as your aged meat.

When the aging’s complete, remove the cloth from the meat and set it on a plate. I should warn you though that the meat might give off an unpleasant smell even after removing everything from the fridge. Don’t worry about that – use a knife to cut the outer layer. Leave a little bit of fat.

Now, given the proper conditions, meat can be preserved longer than 30 days. However, if you plan on taking it out of the cloth and ziplock bag, you should eat it within one or two days.

That’s it for how to make aged beef steak. What’s your take on this? Hit the comments sections and let me know.

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Sure, it’s delicious, melts in your mouth, but, c’mon, does a man have to sign an arm-and-leg lease to enjoy a good steak?

Food will always be king and the reason we have enjoyed the prosperity we have is because of easy access to food. In America, we waste 50% of the food we produce. That is astounding and gross. To those who survived the great depression of the 30’s the idea that any food could be wasted would be unbelievable.

So, how do we go from food being wasted to experiencing something like a global famine?

We have pressed the soil, resources, and planet itself, to a point where all are ready to break. The breadbasket of America and other massive agricultural areas are operating on soils depleted of nutrients and as the worlds, demand continues to grow there is massive pressure to achieve big yields year over year.

Let’s look at 4 factors that are going to affect a famine that starves billions.

Disease

There are some dangerous diseases affecting crops all over the world. UG99 Wheat Rust is a disease with no known cure that is affecting grain populations in America and Mexico. This disease could affect nearly 20% of all wheat crop is in danger of being infected but nearly all wheat crops could be infected by the disease.

There are other’s out there like Mad Soy Disease which is affecting soy crops in Brazil but has been isolated to the northern regions of the nation. We live in a world where people and commodities spread and diseases with them.

It would seem like its only a matter of time before big cash crops are leveled by disease

Soil Quality

The condition of the Earth’s topsoil is abysmal. It is estimated that 1/3 of all growing areas are losing topsoil faster than it can be reproduced. This means that every year farmers must pump loads of fertilizer and other nutrients into the soil in hopes that the plants will have enough to survive.

This drastically affects the quality of the produce and grains that are grown each year. Ideally, you want soil that is full of nutrition and it will impart that nutrition into your food. Instead, we are left with food that is mass produced but exponentially less nutritious than the food being produced in the past.

Before long, our foods will be more chemical and less nutrient or, worse yet, the crop yields will suffer dramatically.

This will lead to worldwide malnutrition and human disease.

Natural Disasters

We pull hundreds of millions of gallons of water from the ground to water these crops. Around the farmland, we decimate the trees and wild-lands. This land is then paved and is no longer capable of absorbing water.

Massive flooding is the outcome and it’s now affecting our growing areas. Without expansive wild areas to absorb the water from large storms, the water rushed to agricultural areas and worst of all it stays there.

The Earth’s natural disasters and our drainage limitations are putting us at a huge risk. The last bomb cyclone in Nebraska left 1,000,000 acres of land underwater and killed almost the same amount of calves.

With spring rains coming this could have lasting and devastating effects on food production. It only takes a few of these large-scale agricultural areas to be disrupted, plantings reduced or eliminated altogether, before the world has to tighten up on supply and people start going hungry.

Personal Food Security

With these three issues potentially having drastic effects on the food system, its safe to say you need a backup. In fact, you need a few. You want to buy, store and grow your way to personal food security. Of course, this is going to take planning and knowledge.

  • Gardening

Whether you go the route of building a food forest, hydroponically growing food, green housing or traditional food growing.

  • Livestock

From things as complicated and as expensive as raising cattle to simply raising chickens for eggs, you need to consider what you can do in terms of raising food-producing animals

  • Food Storage

Food storage is all about planning and rotation. In order to excel at this, you need to know the basics and remember, store what you eat!

  • Preservation

From dehydrating to canning, you will also want to know the majority of these skills and use them to both extend your harvest in the garden and build food storage

  • Foraging

There are food growing all around us, but you need to understand when and where to find them. These will be ancillary calories, but they will help.

  • Hunting

Though season dependent, hunting and trapping can both be impressive ways to put meat on the table or in the freezer.

Getting Started

There is a bit of a knowledge barrier and a lot of practice that goes into all of these. You need a trusted resource that will offer you information on these topics. You could peruse the internet and read various websites to get information on these topics.

A better move is to have a tangible resource that has all of this information in it. This puts a reference tool at your fingertips whether the lights are out or not!

Wouldn’t it be great if something like this existed? Well, you may want to look for The Doomsday Book Of Medicine. This book includes information about the above info and all the info you will need to reach a level of personal food security.

Oh yea, this is also packed with other information about prepping beyond food. You can find it all HERE.

I am not saying it’s the only resource but it’s damn sure a good one!

Conclusion

As the population grows, we are going to face a greater strain on the food system. Nature is hitting back against our modified mono-cultured crop systems and things like wheat, corn and soy production will be disrupted.

This time of excess cannot go on forever. We simply cannot pull out naturally occurring nutrients and replace them with chemicals as a long-term solution. Its time to take control of your own food production. You can do this.

With the right resource, you will find yourself escaping the coming famine and building your own personal food security. The Doomsday Book Of Medicine helps you all the way.

 

0 Comments

In America we waste 50% of the food we produce. That is astounding and gross. To those who survived the great depression of the 30’s the idea that any food