A Butcher and a Chef Walk into a Bar
I had planned to attend this event, hosted by Deborah Pardes of Get Smart Radio, featuring Traci Des Jardins, (Chef/Owner of Jardiniere and Mijita as well as Managing Chef of Acme Chophouse) and Josh Epple (co-owner of Drewes Bros. Meats), when it was held on April 17. Unfortunately, I was unable to make it and, after listening to the podcast, I'm sorry that was the case. The discussion was interesting and I’d have liked the opportunity to have posed some questions.
The most ironic moment of the podcast came when Traci Des Jardins said, “The idea that anyone should sit down and eat a 30 ounce steak is just wrong.” This from a chef who serves a 22 ounce steak for one person at the Acme Chophouse! Granted, 30 ounces is larger than 22 ounces but replace 30 with 22 and her statement is still true. That’s why I have a problem with Acme assessing split charges.
Both participants agreed that the term “natural” is meaningless. Josh Epple said, “Natural means nothing.” A few minutes later, Des Jardins was even more emphatic, saying, “Natural means absolutely nothing.” Evidently, the folks at Left Bank didn’t get the memo as I recently ate a “natural beef skirt steak” at their San Mateo branch.
I disagree with Des Jardins regarding two points she raised during the program.
First, she claims that beef supplies in this country are not safe, that we’re not doing much to safeguard against mad cow disease, that there’s a lot more that our government could be doing and that when you’re grinding up cows and feeding them to cows you’ve got a problem.
Except we’re not grinding up cows and feeding them to cows. That practice was banned by the FDA in 1997 and the rules were tightened in 2004.
There are, as with any government regulation, concerns about compliance. But with three known cases of BSE (mad cow disease) and three known cases of vCJD (the human version of BSE) in the history of the United States, we have much bigger fish to fry. For example, salmonella kills about 500 people per year in the U.S. If I’m going to worry about something in our food supply, I’m going to worry about salmonella (and E. coli) before I worry about mad cow. As far as government intervention goes, even the resources of the U.S. government are limited. If we’re going to use them to fight something, I’d rather it be something that claims 500 lives annually rather than something that’s claimed three lives in the history of our nation (and 193 lives in the history of the world). I’ll grant you the no evidence of a problem is not evidence of no problem but we have to make resource allocation decisions based on the information we have.
(As a total aside, if you want to get outraged about something regarding mad cow disease, get outraged about this news item that I found while researching my post. The USDA is attempting to prohibit Creekstone Farms from testing every one of the approximately 300,000 head of cattle it slaughters each year to determine whether it was infected with BSE. Our government should be in the business of encouraging companies to provide more information to consumers, not discouraging them from doing so.)
Second, prompted by a comment from the audience, Des Jardins stated that it requires two pounds of fish meal to raise one pound of farmed fish, as if that were a bad thing. In actuality, the conversion ratio is much higher. For example, this anti-farmed salmon screed places the ratio at 3:1 while another pegs it at 8.5:1.
While opponents of fish farming love to trot out statistics such as these, they entirely miss the point. The real test isn’t the conversation ratio of farmed fish examined in a vacuum; it’s a comparison of conversion ratio of farmed fish versus wild fish. If the conversion ratio of farmed fish is lower than that of wild fish, farmed fish are more sustainable, at least from the point of view of the number of feed fish they consume as they mature, than wild fish. Oh, and by the way, even opponents of farmed fish admit, in a backhanded sort of way, that farmed fish require less feed to mature than wild fish. See page 20 of this anti-farming tract.
Moreover, fish farmers have an economic incentive to figure out ways to raise fish using less feed. Wild fish are unlikely to evolve in that direction any time soon.
In fairness, both guests stated that, like it or not, farm-raised fish is going to be in our future. Epples said, “Sometimes I wonder if the future of eating seafood is going to be farmed.” Des Jardins added, “What we need to do is be supporting responsible farm-raising of fish.”
Download the podcast and listen to it. It’s an enjoyable and informative 25 minutes.
Just fyi: the correct spelling of the last name for chef Des Jardins is spelled without an "e" before the "s".
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Thank you for pointing that out...you're right...I made the correction.
I could blame the flack, er, fine public relations professional who notified me about the event because I copied and pasted from her e-mail but I should have checked it myself. Especially because my real first name is commonly misspelled and it's my pet peeve!
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Hi, Love your page! please come check out mine and give me feedback! Its not as informative or intelligent as yours but im trying to get there one day!
Thanks,
Sunny
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Thanks for the praise. Always makes me feel good.
I checked out your blog (http://www.sunnylandsydney.blogspot.com/ for those who want to see for themselves) and gained 10 lbs. just from looking at the pictures!
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