Over on the Westside of the San Joaquin Valley near the town of Patterson, I used to pass areas where they were sun-drying apricots under screens. Sure, the screens kept the birds from scarfing on them but I've always wondered about bird shit leaking through the screens as well as flies.
They call it "extra protein" now.....
ReplyDeleteWhat don't kill you makes you stronger.
ReplyDeleteAt least with the coffee, it’s heated to 400 degrees F. in the roaster before it’s ground.
ReplyDeleteBetter than waiting for the cat to shit you a pound!
ReplyDelete(see Civet coffee)
Re: questionable coffee bean processing, I had some stuff from Indonesia once that they claimed had been harvested from the dung of the wild Asian palm civet (that they call a kopi luwak). My daughter, who was about 8 at the time, asked what was so special about my new coffee. I told her that the beans were very carefully harvested by little animals that looked something like a racoon, the animals picked and ate only the most perfect coffee cherries, bean and all. "So, how do the people get them?" she asked. "They wait." She was predictably disgusted as I described the prospect of hundreds of smelly little kids, rooting through the underbrush around the coffee plantation with baskets searching for coffee bean laden civet poop.
ReplyDeleteMy memory may be flawed, since its over 50 years, but the first place I lived in Vacaville was near an apricot orchard. I dont remember screens, the apricots dried on long wooden tables and I wondered why they were unprotected.
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ReplyDeleteTell me your favorite food, and I can tell you something disgusting about it.
The longer the supply chain is, the nasty-er it gets. I try not to think about it too much. Honestly, the bird poo and whatever is on the feet of flies is probably the least harmful things that would get into food. While not good for you, humans have been eating small amounts of "bird poo and whatever is on the feet of flies" for thousands of years, and we have mechanisms in our bodies to try to mitigate the damage. It's the pounds of whatever (non-naturally occurring) shit Dow and Monsanto have cooked up to increase yields that I'm more worried about.
-Just a Chemist
In Honduras up in the mountains they dry it on the road - it is the only hard surface around. Vehicles drive over it, chickens, dogs, and people walk across it. The buyers? According to one of the villagers, they sell to a company that resells it as "sustainably grown." Remember this, Whole Food shoppers.
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