Since scientists need sponsorship, and because people seem to only respond to dire predictions, scientists have largely adopted the "politics of doomsday" to appeal for $$.
Get off my a$$ about lard!
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Since scientists need sponsorship, and because people seem to only respond to dire predictions, scientists have largely adopted the "politics of doomsday" to appeal for $$.
I was going to make the same point. The same people who demonize "big oil" fail to recognize the only way these climate "scientists" get grant funding to pay their salaries and Al Gore makes billions off of his clean energy investments is by scaring people and legislating that we live "green" lives. I'm all for living responsibily, I just don't trust politicians and scientists with co flicks of interest.
Remember the gulf oil spill? Probably not. I drove to the Alabama beaches where I spent many vacations over my life right after it happened. I stood there and wept because "scientists" said that the gulf coast ecosystem was ruined for the rest of my life. Been to the beach lately? Sugar-white sand and the raw oysters are great.
I've joined PETA (People Eating Tasty Animals) Praise the Lard!
OMG! (omg? What am I, 13?) We should do a soap challenge with a rif on lard soap. Extra style points for related shapes colors and fragrances. We could call it "Praise the Lard!" For sellers it would be a fun soap to sell and a way to educate customers about the benefits of rendered fats in soap.
This would be a perfect mold
Could scent a lard soap with a dandelion scent and call it "Swine & Dandy"
*Cleans coffee off the laptop AGAIN!*
Y'all are just hilarious!
Y'all are just hilarious!
Earthen_Step
Well-Known Member
I agree with you to a point. The key words of "organic" and "sustainable" mean less and less as time goes on. They still mean much more than "all natural" which means absolutely nothing. I buy the majority of my food from local farms and I know their practices. I have been to the farms and see what they do. I have gone out of my way to meet the farmers and see their practices. I wish I had that option for oils, but my climate is pretty terrible for any of the oils I use in soap.
If I become wealthy enough I will travel around and find sources for my oils that I trust and know are sustainable. I would love to have permaculture grown oils at some point -- if possible. I will make due with what options I have at the prices I can afford. I have found oil farms that seem to be top notch, but the prices are also out of my reach. I should dig deeper into the sources of the oils I do purchase, it would be nice to know more details.
Palm oil farms come from deforestation. I buy RSPO palm oils, which is a great step in the right direction imo. The mass production of lard from pig farms is not appealing to me. I think the way the animals are treated can be horrendous and is uncalled for. It creates an atmosphere of disease and is demoralizing to humanity. There are many pig farms around my area that are top notch. Well treated animals that live happy great lives until the slaughter. These are the farms I would go to if I were to switch to using lard.
Manure is a problem for these massive farms. Some have these huge pools of filth that are unusable as fertilizer because it's diseased and loaded with harmful chemicals. On smaller operations the manure is a commodity that is very useful as a compost to feed their plants. A complete cycle of life that can sustain itself forever. No outside sources of fertilizer, pesticides, hormones, feed, and so on.
I think the solution is a decentralized monopoly of our food industry. Moving the supply back to the smaller farms. Small farms with sound practices that produce a variety of crops. Prices would go up, but quality would as well. The way to change this is by switching with your consumption. Money talks louder than words. The food I buy from the local farms here have vastly superior products. It looks, smells and tastes remarkably better than what I can buy at the chain store up the road.
I also find it a disgrace that in the USA taxes are used to lower the cost of bad practices. Around $20 billion per year is paid in taxes to agriculture. Most of that money goes to very few people. It's a terrible system imo, and I'd like it to change.
I can tell a VAST difference between the oils I purchased pre-organic to now. I started off with non-certified organic oils for everything. I have switched most of them over and the difference is remarkable. They smell amazing, taste fantastic and look different. The soap has increased in quality as well. It feels better, smells better and is more conditioning. I don't think I'm crazy in all this, my users have agreed.
I realize this is not an option for all of you. And some of you could care less. Different viewpoints and budgets. I just want to explain myself further. The conversation has expanded since my last post on this thread.
I apologize to all of you if I'm offending. I don't mean to come off preachy. I do not think I'm superior to any of you! I am just a human with strong opinions and love to share what I think is good. I don't think you are wrong in thinking differently than me. If I can change a persons mind, I'd love to. but I realize that probably will not happen. I'm sure there are others on here who think similar to me, I hope to be a voice for like minded. There are many voices in opposition, it's good to have various viewpoints to ponder about.
A few links below for those interested in examples of what I'm talking about.
Large pig farms:
http://www.rodalenews.com/pasture-raised-pork
http://www.belsandia.com/factory-farming.html
http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/01/27/the-disgusting-methods-factory-farms-use-to-dispos.aspx
Information on RSPO cert here: http://www.rspo.org/en/frequently_asked_questions
Permaculture:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permaculture
http://www.organicgardening.com/learn-and-grow/introduction-permaculture
http://www.permaculture.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/water-in-permaculture.pdf
http://permaculturenews.org/
http://midwestpermaculture.com/tag/plant-guilds/
A video for on EU farming. There are many more videos and articles showing animal raising practices in the USA and all around the world.
http://youtu.be/T2lvTwrBfBE
Good intro movie to small farm thinking
[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adooHT4ubnY[/ame]
This would be a perfect mold
Is there "Love" button to click somewhere on here?
I use lard from my neighbor's hogs. I used to buy heritage hog leaf lard from a local farm, but my neighbor gives it to me for free - and he gets free soap for his trouble! I'm hoping to get some deer tallow from him this fall, I have my feelers out to all the hunters I know. I love tallow and lard in my soap!
As for the climate debate, seriously, in the 70s (I'm old enough to remember) we were all going to freeze to death in the dark. Now we're going to boil to death. Sorry. They're using their agenda driven science to control us. Not buying it. Stop pollution because it's bad for all of us? Yes. Stop it because it's going to change the climate? Tell me again why the polar ice caps on Mars were melting as ours were and I might pay attention to you.
As for the climate debate, seriously, in the 70s (I'm old enough to remember) we were all going to freeze to death in the dark. Now we're going to boil to death. Sorry. They're using their agenda driven science to control us. Not buying it. Stop pollution because it's bad for all of us? Yes. Stop it because it's going to change the climate? Tell me again why the polar ice caps on Mars were melting as ours were and I might pay attention to you.
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All good points, although I can't attest to commercial pig farming I have toured the huge poultry processing plant owned by Tyson foods here in my area. It's a marvel of cleanliness and efficiency. Having wrung the neck of many a chicken for Sunday dinner on my grandparent's farm as a boy, I can tell you I feel WAY better after touring about the cleanliness and safety of our US poultry supply. I love the idea of small farms, but I am not prepared to say that large-scale farming is bad or produces an inferior quality product. Smaller is not always better. Just like there is not definitive science proving that there is a single benefit to "organic" food.
Remember when environmentalists pushed for the ban on DDT because "science" demonstrated it was harmful? That was followed by 50 million new malaria deaths in Africa, South America, India and similar countries.
Sorry this is off the topic of lard and soap. I will say that is one great thing about our country. Everybody has (or used to have) choices. C'est la vie!
See! This is why I quit soaping last time. The creative side of me tends to get a little obsessive about it. I think I told you guys I was considering making soaps for my church to use in various ways. Well, I have agreed to help lead a new "Life Group"....Sunday School for you "old timers." Anyway, we've been working on ways to promote this new class to visitors or even folks who may have stopped attending other life groups for one reason or another. (Now keep in mind, I live in a part of the country where "church" = about 2,000 people on Sunday and a life group can be 50 people or more, so this is no small undertaking) Anyway, I came up with the idea to make a custom soap specifically for folks who join or visit our life group--sort of a promotional idea. I have already made a soap stamp using the church logo a couple of years ago. So now, of course I know what the first soap will be made of and what it will be named - "Praise the Lard!"
But DDT was and is harmful to a variety of species on the planet, and in the end was probably harmful to us. I'm fairly certain my father died of lung cancer because as a kid his family used DDT on the farm to control the flies and other insects (he wasn't a smoker).
And your point about malaria deaths is also correct. So the science wasn't bad and the scientists weren't wrong.
Instead we're talking about a different problem. It's a trade study ... is the use of certain chemicals that are known to be "bad" be a net positive or net negative, all things considered?
girlishcharm2004
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I started making my tallow soaps from rendering beef fat collected from Whole Foods which was organic, grass-fed, and followed the 5 principles of humane treatment of animals. I do not have a problem with animal fats. In fact, they gave me the fat for free so it was even economical for me to get started soaping. I do agree that there is a fine line between stewardship and abuse when it comes to farming -- large or small. However, animals were created for our use.
I'm right there with ya..I dont know how many times I have almost lost whatever liquid I have been drinking at the time of reading some of these posts...I need to get some saran wrap I think and cover my lappy when I come here.
OOOH! Good idea!
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That's a good idea. lol
I had the misfortune of spewing a bit of hot chai on my keyboard a couple of years ago, although I must say that I think I was more mad at having lost out on some of my chai than having had spilled it on my keyboard.
Happily, my keyboard survived and I'm still typing away on it, but still, to this day, my backspace button will stick when we get the rare humid day around here.
IrishLass
sassanellat
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It's actually rare for scientists to be on media at all, so mostly it's the press getting is wrong. When scientists get is wrong, that's published in the same journals - you know, in print. There really isn't much science each year that they that's wrong due to peer-review (and that's assessed yearly and published, too - so it's all quite transparent). Mostly, the 'science' you're mentioning is propaganda designed to look like science, but it's really just PR for a corporation or special interest (much like FOX News). Despite how people get misdirected for personal interest, the same scientific method has pretty much created everything in the modern world, from your clothes on down. We know vastly more about evolution and human-produced climate change than we know about gravity these days, and no one really has any doubt about that.
Jstar, are you an Aussie at heart?
(sorry for the derailment)
Lappy is a widely used nickname for laptops these days. Lots of folks liked the Aussie word, including me.
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