Twistie, looking pregnant.

Anneli Faiers, local chef/blogger at Délicieux.com, tried some of our veal. Thanks Anneli, those recipes and photos look wonderful. Anything with Calvados in it must be good.

UK farm companies moving in to Romania?

“In the Telegraph story James Townshend compares the value of Romanian farmland (£2,365 a hectare) with that of East Anglia (£26,277 a hectare). What he didn’t point out was that many East Anglian soils are now largely dysfunctional. Decades of chemical farming have robbed them of their fertility. Their carbon stores have largely gone. They can no longer retain nutrients or water. They cannot sustain healthy crops without ever increasing inputs of chemicals, energy and irrigation.

In contrast Romanian soils – at one tenth the value – grow nutrient rich foods without the need for chemicals. They store huge amounts of carbon and water, sustain incredible wildlife populations, and provide a living for millions of farming families.”

At those prices I can see why Brits would be buying farms there. Or here in SW France (5-6k a hectare).

Some numbers on the pasture needed to convert grass into meat.

We focus more on flavor than health on this site, but it is still important to us. I couldn’t help but link to this study from the British Medical Journal where they finally analyzed an old Sydney trial where they took out animal fats from the diet of folks and made people less healthy. There’s some discussion of it on ScienceDaily. What is particularly interesting to me in this study is that it took place back in the late 60s/early 70s when people ate better. Given the diet a lot of folk eat today I imagine just about any change would make it better, but back then people ate different food – less boxed food, less fast food, different wheat varieties, less rice/pasta. Maybe beef was different back then too, more grass-fed?

Looks like we do have the right to make our own steers after all (in French). Our vet didn’t think we could castrate our own calves. Since nearly all farms in the Gers sell off their male calves intact to feedlots there aren’t a lot of steers about for him to learn otherwise.

Update: This needs music – Night Boat to Cairo!