Alberta Co-op Grocery

Primal Perspective

Posted June 19th, 2012

by Jim, Working Owner

There are so many choices today.  So when you’re first starting out with a new diet or lifestyle, you find yourself looking at something wondering, “. . . can I eat that?”  This where the Primal or Paleo system works great.  Because we can imagine our ancient ancestors pretty well, and we know a good deal about how they lived, we can imaging what they had access to and what they did not.

The guru of the primal movement, Mark Sissan, has conceived a character he calls Grok to represent this idealized lifestyle.  So when I’m standing there with something in my hand I say “Did Grock have access to this?” and “How much?”  You can imagine he might not think something in a box or a package is even food.  And everything that is grown in an industrial mono-culture setting is out.  Actually, in reality, the vast majority of the food on the market today obviously wouldn’t be available to hunter gatherers.  But our idealized Grok magically has access to everything any conceivable primordial person can get.  So it’s not just salmon and blackberries, which I imagine is all the Groks around here ate.

So yeah, there it is – the produce section.  Could you imagine a real hunter-gather presented with this bounty?  They would be totally psyched!  I think one of the first foods they would marvel at would be the modern banana.  Perhaps a few of their cousins who lived near the equator had something like it, but the Cavendish banana is a special treat to be celebrated.  I think this a fun and revealing way to consider your food.  How happy Grok would be that we’ve cultivated out the seeds, and selected the sweetest variety for him.

I gathered up a bunch last week and just had the last one for my breakfast.  It was perfect, just browning and speckled and oh-so-sweet. But my wife ate most of them and told me yesterday, as she peeled another, “I have to admit the produce from the Co-op has been pretty tasty”.  See, she absolutely hates bland fruits.  She was complaining about conventional supermarket produce way before everybody jumped on the ‘organic’ bandwagon.  But even organic produce can end up bland and tasteless. I’m not sure why.  Perhaps they’re just slapping an ‘organic’ label on and charging a buck more for not using any fertilizers.  But I can’t tell you how many times we’ve been disappointed in fruits even from the ‘natural’ stores.

So kudos to the Alberta Co-op produce department.  Amazing the primal self within me, and I’ll bet even for him life is good when your wife likes the fruit!

Working Owner Jim Prescott is a Portland based musician and writer.  Email him at email hidden; JavaScript is required.

Tags: fruit, gluten-free, organic, paleo
Posted in Food and Drink, General Information, Spotlight, Wellness

Buyers of Frozen Meat: Rejoice!

Posted June 19th, 2012

by Eli, Our Own Frozen Meat Buyer

I’ve been tempted many-a-time to defrost some frozen meat in hot water, despite knowing that it falls outside of food safety precautions ingrained in me from a young age. But new research sponsored by the Department of Agriculture is saying that it’s looking like the coast is clear for thawing small cuts of meat this way.

In the study, researchers test-thawed more than 200 one-inch-thick beef strip loin steaks in three different groups: some in a refrigerator at 37 to 40 degrees Fahrenheit, some in a constantly circulating water bath at 68 degrees, and some in a water bath at 102 degrees. The air-thawed meat in the refrigerator took 18 to 20 hours, while the room-temperature water bath thawed the steaks in about 20 minutes, and the hot-hottest bath took 11 minutes. These water-bath times are so short that any bacterial growth would remain within safe limits. A group at Utah State did similar research on chicken breast, and though the government agencies who like to sanction our food buying and preparing methods aren’t officially recommending them, it’s looking like those of us who want to eat that pork chop tonight are in luck.

Tips for doing this in your home are: keep the packaging limited (one sealed layer of plastic) to keep it from being more insulated, and stir the pot every few minutes to prevent “cold spots”.

Here’s a link to the New York Times article.  And for the nerdy among you, a link to the studies, here and here.

Tags: bbq, environment, frozen, meat
Posted in Announcements, Food and Drink, General Information, Home and Garden, Wellness