Meat

How sad that Ellen Cutler can't look past the taste of a meal when examining her beliefs about food ("Food for thought," Commentary, Aug. 14). She congratulates herself on buying expensive meat, full of the "extra flavor" associated with extra cost, yet she readily admits she has no interest in the creatures that brings her such delicacies. Instead, she would rather bury her head in the sand - or a plate of moussaka - and spout clichés about how eating an expensive lamb meal is an "expression of natural order" upon which her "survival" depends.

A review of 12,000 papers on climate change in the May 15 issue of "Environmental Research Letters," found that 97 percent of scientists attribute climate change to human activities. Although we're unlikely to reverse climate change, we can mitigate its effects by reducing our driving, energy use, and meat consumption. Yes, meat consumption. A 2006 U.N. report estimated that meat consumption accounts for 18 percent of man-made greenhouse gases. A 2009 article in the respected World Watch magazine suggested that it may be closer to 50 percent.

The number of Americans considered obese is expected to rise from the current 34 percent to 42 percent by the year 2030, according to a study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine and discussed at Monday's "Weight of the Nation" conference in Washington. Diabetes, kidney failure, heart disease, and other obesity-related ailments account for countless premature deaths and as much as 18 percent of the $2.6 trillion national cost of medical care. The leading causes of obesity are consumption of fat-laden meat and dairy products and lack of exercise.

Each week The Sun's John McIntyre presents a relatively obscure but evocative word with which you may not be familiar, another brick to add to the wall of your working vocabulary. This week's word: RADDLED There is a connection between sheep and looking overtired. Be patient. The word comes from ruddle , a red pigment used for marking sheep. Raddled originally meant "colored red," then came to be associated with rouge, and then with women wearing rouge to conceal, with varying success, the ravages of time.

Outdoors Girl grew up believing that sweet potatoes were glorified pig food and bear meat was an unchewable lump of greasy protein. Folks with a contrary point of view always said the dislike was directly tied to not having those foods prepared the right way. After much experimentation, she still thinks sweet potatoes are pig food, but the outdoors writer at the Cumberland Times-News turned her around on bear. Mike Sawyers counsels: For bear stew, all I do is use a packet of McCormick Beef Stew Mix, perfect for a Maryland bear since McCormick is a Maryland company.

Eat Maryland crab meat and win a prize. Throughout September, diners who eat at restaurants participating in Maryland's True Blue program can win a pair of tickets to the Mermaid's Kiss Oyster Fest, an after-hours celebration of Maryland seafood on Oct. 3 at the National Aquarium in Baltimore . Launched this spring by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, the True Blue program allows restaurants serving DNR-verified Maryland blue...

Mike Tidwell ("Local action, global lesson," April 22) makes some great points about how incentives are key to changing behaviors. I absolutely agree. But his question about which policy change is best for stimulating rapid climate improvements is off-target. As individuals, 95 percent of us have the power to drastically reduce our carbon footprints, right here and now, without waiting for new legislation, policy changes, improved enforcement or construction of renewable energy projects.

Wegmans Food Markets Inc. said today they will also stop selling meat with an additive known as pink slime. Thebyproduct comes from fatty scraps leftover after steaks and roasts are cut from a cow. The meat bits are heated to soften them and then spun to remove the fat and separate the meat. Ammonia is used to kill bacteria. The filler is sometimes mixed into fattier meat to create a leaner product. The USDA said pink slime passes food safety standards but many retailers have been pulling it from shelves because of concern from shoppers.

I never make New Year's resolutions. Not my thing. But this year I made one: In 2010, I am resolved to eat less meat. This will not be easy. I'm an unapologetic carnivore. Whether one believes in evolution or God (or both; they are not mutually exclusive possibilities) the incisors in my mouth would seem to be there for the sole purpose of chewing meat. I enjoy meat of almost every variety -- chicken, pork, beef -- and in all forms, whether it comes off the grill, on a potato roll with lettuce and a slice of red onion, or rolled up in a tortilla.

Hey lady, want a cow? Sure, who wouldn't want a cow, or a pig for that matter, but, gee, it's not like I have a meat freezer. The idea of one's own personal livestock, grown by a responsible farmer, is appealing. But there are typically two deal-killers -- the expense and the required freezer space, even a side of beef, half the cow, yields somewhere in the neighborhood of 250 pounds. Meat clubs, or meat shares, are a way of letting consumers cut their commitment to a whole-animal purchase.

Editor: The new link between meat consumption and heart disease, discovered by Dr. Stanley Hazen of the Cleveland Clinic, is just the latest evidence linking meat consumption to killer diseases that cripple, then kill, 1.3 million Americans annually. Hazen's study showed that carnitine, an amino acid contained in all meat products, is a major factor in heart failure. Similarly, an Oxford University study of nearly 45,000 adults in last January's American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that vegetarians were 32 percent less likely to be suffer from heart disease than people who ate meat and fish.

Holly Renew from Baltimore was looking for a recipe for a mushroom loaf that was served at the now-closed restaurant in Canton called the Wild Mushroom. She said it was a featured item on the menu and similar to a meatloaf in consistency but contained no meat. I was not able to track down the exact recipe she sought, but I did some research and found a recipe for a very tasty vegetable "meatloaf" that was published in the March 2012 issue of Cooking Light magazine. This loaf is full of mushrooms and other vegetables.

The new link between meat consumption and heart disease, discovered by Dr. Stanley Hazen of the Cleveland Clinic, is just the latest evidence linking meat consumption to killer diseases that cripple, then kill, 1.3 million Americans annually. Dr. Hazen's study showed that carnitine, an amino acid contained in all meat products, is a major factor in heart failure. Similarly, an Oxford University study of nearly 45,000 adults in last January's American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that vegetarians were 32 percent less likely to be suffer from heart disease than people who ate meat and fish.

Last week, food safety officials in United Kingdom, France and Sweden found traces of horse meat in ground beef sold across Europe. Massive recalls and lawsuits are ensuing. Can it happen here? Horse slaughter for human consumption was banned in the U.S. between 2007 and 2011. But now a New Mexico slaughterhouse is getting approved by U.S. authorities to slaughter horses for human consumption, and a Philadelphia restaurant has already announced plans to serve horse meat. I marvel at our hypocrisy of rejecting the notion of horse or dog meat on our dinner plates, while condemning cows, pigs and chickens to the same fate.

Fifty-eight years after it opened in Highland, Boarman's Old-Fashioned Meat Market is still, in many respects, living up to its name. Boarman family members still mix spices for the pork sausage made in house, the staff butcher still stuffs the sausage skin, still cuts meat to order and, more recently, started smoking bacon with apple wood he gets from a neighbor. Boarman's is possibly Howard County's last all-purpose market that's not part of a chain, offering everything from household cleaners to beer and wine, canned goods, produce, house-made crab cakes and custom cuts of meat.

If Congress fails to deal with the looming threat of sequestration, March 1 will be devastating for millions of Americans. That will be the day that automatic, across-the-board spending cuts begin to take effect - cutting $1.2 trillion from defense and nondefense programs over the next 10 years. Sequestration was scheduled to take effect Jan. 1, but the American Taxpayer Relief Act delayed it until March 1. Time is running out, and we must find a way to work together to reduce our deficit and avoid sequestration.

If you shopped at BJ's earlier this summer, here's a reason to check your freezer. The USDA has announced a recall of 8,500 pounds of ground beef that was repackaged for sale at retail locations including 26 BJ's Wholesale Clubs, such as the location in the White Marsh Retail Center, due to possible E. Coli contamination. The original packages, each containing three 14-pound chubs, had a use or freeze by date of July 1, 2010. There have been three reports of illnesses --- two people in Maine and one in New York --- due to this meat, prepared by Cargill Meat Solutions Corp.

Need to get something off your chest? Tell us and you could see your rant in a future issue of b. Send your rants to Twitter ( @bthesite ), text "RANT" to 70701 or call the hotline at 410.332.6660. I wanna say thank you to the person who found my license and mailed it back to me. Good to know somebody here has common sense. Have you noticed Subway commercials always make it look so good? And advertisers on the radio talk about “meat piled up,” but when you get there, they don't want to give you any meat.

The new food truck Philly Mignon , a cheese steak specialist, made its downtown Baltimore debut on Monday. So did Darua. Darua, owned and operated by Marcellos Salles, sells Brazilian street food. On the menu are things like feijoda , a stew of black beans and meat; espetinho , skewered meats; and pastels , which are like flattened-out stuffed won-tons. The truck has a website and a Facebook page . You can also follow it on Twitter @daruafoodtruck.

Halloween night, most caldrons will be filled with candy. But the ones on the stove might be filled with bones (cue creepy music). The holiday aside, in this era of nose-to-tail dining, adding "bones" to the shopping list doesn't seem unusual — nor should it. Dogs know what humans should: Bones are nutritious and delicious. Cooking with bones is as old as cooking itself. In the "appetizers and snacks" section of "Le Guide Culinaire," published in 1903, the famed French chef Auguste Escoffier included a simple recipe for grilled sirloin bones: "Sprinkle them with cayenne," he advised.