Organic Spanish rice, Australian beef, blue-fin tuna boycott

Moist, filling and delicious, and a great bread substitute: Organic brown rice with organic chicken stock, organic diced tomatoes, peeled garlic cloves and saffron.

Editor's note: Today, I discuss an easy recipe for organic Spanish rice, share an e-mail from a woman whose family raises beef in Australia, and urge you to boycott the annual blue-fin-tuna cutting demonstration at a Japanese supermarket.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Here is another easy electric rice-cooker recipe that requires you to do little more than measure, pour the ingredients into the appliance and plug it in.

I used three cups of organic brown rice, twice that in liquid (organic chicken stock or water), a can of organic diced tomatoes with their juices, a lot of peeled garlic cloves, a few ounces of extra-virgin olive oil, sea salt and a few threads of Spanish saffron.

Most of the ingredients came from Costco Wholesale.

Doubling the amount of liquid in relation to the rice results in a moist dish with creamy garlic cloves.

A few days later, after enjoying the rice for breakfast and dinner instead of bread, I prepared pretty much the same dish using organic quinoa and organic lentils, in addition to the liquid, diced tomatoes and garlic cloves.

Organic quinoa with organic diced tomatoes, organic lentils and garlic cloves, all from Costco. I served it for breakfast with a wedge of egg-white frittata made with chopped garlic, black olives and sun-dried tomatoes, and topped with Kirkland Signature Basil Pesto.

Grass-fed Nature's Reserve Australian beef pan fried with cabbage, sweet peppers, onions and garlic.

Australian beef in the U.S.

In recent years, I've noticed a subtle shift in the promotion of Australian beef that no longer mentions whether the cattle were raised without animal antibiotics, which some experts say are harmful to humans.

ShopRite Supermarkets, where I buy Nature's Reserve whole beef tenderloins for filet mignon, also has added another line of Australian beef, Clayton's Organic Beef.

Organic beef can't be raised with antibiotics, growth hormones or feed with GMOs.

Here is a note from Diane Carter, who is in the cattle business in Australia:

"Here are a few thoughts and facts about Australian beef.  

"My family have been in the cattle business in Australia for 100+ years. A lot has changed.  I won’t go into all the history but, over the last 5-10 years there has been a resurgence of grass-fed and finished beef.

"While the domestic market accounts for the largest share of Australia’s beef production, overseas markets are extremely important, often taking beef cuts that are not as popular with Australian consumers.  

"The USA is currently the biggest overseas market, having just overtaken Japan.  

"The USA takes large quantities of 'manufacturing' beef (read hamburgers), whereas Japan and South Korea, the next biggest, import a lot of prime cuts as well as steak for stir fry and hot pots.

"China is now emerging as a rapidly growing market for our beef.

"The question of antibiotics is a bit complicated.  

"Nature’s Reserve is not a single source supplier. They buy their meat from a large number of producers.  It is all grass fed and finished but they cannot always get enough supply to meet their demands by insisting on antibiotic-free meat.  

"Their suppliers generally will not be using antibiotics as growth promotants, but will treat individual animals when necessary.  

"You would have to go organic to be sure of being completely antibiotic free. Clayton’s, being organic, can make this claim.  

"As for kosher and halal, their meats would be like all others, i.e., if they are lot fed they will almost certainly have had antibiotics, grass fed may or may not, organic will not.

"I hope this sheds some light on the subject for you and your readers."

Time to boycott Mitsua tuna cutting

The giant blue-fin tuna is one of the most magnificent creatures in the sea, but it has been over-exploited for sushi and shashimi.

A few years ago, Mitsuwa Marketplace, the big Japanese supermarket in Edgewater was selling the prized belly meat for $60 a pound.

This fast-swimming fish is even being farmed to meet the demand from Japan and other countries.

Every year, Mitsuwa stages a two-day tuna cutting demonstration, where a small army of workers reduce previously frozen blue-fin tunas weighing hundreds of pounds into thousands of packages of raw fish.

The heads of the fish are usually put on display.

I have been boycotting the demonstration since 2010, and urge you to do the same this weekend.

Blue-fin tuna may be delicious, but the red flesh also contains an unusually large amount of harmful mercury.

Consumption by children and women of child-bearing age isn't recommended. 

Australian beef takes center stage

Tenderloin in the beef cut chart.

Image via Wikipedia

There is good news for meat eaters in the ShopRite sales flier: Free-range, grass-fed filet mignon from Australia for only $4.99 a pound with the PriceClub Card. The sale starts Sunday.


You'll have to buy the whole beef tenderloin sold under the Nature's Reserve label, probably a minimum of four pounds. And when you get it home, you'll need to trim it well. The last time I bought this beef, I sliced all of it thin and put it in freezer bags with marinade for Korean barbecue at home. But you can also cut it into small steaks.


The same cut of conventionally raised American beef also is on sale at ShopRite for $6.99 a pound with the card.


ShopRite can sell foreign beef for $4.99 a pound, compared with $10 or more a pound for American, grass-fed beef, because costs are so much lower in Australia. The same goes for naturally raised Australian lamb. Why Australian beef isn't served more in American steak houses is a big question.


Free-range, grass-fed beef has less fat than beef from cattle confined to pens and fed only grain; it cooks faster and probably shouldn't be prepared past medium.

Sobering look at how beef is raised

Image via Wikipedia

Here is a long essay -- with a frightening last paragraph -- about how beef is raised in the United States. At the outset, the writer seems to be recommending grass-fed beef over corn- or grain-fed cattle, but he's really down on the environmental and health impact of eating beef, not to mention the brutality shown to the animals.

http://foodrevolution.org/grassfedbeef.htm

More from Consumer Reports On Health

Consumer Reports On Health reported in December 2007 that organic tomatoes may be better for you, because they contain more of two flavonoids than conventional tomatoes, including higher levels of other healthful antioxidants.

The March 2008 issue cited reports of bagged vegetables being recalled due to contamination with E. coli, urging readers to thoroughly wash even "prewashed" or "triple-washed" bagged fruits or vegetables.

I have been buying Earthbound Farms organic spring mix at Coscto for a couple of years now and never wash it. It used to say it was triple-washed; now it just says it is prewashed. I have been grabbing a handful and stuffing it into pita bread for a sandwich or placing it into a bowl for my dinner salad and have suffered no adverse effects.

Finally, if you wonder why some people insist on grass-fed beef, the November 2007 issue said, in answer to a reader's letter, that beef from grass-fed animals contains about half the saturated fat of corn-fed beef, and higher levels of two potentially beneficial fats: omega-3 fatty acids, also found in fish, and conjugated linoleic acid, which some studies have suggested helps protect against obesity, clogged arteries and possibly diabetes.

In addition, Consumer Reports On Health said, grass-fed beef is usually raised without antibiotics, hormones or rendered animal byproducts, which may harbor mad-cow disease. So be a pain in the grass the next time you go to a steakhouse and insist on a grass-fed steak. The January 2008 issue informed readers that new rules from the U.S. Department of agriculture require that "grass-fed" cows get 100 percent of their daily calories from grass, compared with 80 percent under the old rules.

Whole Foods usually has a good selection of grass-fed beef, including some raised in New Jersey.

See two previous posts, "If you eat a lot of rice, read this" and "Clashing food coverage at Consumer Reports."