Cujo Liva

Judith Browning wrote:For those of you already raising chickens, you have something precious

It's been interesting watching the discussions about egg prices online- mostly on the Nextdoor site (oriented towards local news/for sale/etc).  Egg prices have gone way up and down over the last few years, but mine just keep producing and fortunately, the feed prices have been fairly steady.  

I sympathize with those struggling with high egg prices.  Eggs are one of the cheapest sources of quality protein and nutrition available.  It would help if the government would not use top-down directives to kill 100 million chickens in the US because a small number have bird flu and allow other solutions to be tried.

Samantha Lewis wrote:I have been buying eggs this winter.  About $10 per dozen here for organic free range eggs.   I feel ok about it though.  I am glad that folks who are making this a business are getting paid.

My hens and ducks stopped laying this winter.  I could have supplemented them with fats and more protien but I just let them take a rest.   Now spring is coming closer and they have started laying.  I realize how much I missed having my own eggs!

I plan to bring on new hens this spring so I can keep my family in eggs year round going forward.  

FYI- In my experience, it is almost always first year hens that lay in winter and not all of them.  Older hens almost always will molt and rest over the winter.  

Josh Hoffman wrote:We did this for some time but we do not have an ice maker so we would make it in trays. I did not like having to use the ice bath.

I discovered that you can let the eggs cool enough to carton up after natural release, place in fridge and peel after a few days. I usually wait 3-5 days. They peel very easily and I do not need to worry about the ice.

Not a good solution if you are in a hurry. Ice bath is a must in those circumstances.

I don't use ice water.  I just use cold tap water.  Works well.

Josh Hoffman wrote:I have noticed that as well. I "boil" them in the instant pot.

I refrigerate them for a week, put a dozen in the pot, 1 cup water and pressure cook for 5 mins. I let natural release for 5 mins and then refrigerate for a 3-5 days before I peel. I think if you are in a hurry, you can put them in an ice bath but I hate being in a hurry. We typically boil and pickle our excess eggs.

You are very close to the "perfect hard boiled eggs" recipe (5-5-5 method) that I use.
  1- Use older eggs as noted above.  Very fresh eggs may not peel well.
  2- Use instant pot to pressure cook on the "egg" setting for five minutes.
  3- Allow it to natural release for five minutes.
  4- Move the eggs to a container of cold water for five minutes.
The eggs will peel well and won't have the dark ring around the yolk that you can easily run into.

Coydon Wallham wrote:It was simply a study on Asian (I think it was specific to China but don't recall for sure, or perhaps Korea or Japan?) eating habits among the aged. The claim was that it was a cultural norm for elders to only eat one meal per day, and that people in this culture were among the most long lived on the planet. The study showed a strong correlation between longevity and those that held to this norm. I chalked it up to being the wisdom one of the most ancient, ongoing cultures, and it seems to fit with the more benevolent science-based speculation I've encountered on the subject.

Intermittent and longer-term fasting is ancient knowledge and part of every major religion- Old and New Testaments, Ramadan for Muslims, etc.  Prehistoric peoples had naturally-forced fasting when times were difficult.  Our bodies are well designed to deal with it, but we've become addicted (by the literal definition) as a society to highly-palatable foods and frequent meals/snacks.  Just ask the average person to give up unnecessary high-carb foods (breads, sweets, salty snacks, soft drinks, etc) and see if their reactions aren't identical to an addicts even down to the withdrawal symptoms and frequent failures and going back to the addictive behavior.

Many of us simply aren't well educated on the topic.  Not surprising really.  It is a pretty niche topic and the food and medical industries have had strong financial incentives to convince us to eat larger quantities and more often.  Did you know that the tobacco companies that employed scientists to make their products more addictive years ago ended up buying major food brands and used the same techniques to create many of the "food products" that are making us fat and unhealthy today?  They've been working on this for decades, so our society has largely forgotten about fasting and making our own meals from highly nutritious/natural ingredients and we are paying a heavy price in our health.
https://lsa.umich.edu/psych/news-events/all-news/faculty-news/many-of-today-s-unhealthy-foods-were-brought-to-you-by-big-tobac.html

Kim Wills wrote:Well... I agree and I disagree. Sure we store excess calories that our bodies can use if needed. But just because we can survive a mini-famine doesn't mean we'll be at our best or not have negative consequences if that state goes on for too long. And I have nothing against fasting, for most people. I know there are some benefits.
But there is also such a thing as "overweight but undernourished". People can be overweight or obese but be vitamin or mineral deficient; they may not look like they're wasting away, but in a small way, more people are than we'd think. Someone who lives on processed foods, fast foods, microwave meals, etc, can quickly acquire excess fat but not have enough nutrients. In any case (calorie deficit or nutrient deficit) our bodies will take what it needs from our own bodies (including protein, calcium, whatever). Many people think that if they go without food their body will start burning all its fat, and that's it. Stop eating and lose weight. But that comes with invisible costs, including eventual "starvation mode" where they'll start retaining fat (if it's a very long time of undereating).

Nutritional imbalances (vitamins, minerals, essential fatty acids, essential amino acids, etc) are definitely a problem for many people, but that is pretty much unconnected to the calorie topic that I quoted.  Calories are a pure energy measurement and don't correlate closely with nutrition.  You can consume many calories without gaining much nutrition and can eat very nutrient-dense foods that minimize calories.

The body is actually rather good at handling fasts and works to preserve important nutrients and bodily health/function.  It even has a mechanism for recycling old, useless, non-functional and even cancerous cells (autophagy) when it is scrounging for nutrients and energy during fasts.  This actually can provide important health benefits.  One downside of our "world of plenty" and western eating habits is that our bodies never have these periods of fasting that allow us to burn the fat that we commonly accumulate and prevent us from rejuvenating the organs of our body via autophagy.  

Pretty much all of our chronic, modern health problems (obesity, type-2 diabetes, type-3 diabetes/Alzheimers, PCOS, heart attacks, increased cancer rates, etc, etc.) can be directly traced back to our current diets.

Again, the "starvation mode" that you are talking about is definitely the exception, certainly in modern societies.  That describes the stereotypical "bloated belly" malnourished child pictures from some third world nations.

John Weiland wrote:As others weigh in, I'd like to possibly add the question of where the notion came in that breakfast is "the most important meal of the day".

Simple answer: It was a marketing line by John Harvey Kellogg (Kelloggs cereal) and later reinforced by the Edward Bernays (pioneer in the field of propaganda).
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/nov/28/breakfast-health-america-kellog-food-lifestyle
Many societies, both currently and historically, have no real pattern of eating breakfast at all which is why that marketing pitch was created in the first place.

Kim Wills wrote:Supposedly humans need 1600 calories even if laying in bed all day. Many people eat less than that.

Don't confuse "need" with "need to eat".  Many of us have had years of practice at storing excess calories, so a large percentage of people have absolutely no need to eat 1600+ calories every day.  This dates back to our earliest pre-history where food was not consumed as regularly as now with available restaurants, supermarkets and pantries.  Humans have practiced fasting from the very beginning.  I understand that there are legitimate cases of people "wasting away", but that is a comparatively niche problem in modern societies right now.

Generally just coffee.  I usually eat one meal/day around noon.  I generally have some hard-boiled eggs in the refrigerator from my chickens, so on the rare days I want something in the morning, it will be one of those eggs just to hold me until the main meal.

@Cimarron Layne-
I'm happy that type of diet works for you- truly.  As you know, too much of America is overweight and/or has lifestyle-related health issues.  I've been overweight for many years and have moved to a low-carb diet.  It has been by far the easiest for me to maintain.  People who go very low-carb, frequently eat only once or twice/day as they are not hungry very often.  Not trying to sell you on it, but it works for many which is why you are seeing comments about eating less often and/or skipping breakfast here.

Guppies...  Oh, wait....

That's for my chickens.