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I was exposed to Mad Cow disease, 1987 - 1990, which is a prion contamination.
I was told that the only way to diagnose the disease is through examining slices of your brain.
We can no longer donate blood.
Yikes. That one leapt the barrier. At least you're still 6' up and not 6' down.
We've been dealing with CWD for about 20 years now. When I lived in WV CWD was discovered in herds in Hampshire County WV. It emanated from a game farm. The advice at the time was debone all meat, avoid the spine and skull as the prions would be concentrated in the CNS fluids etc.. Fair enough- I deboned meat in the field anyway.
In Montana this CWD threat is fairly recent- 5 years or so. The guidance is the same however the addition of testing by removing the lymph node glands under the windpipe and salivary glands then sending them off for testing. It's not too bad. If close to home I just butcher the quarters and loins, trim off any grind and store them in unscented bags or on top in the freezer until the results come back and then I final butcher, wrap / vac seal and store. Like this pronghorn-
I don't cook turkeys out on the range but in ovens with a meat thermometer.
But say it is the end of society as we know it and the thermometer has broken. How do we know when the food is cooked and ready to eat so we don't poison ourselves? .......
I've been cooking for decades and the only time I have ever used a thermometer is when making candy or when cooking the prime rib roast so I don't over-cook it. I suspect that cooks do not normally use thermometers to cook.
The turkey is well done when you can take hold of the leg bone and wobble the leg easily. Red meat is done when it is the color inside that you prefer. Pork can be slightly pink inside and it has heated high enough to kill pathogens
When frying steaks or chops or burgers, when the juice starts to appear on the top, it is time to turn them over and cook the other side.
The cake is done when the toothpick comes out clean. Brownies are done when they start to pull away from the edge of the pan. Cookies are done when they look like cookies and not like cookie dough. Bread is done if it sounds hollow when you thump it.
On a wood fire, campfire, wood burning stove, if it is to hot, move your pan out to the edge. You regulate how fast your food is cooking by moving it around to more hot or less hot areas.
If your thermometer doesn't work and can't be repaired or replaced, or the batteries obtained to change the batteries, probably your oven also doesn't work, and if you want to cook a whole turkey, you put it on a spit and turn it over the fire for several hours. Or more likely, you cut it into pieces and cook it in the frying pan.
Honestly I started to learn how to cook around 12-13 years of age at home and in Scouts. We had no 'thermometers'. I was frying chicken by 14 on camping trips. I learned to respect cast iron after I melted one down into a glob of iron and coals cooking yankee pot roast on a hiker / biker trip on the C&O canal. I began cooking at home in earnest at 16 because I was tired of cream of garbage casseroles that lasted a week because my single mom worked a lot of OT. My first family dish was stir fried beef Szechuan and rice.
You learn along the way and if your middle aged or over and starting- you have a steep hill to climb. I recommend basic cooking you tube videos.
B: How often did they die doing it wrong.....and hence, the above is not a useful answer for the current time.
You're overestimating the relative risk. First, while it could be fatal, that's unlikely. Second, whole cuts of pork have to get to 145 degrees to be safe...not all that hot. 200 is the temp for a
I'd also guess most of our ancestors had an immune system that could handle it in most cases.
When you're cooking over a campfire stuff might get overcooked. Or not quite cooked to perfect shredding temperature like your pork butt.
Domestic beef is very safe as the animals are vaccinated and cared for medically, domestic pork is also very safe,
I know this is off topic, but your comments are why some try to avoid commercial 'factory farm' meat and animal products. Loading animals full of drugs and then eating their meat doesn't sound safe to me.
Eating meat was just fine for eons. It wasn't until mass industrialization and human population growth took hold that livestock ended up crammed into miserable, filthy living conditions and now have to be 'medically cared for' in order to keep the meat saleable and reap maximum profit.
I'm not a big meat eater as it is, but if I had to choose my food I'd prefer anything Threerun hunted and butchered wild from the land versus something "safe" wrapped in plastic at the grocery store.
I know this is off topic, but your comments are why some try to avoid commercial 'factory farm' meat and animal products. Loading animals full of drugs and then eating their meat doesn't sound safe to me.
Eating meat was just fine for eons. It wasn't until mass industrialization and human population growth took hold that livestock ended up crammed into miserable, filthy living conditions and now have to be 'medically cared for' in order to keep the meat saleable and reap maximum profit.
I'm not a big meat eater as it is, but if I had to choose my food I'd prefer anything Threerun hunted and butchered wild from the land versus something "safe" wrapped in plastic at the grocery store.
There is a Hutterite colony a couple of hours from me in Chouteau MT- they have a fantastic hog operation. I've been there and walked around- the pens are clean, the barn is clean- fresh straw etc. They feed them 100% from what's produced on the colony. They only medicate if the animal is sick, so no wholesale meds going on. We get a hog every year from them and it is fantastic.
I trust their methods and love their products, and the price is well, unbelievable. Generally a whole hog purchased, butchered and wrapped costs between $450-$500.
My mom is 85 and I don't think she's ever owned a meat thermometer and none of us ever got sick. She would check to make sure the meat looked cooked and that the juices ran clear if it was a white meat. Honestly, she knew the meat was cooked or not by the way it smelled. I don't recall her ever checking the doneness and then putting it back to cook longer.
Of course I grew up, moved away, and started harvesting our own meat so we do some things differently, especially when it comes to wild pork.
The CDC website says that pork in a deep freeze will kill the parasites after 20 days. The recommendation used to be 4 days but cold-tolerant forms of trichinosis were discovered in the arctic so they adjusted their guidance. Of course there are other pathogens in pork but they don't have the heat tolerance the parasite cysts do, so if wild game has been frozen a long time one can loosen their sphincter a bit on how long they cook it. Because freezer meat gets rotated (oldest consumed first) most of the pork we eat has been frozen far longer than 20 days. As far as I know, prions can't be destroyed by any technology available to consumers, so that's a different ballgame.
I don't cook turkeys out on the range but in ovens with a meat thermometer.
But say it is the end of society as we know it and the thermometer has broken. How do we know when the food is cooked and ready to eat so we don't poison ourselves?
FINALLY, it is the nature of these threads that others use them to rake me over the coals. Can't we find the answers to the questions posed for the benefit of all?Thank you. I would like to think that is a decent answer but isn't some blood possible, depending on how the meat is done? Is the only state of no bleeding being burnt to a crisp?This question is preparing if Society goes South. Hence, the modern world that we know is GONE!
A simple analog thermometer would still work. You stick it into the bird and you can tell internal temperature without any electronics. Otherwise simply get a knife and slice away the outer part of the bird that has cooked put the rest back in to finish. Kind of like slicing gryo meat off of a rotisserie. Do that a couple more times and you should have a fully cooked Turkey.
A simple analog thermometer would still work. You stick it into the bird and you can tell internal temperature without any electronics. Otherwise simply get a knife and slice away the outer part of the bird that has cooked put the rest back in to finish. Kind of like slicing gryo meat off of a rotisserie. Do that a couple more times and you should have a fully cooked Turkey.
I only use a simple analog thermometer but I was rather picturing that being, if eventually, unavailable as well.
However, enough has been established of ways to do after a few pages.
This question is preparing if Society goes South. Hence, the modern world that we know is GONE!
A large part of preparing for such an event would be acquiring necessary tools before the event occurs, no?
You have firearms as part of your preps. Why doesn’t the same question that you posed above mean no firearms? No modern world means no guns, doesn’t it? No knives. No extra boots. No pots and pans. No fire-starters. No water purification devices. No paracord. In fact, you’d have to get rid of virtually everything in order to live a stone-age existence. Because, you know, the modern world that we know is GONE!
Have fun.
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