Confirmation Bias: A Dominant Factor In Nutrition Blogging

I had a lot to say on this topic, but can't quite pull it together into coherent writing yet, and haven't had time to do so. Didn't want the title to go to waste. The tempest in a teapot nature of subject-specific blogscape is sometimes amusing, sometimes just silly and tedious. But hey, I loves me some confirmation bias as next as the next guys, so party on, Garth.

Anyway, on a somewhat unrelated subject, I'm more recently on a mission to get some folks I know to stop taking statins. But I don't want to succumb to confirmation bias and am willing to admit I might be wrong. Anyone have a pubmed reference to a study actually showing all-causes mortality benefits of statin use for men in their seventies? Anyone?  Bueller...? Didn't think so. (What about life expectancy for men over 70 with really low total cholesterol? Whoops....)

Butchering Half A Pig

I recently had a go at butchering half of a dressed pig carcass. Various relatives-in-law had raised 3 pigs this year. They got up to slaughtering weight while I was there on holiday. They were taken to a small processing place to get turned from live pigs into frozen packages of various cuts and sausage, but my father-in-law was kind enough to have them reserve half a carcass for me to work on.

It was fun. Quite gratifying. Harder than it looks but easier than you think. I first separated the tenderloin (and the kidney), then cut the ham off. Then split the remainder of the carcass lengthwise, leaving the belly side and the loin side. Cut the front shoulder & spareribs off and split that up into smaller cuts. Cut the hock off the ham. Separated some ribs from the belly to leave a bacon-ready cut. Cut a stack of chops then separated the rest of the loin into ribs and a boneless loin.

Rendered a couple big jars of beautiful, pure, white lard from various fat bits I cut off. Trimmed the loin and the chops to yield quite a lot of lovely, firm back fat. Made a nice pate out of the liver. The sausage turned out well. The pork chops were great. Lots of folks sampling quality pork for perhaps the first time. It's supposed to have flavor! These were happy pigs, well raised in a good-sized outdoor foresty pen, fed organic meal with lots of supplemental offcuts from the large vegetable garden.

Day 1: butchered the carcass, including some rough cuts for sausage, rendered some lard, made a rustic pate out of the liver. Pork chops for dinner.

Day 2: made 9 lbs of sausage, started the belly curing into bacon

2 Wallet Strategy

As noted a few months ago, I gave up on carrying my old leather wallet. I've been using a vastly thinner wallet for a while now and it's great. I use the Big Skinny "World bifold" wallet. Love it. Holds 7 cards, one of which in a clear pocket (for ID if desired) and money, plus you can tuck addl cards into it if needed. I rarely use all 7 individual card slots so not an issue. Even fully loaded, it is almost 2D compared to the old beast. I still use the old wallet as a storage wallet. It holds the cards and such that I don't need on a given day. I generally don't need to switch on a daily basis. This mostly comes into play on international trips, on which I may need a different set of cards and IDs than I normally would need with me. So I pack the storage-wallet and wear the carry-wallet. Overall, much more comfortable, lighter, flatter, more flexible, looks better. Recommended.