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Introductions and a weekly intern blog

written by

Shalini Karra

posted on

June 22, 2016

Sweltering heat and cool evenings can only mean one thing, summer is here! We’re steam rolling right into the thick of the craziness that is a North Dakota growing season. This summer we are starting a weekly blog with a post from a one of our five wonderful ladies working at the Brown’s ranch.

To start, a quick introduction to me. My name is Shalini Karra and this is my second year working with the Browns. I’m a California native with a wanderlust that has lead me around the world and dropped me on the doorstep of this incredible ranch. After attending a workshop about regenerative agriculture put on by Gabe and Paul in Albuquerque, I knew that this ranch was something special that I just had to be a part of. One year of interning and I was completely hooked. I have stayed on as their apprentice, more excited than ever to keep learning from such great mentors.

 Enough about me, you all want to hear about what’s happening on the ranch, right?

 We’re all done with calving and lambing season now. It’s such a joy to go out the pastures and see the gangs of little animals frolicking with each other. My passion for sheep got me into agriculture and lambing is by far my favorite time of the year!

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Our garden is so happy with the rains we've gotten and is now blooming and producing! We’re so excited to offer a variety of vegetables this year at the farmer’s market! Be on the lookout for combination packages and deals featuring our heirloom vegetables and meat products.

We have expanded our work force by bringing in four great women! You will get introduced to each of them through this blog and we’re excited to have them on our Brown’s Ranch team. It’s looking like it is going to be an incredible year!

Cheers!

Shalini

More from the blog

Pasture Raised Pork Lard vs. Crisco

Pasture Raised Pork Lard vs. Crisco

I have to admit, I was one of those kids who was raised on margarine.  I was raised on the belief that using animal intestines for sausage casings was disgusting and I needed to make sure the frijoles at the Mexican restaurants were lard free because lard will make me fat and shouldn’t be eaten.  As a kid, you don’t really question these things, you just accept them as your parents instruct you to and carry on. Well, things started to change for me when I came to Brown’s Ranch and heard a different story for the first time.  It is actually honoring the animal to use every part of it, including the intestines and all. Why wouldn’t you want to use as much of the animal as possible if the rest of it is being used already?  Also, I learned that how the animal was raised also plays a huge part in the nutritional value of the meat. Grassfed beef is completely different from grain fed in so many more ways than I could ever imagine.  The same goes for pork raised on pasture and everything else we grow on our farm. Here’s the link to a blog that Paul wrote about the pigs on pasture a few years ago that you might find entertaining. If you want to read about our fatty acid profile testing as well, you can follow this link. As we head into the holiday baking season, I wanted to share a quick comparison of our pastured pork lard to Crisco, the most commonly used vegetable shortening in baking. If you think about it, soybean oil and palm oil are naturally liquid at room temperature. That's why they're called oils. So why is Crisco a solid at room temp? Well it's because of the hydrogenation that's done which creates trans fats that are completely unnatural and something that our bodies don't know what to do with; causing inflammation. *More about TBHQ: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved TBHQ as Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS). However, some research suggests that long-term exposure to high doses of TBHQ can have negative health effects, including:  Cytotoxic effects Genotoxic effects Carcinogenic effects Mutagenic effects **Source for this: https://www.nourishedwithnatur... Will you stand with us to create a Crisco free holiday season this year? Order your Pastured Pork Lard instead! Completely rendered and ready to use. Just keep it in the fridge for convenient usage.  Sidenote: Refried beans made with lard are THE BEST. Traditional Mexican cuisine typically still uses pork lard because of its high smoke point, superior texture and flavor, and overall superior versatility to any other cooking oil.  

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