Meet the interns: Ruth Saunders

written by

Shalini Karra

posted on

July 21, 2016

Hi from the farm! My name is Ruth Saunders and I am from Northern California. I

am one of the 2016 Brown’s Ranch Interns. My educational background is in

nutrition. I am a Registered Dietitian, Certified Diabetes Educator and hold a

Masters Degree in Maternal and Child Nutrition. I am at Browns Ranch this year

leaning about the link that soil health can have with human heath. As

conventional farming methods move our system father and farther away from

producing foods with any nutritional value , I believe that Nourished by Nature

products hold something different. The key is healthy soil, full of nutrients, that

produces foods that are rich in what our bodies need to fight disease and stay

healthy.

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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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