I am doing some much needed closet cleaning, well one of 14 or 15 that need to be gone through.  Anyway part of the issue is that my mother was an inveterate recipe and article clipper, There are 10's of thousands of clippings from the mid '40s to early '90s plus a lot of asssorted magazines in little used closets and spaces.  Anyway found a newspaper clipping from 1959, on the  back side of a recipe was a store add.  One of the items listed was eggs $.30

I found that a bit shocking since as of late I've been buying eggs at Kroger for $.49.  Pulled up an inflation calc and it turns out .49 today was .06 in 1959.  So there is one thing that is cheaper today then back then.

Tossed out a bunch of Sphere magazines from the mid '70s, published by Betty Crocker, guess they did not have much of a run. Tossed a bunch of Family Circle, Ladies Home Journal, Mcalls and on and on.  Did keep the BHG as I have pretty much a complete set from 1946 to 2010, no idea what I will do with them though.

I've tried various eggs did not find the difference too be that much better to warrant the extra cost.  been trying to eat more eggs to get my cholesterol up, my brother's is 75, mine 90, ideally we should be at about 125.  guess we have some genetic abnormality.

One of my cousins works for Herbrucks, one of the largest egg producers.  She indicated the cheap eggs come from the same cage free hens the higher priced one do.  This is the result of the pressure to eliminate "caged" hens.  The free range eggs are different, but they don't do them as far as I know.

Along with the $.49 eggs, milk has been $1.49/gal, but has crept up close to $2.

I pay up for eggs and milk both. I don’t trust cheap eggs—what are they doing that allows them to sell the eggs for less than the cost of the carton?  It’s actually disturbing.  I buy expensive milk because I like the taste—Amish, grass-fed, non-homogenized, low-temperature vat-pasteurized milk.  That’s a lot of words to say, “what I used to drink as a kid.”

I "trust" the cheap eggs.  My cousin is a microbiologist at the egg producer and is a stickler on all things done on the production line.

I have no fear of consuming GMO foods.  However, the environmental side effects concern me deeply. 

Foremost, many (most?) of the modifications are designed to create strains resistant to pesticide, which then allows massive and indiscriminate pesticide dumps that wreck the surrounding areas.  This has been reported on, but not much.

Second, various insect and disease-resistant modifications have proven to be short lived since—no surprise—it takes only about 10 years for the pests to evolve around the GMO design.  All the promise of future unlimited supply must face the same long-term realities of real plants.

Third, after the pests and diseases have evolved and essentially become super-bugs, any natural defense in the real environment will be completely ineffective.  This has not gotten a lot of attention, and there are claims that the fears are overblown.  Maybe, but what about 30 years from now when the plants are on their 4th GMO design and the pests are at their 4th level of resistance? 

Another point that angers me is the hubris in all of this.  We are constantly reminded that scientists have addressed all the questions and concerns.  As my grandmother said years ago about trans-fats (i.e. margarine), scientists have addressed all the questions and concerns they thought to ask, but they haven’t addressed the ones that they didn’t think to ask.

Many apologies for participating in the extended off-topic posts. 

On topic, it would be a shame not to find a library that’s interested in having them.  But I’m afraid that’s not really feasible. 

No apologies needed!  That is a one thing I love about this site- it's like talking with friends and one thing leads to another.  I belong to a few moderated sites and the minute the topics stray it get shut down - not here.

I learn a lot from stuff that veers off topic and truly enjoy the wealth of knowledge shared. Truth be told I started this topic as sort of jumping off point, and enjoyed reading all the comments on eggs and the rest.

I use butter exclusively except for my Christmas kolachy there it's only lard.  that and I've gone back to corn oil from blends and such.  That and olive oil are my basics. 

I generally stock up on butter when it's $1.99/lb, 12 lbs will last me 4-6 months.  Lately I have notice a bit of price creep.  Basics, like the eggs in this discussion have gone up to $.79, milk was $1.59 gal now is $2.14 and so on.  I looked at Libby's pumpkin at Kroger's and it was $4 can - sticker shock.  I'll go to Sam's and see what they have it for.  Tried the Aldis version of pumpkin, it was hit and miss - one can was very watery the second seemed OK.  Not worth trying again for the holidays, I'll get Libby's.

I’m gonna sound like one of those crazy people, but I cook my own pumpkins for pies.  I don’t use the canned stuff.  In the autumn, I buy a bunch of little pie pumpkins, quarter them, cut away the seeds and membrane, and bake them covered at 350 for 2 hours.  I let them cool in the pan overnight, then I pour off any accumulated water and push the soft pumpkin off of the hard shell.  Then I blitz the pulp in the food processor, and stick the purée into the freezer in 2-cup containers, since 2 cups make a pie.

Mini pumpkins are cheap, but the yield is only about 1 c pumpkin purée for each whole pumpkin, so don’t expect a tremendous quantity out of this procedure.  Also, the finished purée is a bit watery, no matter what you do; it still works in recipes, though.

I had thought about that, but a bit late to buy pie pumpkins around here. 
Libby's has always been fine, never watery as one of the Aldi cans was, so I'll stick with it.

Here is a recent article about the long-term effect of GMOs on the evolution of super-weeds.

“Just six years ago, in response to the onset of resistance to its marquee product, Roundup (active ingredient: glyphosate), Monsanto began selling a new generation of genetically modified seeds bred to resist both glyphosate and dicamba.  By 2020, scientists had confirmed the existence of dicamba-resistant Palmer amaranth.  The agribusiness giant took a decade to develop that product line.  The weeds caught up in five years.”

“Glyphosate’s use remains ubiquitous among growers, however.  Even though it doesn’t work on all weeds anymore, the alternative — adopting a more integrated approach to weed control — would mean totally rethinking their operations.”

Imagine that.

www.nytimes.com/2021/08/1...

GMO is a dead-end street lined on both sides with a waste-land. 

I don’t disagree, Egress.  But the issue of pesticides is inextricably intertwined with the pesticide industry.  My post is a follow-up to an earlier conversation where I expressed my concern about GMOs specifically because they are created with only one set of goals—immunity from herbicides and pesticides that can then be broadcast indiscriminately.  The long-term effects are the rapid and disastrous evolution of super-weeds and super-bugs. 

GMOs are often advertised as having higher yield or greater vitality, but those goals are met by engineering chemical resistance, not by actually improving the plants.

This was off topic the first time, and I didn’t immediately notice the post was 2 years old, but this is conversation I still remember.