Home Depot Rant #476,352,939

[Bird]

I wouldn't want to eat something that had been in the garbage

This reminds me of something my mother told of several times. She was just a child during the great depression, and her family didn't have much, but her dad was always employed so they didn't go hungry. But she said she could remember seeing grown men going through their garbage can looking for scraps to eat, so her mother started carefully wrapping anything that might be edible in clean paper before putting it in the garbage so at least the scraps they ate would be clean.

 

[Tig]

I tend to agree. Though i've got no problem feeding others leftovers to my animals!

soundguy

During high school I worked in a restaurant. We used to put the table scraps in the "pig bucket" and the farmer down the way would pick it up once a week. I also used to dump all the leftover wine in the bucket. I figured it would make the pigs happy and tasty.

 

[Soundguy]

My 2nd job sometimes is in a venue with a dining area, and the 'plate scrapers' frequently pack me about 3 5g buckets of unsorted plate scrapings...

My pigs and chickens love it... If I hit a bit of beef while sorting it all out.. the dogs love it too.

soundguy

 

[Bird]

Of course when I was a kid I raised registered Berkshire hogs for the 4-H Club and shows (still have 16 ribbons ) and for our family's pork. And I remember that there were people back then who regularly picked up the scraps from cafes (I don't think we had "restaurants" back then) for their hogs. In more recent years, I've heard you can't do that if you're going to sell the hogs for meat unless you have the facility to "sterilize" all the scraps by boiling them before giving them to your hogs. So the hog farmers don't pick up the scraps anymore; the scraps just go to the landfill. We never used cafe scraps ourselves, but I bought the so called "day old" bread from the local bakery and we bought 55 gallon barrels of buttermilk from the local creamery for awhile. The hogs liked both.

And the best thing about using the "day old" bread was that it was 3 cents a package; made no difference whether it was a loaf of bread, a package of rolls, a package of cinnamon rolls, a cake, a pie, etc. And I was the guy who got to pick out what I wanted. Needless to say the hogs didn't get all of it.

 

[Soundguy]

Yep.. I know a few hog farmers that still pickup scraps, and then cooks it in a big bolier pot then slops them.

ditto on the day old bread. There are some people that will jog and come up tot he back of our fence, and throw bread tot he pigs and the ducks... sometimes someone will leave a large 35G bag of bread that came from the day old store up the road. Hogs love it.

soundguy

 

[N80]

The issue with pigs is trichinosis, a parasite they get from eating garbage, etc. It is a human pathogen and is the reason that you're not supposed to eat pork rare. If you cook it well done then it kills the trichinosis.

As Bird says, you can't feed commercial pigs uncooked leftovers anymore. I do know that there are places and/or individual farmers with the facilities to recook the stuff, so some restaurants still give it or maybe sell it for pigs.

Now that this is regulated, there is almost zero risk of trichinosis in pork that is raised and processed commercially. This means it can be cooked and eaten rare. The funny thing is that so many people have associated rare pork with disease that very few Americans have a taste for it.

 

[WVBill]

The funny thing is that so many people have associated rare pork with disease that very few Americans have a taste for it.

My wife is one of them - will not touch pork if it is even the slightest bit pink.

There's a pig farmer outside of Las Vegas who feeds his herd on table scraps from the hotels. Saw it on "Dirty Jobs"...

WVBill

 

[Bird]

The funny thing is that so many people have associated rare pork with disease that very few Americans have a taste for it.

I do like pork, but I don't want any rare pork and it's not a fear of illness as much as personal taste. But I really don't care as much for the taste of rare beef, fish, or poultry either. In a restaurant, I always order "medium" and that way they can vary a good bit either direction and I'm OK; just don't want it cooked until it's dried out, and don't want it bleeding. Anything in between is good.

 

[sunspot]

There's a pig farmer outside of Las Vegas who feeds his herd on table scraps from the hotels. Saw it on "Dirty Jobs"...WVBill

I saw that. Real nasty job. The old guy cooked it all before slopping the pigs.

 

[RobJ]

I saw that. Real nasty job. The old guy cooked it all before slopping the pigs.

Yep..

 

[Soundguy]

I do like pork, but I don't want any rare pork and it's not a fear of illness as much as personal taste. But I really don't care as much for the taste of rare beef, fish, or poultry either. In a restaurant, I always order "medium" and that way they can vary a good bit either direction and I'm OK; just don't want it cooked until it's dried out, and don't want it bleeding. Anything in between is good.

Yep... pretty much same here... beef, medium.. fish pork and poultry, done but not dry.

soundguy

 

[Redbug]

Bear meat can also harbor trichinosis. I wonder since trichinosis is about gone in the domestic hog population, (did not know that), if you can now make jerky from the meat?

 

[heehaw]

HD prices seem to beat Lowes for what i am usually looking for: i stopped at a HD yesterday, 10ft of 1 inch steel pipe for running natural gas line, was $12.98, thats less than $1.30 per ft: which is quite a bit cheaper than anywhere else i have found: they will usually cut it to whatever length you need and thread it free: thats where the problem came in: they cut it and threaded it, but never could get it threaded so a coupling would screw on. don't know what was wrong, but i passed on buying the pipe.
heehaw

 

[N80]

When I was building my cabin prices varied between the two much like a supermarket. You might be able to get bread for less at one and milk for less at the other. I was never able to say that one was significantly less that the other. But that was close to 5 years ago.

 

[Bird]

When I was building my cabin prices varied between the two much like a supermarket. You might be able to get bread for less at one and milk for less at the other. I was never able to say that one was significantly less that the other. But that was close to 5 years ago.

I believe that's still exactly the case. I recently wanted fifteen 50 pound bags of "play sand" and after visiting both stores, I found Lowe's to be considerably cheaper. But for a number of tools I've bought in the past year, Home Depot was cheaper.

 

[EddieWalker]

If I'm going to one or the other, it's because of which one is closer. I've noticed wire is usually cheaper at Home Depot, but Lowes has a much better selection and layout of plumbing supplies. Today I'm going to Home Depot because I need some caulking and it's close to the job I'm on. I've spent almost $10,000 in materials in the last month with McCoys because of their service and the discount that I get, but they are the furthest supplier from the house I'm woking on.

Eddie

 

[Soundguy]

Luckilly ( ? ).. i have a lowes and HD that are 80' across a hiway from each other... of course that means I have to drive 30 minutes to get to either of them.. but oh well..!

soundguy

 

[Charlesaf3]

Your lumberyard won't deliver Eddie? High fuel prices? Mine is starting to get fuel surcharged, wouldn't be surprised to see it end up on me down the road.

I usually find lowes cheaper, but its hit and miss. I consistently find lowes better run. Used to like HD before Nardelli ruined it.

 

[Soundguy]

At the GC I work for.. we are seeing fuel surcharges come in on everything nowadays.

soundguy

 

[Wayne County Hose]

I'm about so mad at home depot my hair could catch fire. I ordered over $10,000 in windows and doors from them at an Andersen tent event at the local HD. Yea, I saved a lot of money. Yea, I paid for it with aggravation. Never again, never, never, NEVER!
They effed up my window order and their delivery people never called me one hour before delivery, like they were supposed to. Windows came in wrong sizes and 2 windows were white interior instead of pine. By the time I got there, my contractor had the wrong color ones installed and was working on spacing in the last half of the wrongly sized ones. I would have refused everything incorrect. But, they never called me one hour before delivery like they told me they were going to. I didn't ask them to, they volunteered to. I just cancelled the $9,000 kitchen order as I seriously doubt that they could get that right. Aaaaaarrrrrrgggghghhhh! Where's my heavy bag!