Be the Change

So here's the thing.  When you are able to DIY things, the possibilities become endless.  It feels empowering to be able to say "I can sew." "I can grow my own food." "I can knit." "I can redo my bathroom."  Being able to do things yourself is about self-reliance and true American-ism at its best.

To me, the American spirit has always been about looking at something that seems impossible and saying, I can do it.  But unfortunately, that part of our spirit is being squashed under the weight of cheap food and cheap commercial goods.

I'm relearning how to sew and as I look up patterns and tutorials online, I feel more and more excited to make stuff!  Robeez for my baby? Yes! Fabric bins for the newly decorated bathroom? Yes! Fun skirts for me and my sister? Double yes!!

The irony is that for my grandmother's generation, the availability of store-bought merchandise was what was empowering.  Canned goods, department stores, microwave ovens...all of that meant that they didn't have to spend hours sewing, knitting, cooking, baking.

They didn't have to can their own strawberry jam when you could swing by any market and pick some up.

But for me and I think, a lot of women like me, we are starting to feel that we are losing out by not being able to do these things.  We are tied to a system that mistreats people and animals, degrades the environment and offers the cheapest possible solution when we are unable to be self-sufficient.

Guess what...I don't want to pay through the nose for organic chicken stock, jam, peanut butter, and other items I can make myself.  I don't want to wonder about the young Asian kids who sewed my dress.  I don't want to wonder if some sadistic asshole kicked my cow in the face before it became my hamburger.

So I've learned how to can and "put up" my own goods.  I'm relearning how to sew simple skirts and dresses.  I know my farmer and know that it pains her to bring her cows to slaughter.

There are ways to opt out of the system if you don't like it.  Is it easy?  No.  Is it quick? No.  Is it worthwhile? Yes.

Opting out is an option, but we do have to pay with either time or money to make it work.  But I truly feel that the more people make these choices, the more the system will have to bend to our desires.  Nothing will change if we don't make it happen. 

If we don't buy into the system, the system will collapse under its own weight and some better option must present itself.

Let them eat grass!

A lot of people who know me think that I either don't eat meat or that I only eat white meat.  The truth is more complicated than that.  But when you  are invited to a friend's house for dinner, it's considered impolite to ask "Is this beef grass-fed?" "Do you know your farmer?" "Can you tell me if this chicken walked in the sunshine?"

It's a weird thing to know your meat and some people truly cannot adjust their mindset to accept that the chicken they saw pecking in the grass one day will be dinner the next.  I guess it's a little too much like eating a pet when you've seen the animal frolicking in the sun.  Personally, I fall into another category.  I like to know without a doubt that the animal on my dinner plate lived the kind of life it was meant to live. 

So what does that mean?

It means fresh air, sunshine, a natural diet and habitat.  It means someone cared for that animal if it was raised by humans.  It means a cow living a cow kind of life and a chicken living a chicken kind of life. 

Ideally, we'd all have access to this kind meat in any grocery store we walked into.  The reality is far from that, however.  Part of the difficulty in knowing where our meat comes from stems from confusing labels.  The claims of packaging are often false and misleading.  For example, if a meat package says an animal has "access to outside" all that means is that a tiny door in a chicken house that houses tens of thousands of chickens is open.  Now chickens aren't the brightest creatures, so it's highly unlikely that a chicken across the house is going to say, "Hey, let me climb over 20,000 other birds to get me some fresh air."  They are going to maintain the status quo...pecking at a concrete slab covered in poop.  Likewise, think about the claim "vegetarian fed." Chickens aren't vegetarians.  They eat bugs...vegetarian fed typically means that they were fed a diet of grain absent of other dead animals.  So the fact that they aren't being fed dead cows is good because beef is not a typical part of a chicken's diet, but it's incorrect to assume that chickens are strict herbivores.  They are not.  They forage in the grass and eat bugs as a source of protein.  But they can't do that when they are isolated from their natural environment and fed a diet devoid of their natural fare.

It's easy to fool yourself into thinking that the package of chicken with a farm on the label and words like "natural, free-range, vegetarian fed" means that that meat was humanely raised and slaughtered.  But if you believe that, you are fooling yourself.

So what kind of life should an animal live?  A kind and humane one...the kind they would live if left to their own devices.  One devoid of antibiotics, growth hormones, unnecessary confinement and foods that aren't a part of their natural diet. 

In conventional practices, after a calf is weaned, it is sent to a concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO).  This is pretty much cow hell.  They are packed nose to tail into one place, given no access to fresh air or grass and fed a diet that is outside the scope of their naturally occurring habits (at best, only grain--most likely GMO-grain; at worst, dead cows and pigs too diseased to be processed for human consumption).  They are also fed antibiotics to survive the close living conditions of feedlots and growth hormones to fatten them up faster.

Why does it matter if a cow is fed grain (i.e. corn) instead of it's natural diet of grass?  The nutritional profile of grass-fed beef is very different from the nutritional profile of grain-fed beef.  Grass-fed beef is much higher in omega-3 fatty acids, it is also has a different ratio of saturated fats (it is higher in stearic acid which is NOT associated with an increase in cholesterol levels), it's higher in conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), a fat that has antioxidant qualities. Grass-fed beef is also higher in other minerals, antioxidants and vitamins.  In addition, grain-fed cows are more susceptible to E. Coli.  All cows have E. Coli in their guts the same way that humans have a variety of bacteria in their bellies.  But cows fed a grain based diet don't have the right ratio of bacteria and, therefore, are less able to combat this naturally occurring bacteria.  Add sloppy processing practices and grain-fed cows can be a ticking time bomb of killer E. Coli. The stomachs of grass-fed cows are much more able to combat the E. Coli bacteria and therefore, are far less likely to pass on that bacteria to humans.  In addition, they don't need blanket antibiotics because they aren't crammed into close quarters with thousands of other cows and because farmers who raise grass-fed beef use different practices, they don't give growth hormones to fatten them up quicker.

But I don't eat grass-fed beef for the nutritional content.  I eat grass fed because anything else feels wrong to me.  I can't support a system that packs cows into a hellacious den of bacteria.  I can't support a system that rips calves away from their mothers and feeds them gruel and man-made hormones to fatten them up faster.  I can't support a cruel and unusual system of food management.

I buy grass fed because, in my mind, it's the only beef that's acceptable.  And that philosophy extends to pigs and chickens, too. 

For a long time, I felt that they only way to avoid eating CAFO meat was to avoid eating meat all together, but that wasn't something I wanted to do.  The truth is, I like meat.  It tastes good.  Last night, I blended ground beef and ground pork with some fresh rosemary and dried herbs, my husband fired up the grill and we had burgers so delicious I ate two of them and was stuffed to the gills.  I want to be able to do that and not worry about anything other than my waistline.

So what's the answer?  For me, the answer is knowing where my meat comes from.  I know my farmer.  Her name is Kelly; she graduated high school with my sister and brother-in-law.  She's super nice and adorable and most importantly, is kind to the animals she raises. 

But here's the thing...not everyone lives in an area where knowing your farmer is a viable option.  And not everyone can afford to take part in a CSA...hell, I can barely afford it, but I'm willing to make sacrifices in other places so that we can afford it.

"Clean" meat should be accessible to every person in this country.  No one should ever have to worry about the pathogens that might be in their food supply.  No one should ever have to wonder if the meat on their plate was mistreated when it was still walking around. 

Everyone should have an opportunity to eat well and without worry.

For more on this topic, visit Eat Wild.

What is a CSA?

When I tell people I joined a CSA, the question I hear the most is, "What's a CSA?"

Before I answer that question, I'll tell you why a CSA matters to me. In the English classes I used to teach, I would often organize the readings around a particular theme. In doing so, my students were able to gain a level of expertise and write with more authority (at least, that was the hope). 

One of my frequently used themes was the food industry, and how it's, you know, killing us.  But I always felt like something of a poser because I still shopped at the grocery store (and not just the outside perimeter) and bought packaged food. So I always felt like I needed to put my money where my mouth was--quite literally in this case.   

So when I read about the whole food CSA run by HighlandArt Farm, I knew it was the one for me!

Back the original question...CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. Basically, members of a community buy into a farm and receive shares each week all summer long. 

In my case, my money goes to support several different local farms since my farmer works with a bunch of other farmers to put together a "whole food" CSA. She offers meat, milk, yogurt, cheese, grain (bread and/or granola) coffee, and of course, veggies.

Because my family is small, I do a half share of veggies, which amounts to a small box of veggies each week, 6 lbs of meat, a gallon of milk, a quart of yogurt and a bag of coffee. I paid $400 for my veggie share and I pay $70 a week for the rest of it. Is it expensive? Yes. Is it worth it? Totally!

It's worth it for us as a family to have fresh veggies and pastured meat (more on why pastured meat matters in another post). But it's also extraordinarily important to the farmers who rely on their community for financial support. Many farmers are forced to supplement their income with other jobs during the off season. CSA farmers are less likely to rely on supplementary income and regularly report higher income levels, and therefore, they are able to focus on making their farms sustainable and profitable. CSAs also keep your dollars in your community, which helps to strengthen local economies. In addition, opting out of the industrialized food system is the best way I can think of to tell companies and government that we are capable of providing for ourselves and don't need the garbage they call food.

There are several ways to find local CSAs in your community.  Simply Google "CSA" with your county or town.  Visit eatwild.com.  You can also shop farmer's markets to support local farms and opt out of "Big Food."  Ask your grocers to supply local foods; if they know the demand is there, they will supply the goods.

For further reading on why eating local matters, check out the movie Food, Inc, based on Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma.  Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle is also a terrific book with recipes and meal plans focused on seasonal foods.