Food Inc

Please, if you eat food, watch this movie. It is not one of those "shock" videos and while disturbing, it is done more on an intellectual level. Some of what they discuss we, as a family, already knew and spurred the change in our food acquisition, but so much we did not.

I am not perfect and will never be able to be self sufficient with no reliance on big business and the food it produces, but there are some key changes that we all can make to get cleaner food. As consumers, we need to make it known that what is going on is NOT okay with us, and only then, when we change how we buy, will the industry change.

We already get our beef direct from the farm. We get meat from ONE cow. They are grass fed, roam free in the fields and are antibiotic and hormone free. I know where my meat comes from, and should there ever be an issue, the farmer knows which cow my family has. Not to mention, the meat tastes better and is healthier!

We get our milk from a dairy in PA just over the border The milk is non-homogenized and only lightly pasteurized. It comes from grass fed cows with no antibiotics or hormones. I would prefer raw milk, but with kids with some autoimmune issues, we err on the side of caution.

We try to grow our veggies and if we cannot, we get them from local organic farmers whose faces we know. This cuts back on the carbon footprint, and helps us to get healthy, organic, non-modified foods. Again, not perfect, but we are getting there.

Next in line for us...pork. We have found a local farmer whose pigs are free ranged in the forest. They let the pigs roam, about 1-2 per acre, free over their 26 acre farm. The only fences are the ones around the entire farm, and the one around the farmhouse to keep the pigs out of the garden. They do not clip teeth, nails or ears and there are no antibiotics or hormones. We will split a whole butchered hog with another family, and while not cheap, we will pay about $4 a pound for 75 pounds of meat. I am comfortable with that.

Eggs come from the farm where the chickens roam free, and they taste fantastic and have deep yellow almost orange yolks, not those pale things from the grocery store. Chicken remains our most difficult purchase. Free ranged poultry is so expensive, around 18 dollars per chicken, and we do not have the land to raise and butcher our own. I am looking to locate a local farmer who we can purchase whole chickens in bulk from and split with another family. I am hoping to be able to get whole chickens, about 40 per family, and that we could get a discount on the purchase.

Cook at home, cook from scratch, you can control so much more if you start with the ingredients.

Please, learn about where your food comes from. Learn about WHY government is not doing their job to protect you. Support local farms and farmers, help keep them farming so they do not need to work with the big corporate giants and they can supply clean food to the public. Eat local push back on big business, consumers have the power to change things!!!