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Farm Kitchen:  Pasture-Raised vs. Commercial Farmed - LONG  |
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JessieMae
True Blue Farmgirl
702 Posts
Jessie
Raleigh
North Carolina
USA
702 Posts |
 Posted - Jul 24 2009 : 09:51:07 AM
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Sisters, as I type this, I am feeling sick. Literally. As in, I-think-I-might-need-to-stop-typing-and-head-for-the-bathroom sick.
I sat down a little while ago to "knock off" what I thought would be an easy badge - the Garden Gate / What's Your Beef badge. It looks really easy printed out on a page, doesn't it? Just do some poking around on a website and write a few lines. No problem...can do it in my sleep.
Boy howdy, was I wrong.
Like your typical Midwesterner, I have been raised on beef, poultry, and pork. And like your typical city-dweller, all of that beef, poultry, and pork came from the grocery store. It was wrapped neatly in little plastic trays covered with cling film. I remember going grocery shopping with my mom and horrifying my kid sister by showing her the cuts at the end of the meat case...tripe, liver, and, worst of all, TONGUE. Our family was a meat-eating machine. Meat was the centerpiece of practically every meal I can remember. Spanish rice with beef. Chicken and broccoli casserole. Pork sausage and sauerkraut. Meatloaf. Our vegetables came out of a can, and our meat came from a shrink-wrapped Styrofoam tray. I never questioned it.
As an adult, I followed the same culinary traditions my mother did. I shopped at a regular old grocery store and bought the same kinds of foods she did. It wasn't until recently - obese at age 30 and in declining heath - I even thought about the correlation between what goes in my shopping cart and how much time I spend feeling like poo. I tried dieting, but it's just not for me. Most diets in this country are counter-intuitive. We cut out sugar and replace it with calorie-free but cancer-causing sugar substitutes. We cut out fat and replace it with chemically engineered compounds. We cut out healthy whole grains and fresh vegetables and replace them with factory-produced shakes and bars. It was for that reason I started searching for an alternative, and that's how I found MaryJane's Farm.
I learned how to do things a different - I think better - way than my mother did. I started shopping at the food co-op. I joined a CSA. I started thinking about where food that ends up in my mouth came from. But the changes I made were relatively easy. Instead of going to Kroger for fruits and vegetables, I go to the East Lansing Food Co-Op or the farmers' market. I buy my bread from a local baker. But my meat, eggs, and dairy still come from the grocery store.
Until today.
I visited the website www.eatraw.com. One thing I learned surprised me. The other thing I learned shocked me. I had no idea that grass-fed and pastured livestock actually produced a better product. I thought an egg was an egg, whether the chicken was running around some one's yard or whether it was raised on a commercial farm. Same thing with beef. I never considered that, just like me, cows are affected by what they eat. So, bonus for everyone. Health cow = healthy meat = healthy me.
But, following a link from that organization's website, I found a video so graphic and disturbing it made me physically ill. I never thought about what kind of treatment animals in commercial farms received. This video opened my eyes. Chickens missing most of their feathers and pecking at each other in crowded cages while standing on their deceased brethren. Pigs kept in crates so small they cannot turn around. Cows too sick to stand being stabbed with prods, pushed, kicked, punched, and lifted and dragged to slaughter by front-loaders. I'm still haunted by some of those images. Also shocking were some of the articles I read. One was about a study that concluded that you could feed chickens GROUND UP TELEPHONE BOOKS, CATALOGS, AND JUNK MAIL instead of real food. What a dreadful proposition!
I'm an animal lover. My dog and cat are like my children. When they are sick, I worry. I do everything in my power to keep them safe, healthy, and happy. Along the same lines, I feed squirrels and birds. I'm like a kid in a candy store at a petting zoo. Sometimes, I even get teary when I pass roadkill on the highway. And it nearly broke my heart to see the treatment that commercial farm animals receive...all so that I can pay less money at the grocery store. Buying animal products raised in such a cruel and inhumane way made me accomplice to the abuse. I would no sooner kick a sick cow than I would push a person off a cliff, but here I am - giving my money to people who do it for me.
I don't think I've gone vegetarian - although I think that I may be passing on hamburgers and hot dogs for a while. I'm not so naive that I don't understand that in order for me to have a roast on the table, a cow must die. My husband definitely won't go meat-free, and since I have to cook for him too, animal products are going to continue finding their way to my fridge. BUT NO MORE COMMERCIALLY FARMED MEAT. I refuse to be part of the problem and contribute my hard-earned cash to heartless corporations who think profit at any cost is acceptable. Yes, I'll still eat meat. But the burger on my grill is going to be made from a cow that spent her days on earth grazing in a field, looking up at the sky, standing with her friends, and met her maker knowing peace.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to find a pasture-based farm and offer my humble thanks and appreciation to my future dinner...in person.
Jessie Mae
Farmgirl Sisterhood #134 |
Edited by - JessieMae on Jul 24 2009 10:44:43 AM |
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chaddsgirl
True Blue Farmgirl
843 Posts
Sarah
Farmgirl Sisterhood #639
MO
USA
843 Posts |
Posted - Jul 24 2009 : 11:25:44 AM
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Jessie, Bravo to you for having the courage to investigate. I truly believe the reasoning behind the badges really is to get us to research. And by doing so, we come up with information that shocks and/or horrifies us. But in exchange for discovering such awful information, we are able to make informed choices and decisions and we are able to understand WHY organic, natural and grassfed labels make a difference.
My husband, a beef farmer of 3 generations, has a hard time grasping the concept that people don't realize where their food comes from and what makes one thing better than another. But how can people be expected to know what goes into raising their food if no one ever tells them? We assume it's safe because it is sold to us in grocery stores from food companies heavily regulated by the USDA and other Food Safety organizations. We are told, "This is good food. It is safe and healthy." And we believe it. And unless we do the research for ourselves, we (as a nation) will never understand exactly what we are eating.
What a great thing Mary Jane has done for all of us Farmgirls, challenging us to KNOW about our food, cleaning products, our environment,and to discover our talents and use them.
A person is a success if they get up in the morning and get to bed at night and in between does what they want to do. Bob Dylan |
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JessieMae
True Blue Farmgirl
702 Posts
Jessie
Raleigh
North Carolina
USA
702 Posts |
Posted - Jul 24 2009 : 11:32:08 AM
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Amen to that, sister!
Jessie Mae
Farmgirl Sisterhood #134 |
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1badmamawolf
True Blue Farmgirl
2199 Posts
Teresa
"Bent Fence Farms"
Ca
USA
2199 Posts |
Posted - Jul 24 2009 : 11:38:42 AM
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Sarah, it is like the people who will argue with you that, " you get your eggs for free", how can you charge for them??? HELLO, I have to feed the chickens. I have explained to people many times the differance between grass fed and commercial feed lots, I have offered a free chunk of meat, and to this they say, OMG, I can't eat it if it doesn't come from the grocery store, Hello, if you saw from start to finish, what a steer commercialy raised goes thru, you probally would never eat beef again, and that goes along with pork, poultry, lamb, etc. I too, do not understand how or why people do not know where their food comes from, or the ones that think it isn't bad to pump them full of hormones and antibotics.
"Treat the earth well, it was not given to you by your parents, it was loaned to you by your children" |
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quiltin mama
True Blue Farmgirl
436 Posts
Heather
Crescent City
CA
USA
436 Posts |
Posted - Jul 24 2009 : 3:06:39 PM
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Oh, if everyone could look closer into the food they eat we'd be a healthier country!!!! I wouldn't touch an egg from a grocery store with a 10 foot pole. Or meat for that matter.
I know that some folks keep their chickens in coops all the time but I just can't. That even grosses me out. My chickens MUST be free range and on green grass where the bugs and grubs crawl around.
And please don't even get me started on conventional meat or milk. Eeww.
Please, if you took the time to read what Jessie just wrote and are curious- look into it for yourself! See what you, and your body, and your kids are missing!!
And folks wonder why the USA is so riddled with diseases like cancer?!
O.k, I'm officially off the soap box now. :)
my blog www.mountainhomequilts.blogspot.com
handmade quilts on etsy www.mountainhomequilts.etsy.com |
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knittingmom
True Blue Farmgirl
665 Posts
AnneMarie
Edmonton
Alberta
Canada
665 Posts |
Posted - Jul 24 2009 : 3:13:46 PM
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I'm so glad you wrote about this. Many people have no clue how the animals they eat are raised and slaughtered. Once it's in the local supermarket not many really think how it got there.
I've read so many articles from farmers who take care of animals "the old fashioned way", say that they treat the animals with compassion and respect because it's the least they can do as the animals are eventually meant for the dinner plate.
That's why it's so important to support the local farmers markets.
I for one am so grateful to all those souls who take the time and effort to farm compassionately and I don't mind putting extra towards the grocery budget to pay the tiny bit extra for their product.
"There is no foot so small that it cannot leave an imprint on this world" |
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Alee
True Blue Farmgirl
22941 Posts
Alee
Worland
Wy
USA
22941 Posts |
Posted - Jul 24 2009 : 6:06:14 PM
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I am SOOO glad that you brought this up Jessie!
Did you know that less than 1% of US cattle are tested for Mad Cow disease? Just because the "majority" of cattle are slaughtered before 2 years of age before Mad Cow "really" starts becoming a problem. But is "really" enough? That scares me. My luck would be the meat I bought would be the sick cow and there is no cure for Mad Cow disease! I don't want to expose my daughter to that!
My sister went down to New Orleans for Mardi Gras this year. Her friend that she stayed with lives across the road from a HUGE poultry farm. My sister couldn't believe the pure stench the chicken farm produced. She was horrified to hear of the conditions the birds are kept in.
And of course who could forget the expose the news did on slaughter house treatment that made it on to CNN I think last year? It's horrible. And I worry for the people who work in those environments that start thinking that treating those animals is okay. My heart breaks for those animals.
We have been eating pasture raised beef for the past month and it is less fatty, and tastes more beefy than the store bought junk. I am starting a part time job tomorrow and one of the priorities for the increase in money is going to be buying half a cow worth of meat that was pasture/grass raised. I just look at my daughter and can't help but want her to eat something that is healthy. I feel like those packages of beef at the store are just another form of Russian Roulette.
Alee
Farmgirl Sister #8
www.awarmheart.com
www.farmgirlalee.blogspot.com
www.allergyjourneys.blogspot.com
Put your pin on the farmgirl map! www.farmgirlmap.blogspot.com |
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kristin sherrill
True Blue Farmgirl
11303 Posts
kristin
chickamauga
ga
USA
11303 Posts |
Posted - Jul 24 2009 : 7:12:57 PM
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Oh Jessie, that is the most heartfelt post I have read here. I am so thankful that my 2 cows are out there right now on pasture and have been all there short one year of life so far. They only get grass to eat. Maybe hay this winter. They are as happy as cows can be. And I don't care to lose a few tomatoes and zuchinni if I know my chickens are happy, too.(Even though I get mad at them and write a whole post about those darned ole birds!) I could never cage them up. Even my goat boys are happiliy eating all they want in their little pasture. And will be until there time is up. For the goats they will be butchered right here on this farm where their lives began. They will not see the inside of a trailor being hauled off to some slaughterhouse.
I do worry about my Cowboy, though. I sure wish we could just butcher him here also. I just hate the thought of having to load him up and haul him several miles away to a place he's never been and people he's never seen before. I might have to do some investigating before he's ready.
I quit eating beef years ago when the mad cow scare was all over. Then just recently started buying only grass fed from a farm not far from here. I gladly pay $6 a pound for burger because I know where it was raised and who raised it.
I hardly ever open a can of anything anymore, either. I know not all people are able to have gardens and raise their own food, but they can join CSA's and support the farmers who do have the food. I thank you all who do that. I am a part of this movement and when ya'll buy from farmer's markets you support me, too. So thank you.
Jessie, I am so proud of you for coming to this descision. You will not regret it and you will be so much better off. Good for you for doing your homework!Thank you for sharing from your heart.
Kris
Happiness is simple. |
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PineConeAcres
Farmgirl in Training
31 Posts
USA
31 Posts |
Posted - Jul 24 2009 : 7:24:27 PM
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Yep it's because people don't research what they put in there bodies that the huge corporations do what they do. They just blindly trust and eat whatever is put in front of them. I was there once too....until I moved away from the city and got a farm of my own. I raise pastured meat chickens, layers and pastured pigs ;) I also buy all my beef from local slaughter houses that buy from farmers. If anyone ever gets the time you should all look up Joel Salatin. He's written several great books on farming and he raises all pastured animals.
I sell eggs and I've had some customers tell me that my egg yolks are to dark.... uh.. that means that they are full of vit A from eating the grass!! But people are used to the pale yellow eggs. My eggs are an orange colour. |
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1badmamawolf
True Blue Farmgirl
2199 Posts
Teresa
"Bent Fence Farms"
Ca
USA
2199 Posts |
Posted - Jul 24 2009 : 8:06:35 PM
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I've had people tell me my chicken is too pink when its raw (inother words its not grey), Why do the yolks of your eggs stay round and stand-up, and yes they are orange, instead pale and flat ( I would tell people that they are that color cause of all the bugs and mice they eat, hehehe), your beef is a weird color, its fresh and drug free, etc, etc, etc. If everyone KNEW, they would not eat from their local markets, or they would become Vegans, until they found out all the chemicals that are on their veggys.
"Treat the earth well, it was not given to you by your parents, it was loaned to you by your children" |
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Aunt Jenny
True Blue Farmgirl
11381 Posts
Jenny
middle of
Utah
USA
11381 Posts |
Posted - Jul 24 2009 : 10:51:01 PM
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I have actually had people turn down fresh eggs and milk because they prefer the way storebought food tastes!!! (not that they tried the fresh stuff ..they didn't) I am always amazed that more people don't pay attention to the food they eat and that they are feeding their children. What more important thing can we do for our children than feed them RIGHT?
Jenny in Utah
Proud Farmgirl sister #24
Inside me there is a skinny woman crying to get out...but I can usually shut her up with cookies
http://www.auntjennysworld.blogspot.com/ visit my little online shop at www.auntjenny.etsy.com |
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Alee
True Blue Farmgirl
22941 Posts
Alee
Worland
Wy
USA
22941 Posts |
Posted - Jul 25 2009 : 05:26:34 AM
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Exactly, Jenny! Feed them right and feed them food that actually has some LIFE in it! As long as the home grown food is raised and butchered in a clean environment- it is actually "Cleaner" than store meat! My husband worked in the meat department of a grocery store and I had to stop buying meat from them after hearing about stuff that was still considered "safe"- like meat that has fallen on the floor, but is still considered "fine" because they wear booties on their feet and sanitize the whole room once each day- are you kidding me! YUCK!
Alee
Farmgirl Sister #8
www.awarmheart.com
www.farmgirlalee.blogspot.com
www.allergyjourneys.blogspot.com
Put your pin on the farmgirl map! www.farmgirlmap.blogspot.com |
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Farm Kitchen: Pasture-Raised vs. Commercial Farmed - LONG |
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Pasture-Raised vs. Commercial Farmed - LONG
