Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Happy Cows come from Happy Farms

I've noticed a plethora of blogs lately talking about food and nutrition:  Through the Lens of a Farmgirl; Life on a Kansas Cattle Ranch; Chasing Cherubim, among others.   Got me to thinking...do we really know where our food comes from? 

When I look out into our fields, I see the cows, and in my mind they are happy cows.  We don't have a feed lot where they are all shuffled together, they have room to go and play and get their fun on.  The chickens get to roam and peck and find grasshoppers galore (sidebar it cracks me up when I see eggs marketed as Free Range Grain Fed Only...exactly how are you going to stop free range chickens from eating other stuff as well as grain, but I digress).  They know that someone is looking out for them and we treat them with respect and love.  Hmm--does that make the meat taste better?  I don't even know if the USDA could test on that--maybe they could. 

Do we really as consumers know where our food comes from?  Our clothes?  What we drink?  Do we just turn on the faucet and assume that the city/rural district we are in is accurate in the testing of the water samples?  Do we know what is in the food that we feed our animals?  Birds, dogs, gerbils, fish, cattle, whatever your chosen pet is.  How far are we removed from the production of said item to the final consumption?  Has mass merchandising created a mass-ive disconnect in society?  I realize there are more questions than answers in this rambling thought.  I guess the only real answer is that we, as humans, have the choice.  We can choose to grow a garden if we desire; we can contact a local farmer and get fresh meat and eggs; we can pack kids lunches to avoid school lunch nutrition; we can choose to take a sewing class and make our own clothes; all of these things we can choose to do, or we can just go to Wally World and fill our basket with a variety of what we want.

Me--I do believe that happy cows come from happy farms and when I made pizza the other night from fresh pork, fresh vegetables from our garden, eggs in the dough from our chickens...it was pretty tasty and definitely a good choice  :-)

1 comment:

  1. Sounds like a "need to get back to the basics" blog to me. There is something special about making it yourself whether it be food (gardening and raising animals), clothes or whatever. It is a matter of choice. But I think sometimes we beat ourselves up over every choice we make. Should I drink organic milk or regular? Soy milk? Almond milk? Is one choice going to make a huge difference? Maybe or maybe not. I think what's important is to make a few choices that feel really right to you and recognize that other people's choices probably feel right to them and relax about it. There are other important issues to worry about like people who don't have milk at all and would gladly drink milk of any sort just to have something to put into their bellies.

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