Feeding your family without feeding them commercially-raised...

[Beekissed]

meats, eggs, dairy, etc.

This topic was raised on the BYC and folks over there were wondering how many people try to do this, how they do this, and how do you get around it in social situations, if you do?

So, c'mon, folks.....do you? Why or why not? How did you make changes, adapt recipes to accomodate or eliminate this from your intake. How many of you didn't need to make changes, but have always raised your own food for this purpose?

 

[pioneergirl]

I just really got into it this year. Baby steps, lol. I would LOVE to be completely off the commercial food grid. I'm still in the learning process, with doing the meat birds in the spring, and working the garden. I've been keeping a notebook, documenting different things and learning what NOT to do next time around. I tease the DH that I'm going to sell the car for a horse and buggy...he's very accomodating, but I think that would send him over the edge, LOL.

I think I said it before on a different post...we could all just pitch in and get our own island, living off of our talents and all the homegrown/raised 'stuff'.

 

[farm_mom]

We do not eat any CAFO products. We've been raising chickens and our own organic garden for years, but we had never really thought to go beyond that until a couple of years ago. I started educating myself more, by reading authors like Joel Salatin, Michael Pollan and Joan Dye Gussow and began feeling empowered. While I had been aware on the periphery of the horrors of factory farm operations, I had always felt like, well, that was the system and there is nothing I can do about it. Now I know otherwise.

We try to plug into our local food system as much as possible. We are members of a cowboarding program, and from this farm we get milk, cheeses, butter and we also have access to pasture raised beef, pork, chicken and eggs through this organic farm. We also joined a CSA bi-weekly to help suppliment our own gardening. From this local, organic farmer I can buy eggs, and pasture raised chicken, beef, pork and turkey as well as my vegetables. We also like to fish, and my husband is trying his hand at bow hunting this year. What we cannot find from these sources, I scour local farmers markets for things like local grains, flours, honey etc...

If we don't have it, can't find it, we go without. For example: if we don't catch any fish, we just don't eat fish. I don't just run to the store and buy China-grown tilipia. So I guess, to some it may be considered a sacrifice. For us, it's just life! We may pay more $ a pound for meat than someone who buys CAFO meat, but we think it is well worth it. We buy better quality meat and partake less often. And we try to use all of the animal as much as possible in our own butchering. (We raise chickens, turkeys and ducks for eggs/meat.)

As for social situations, I don't press my beliefs/lifestyle on others. When they bring out their CAFO produced meal, I may just take a small enough portion to go unnoticed and I usually just eat the veg and avoid the meat if I can. I live by example, and while I am considered to be an oddity with strange ideas, I find the more people see the way I live...the more they start to ask me questions, show an interest and make changes of their own!

 

[BrookValley]

Well, we don't eat any meat so that takes that out of the equation. Our reasons for being vegetarian are many, but this is one of them--avoiding commercially-raised meat. It was just easier to go without (and, like I said, there are other reasons, too). We do eat eggs and dairy. I have chickens so we eat our own eggs, of course. And I do keep dairy goats, but so far no preggo goats!! I'm crossing my fingers for some late fall babies. As for dairy, I try to find organic products that are produced from small-farm co-ops rather than the big commercial organic dairies (which are basically jus regular factory farms that manage to meet the qualifications for "organic" to slap the label on their product. Horizon is a big one that I try to avoid, for example, though there are many).

I'm not nearly as self-sufficient as I'd like to be when it comes to food, but I'm working on it, slowly but surely! Like Pioneergirl said--baby steps! Oh, and OT, but I totally have a little horse that I want to teach to drive. Unfortunately, I did the math and the cost of feeding the horse and shoeing her for the road is more expensive than just driving the car. But I still am planning to drive her if I can find the time and the equipment to do so.

As for social situations--well, of course we don't eat meat for any reason. We will eat eggs and dairy when we go out. However, we rarely go out to restaurants. Most likely if we're going "out" to eat it's to a friend or family's house. We often do big breakfasts with my husband's parents for things like birthdays, mother's/father's day, etc. In those cases I try to offer eggs for cooking or to bring an egg dish myself, things like that. And our close friends that we eat with most often are pretty much on the same page as us--they aren't growing a lot of their own stuff this year, but they do try hard to buy local (and are also vegetarian). Also, when food comes up in discussion, I always like to talk about keeping my own chickens or buying from local small farms, etc. My mother-in-law likes to buy local stuff--she often calls me with updates on what she's found at the local farm stands. So for us, eating "out" usually goes along with avoiding factory farmed food on some level.

 

[ticks]

I should be getting eggs anyday now. Next year we are raising some meat chickens.

 

[farm_mom]

I should be getting eggs anyday now. Next year we are raising some meat chickens.

Ohh.....the anticipation! Nothing is as exciting as getting those first eggs!! My children think everyday is Easter!!

 

[ticks]

I have been expecting them for 4 days.

 

[me&thegals]

farm mom, what does CAFO stand for?

We avoid commercially grown meat, dairy and eggs, fruits and vegetables as much as possible. We have chickens for meat and eggs, my husband is a hunter, which provides us as much venison as we can eat, sometimes elk or other, sometimes we fish and get lake salmon, some trout. Generally, I try to keep our meaty meals to only 3 main meals per week. In the winter, we tend to eat a lot of soup without meat, which helps keep out commercial food quite easily.

Dairy come from a cousin's farm, no hormones.

The ONLY reason I decided to raise chickens was that I read about how battery hens are kept. Yuck! I did not want to be part of a system that supported that kind of treatment. I'm not huge on animal rights--like I feel okay eating them occasionally--but I absolutely believe all things living should live in dignity--human or other animals--and felt wrong paying for such abuse. So, we're going for meat and eggs from happy animals

 

[farm_mom]

CAFO=Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation. Another way of saying factory, industrial or comercially farmed.

 

[miss_thenorth]

Before my kids were born, I really didn't put much thought into what we ate. I have always been frugal, (I'm dutch )but after my son was born, I really started thinking about what we put in our bodies, mainly b/c I was concerned about what went into his.

It was about this time when my dh started hunting, and he got his first deer. then geese, and ducks followed. Shortly after, we moved up north, where pretty much all of our meat was wild. (moose, bear, grouse, fish, hare).

Also with two young kids at home, and me being a stay at home mom, I figured out ways to eat more naturally, (basically eliminated most processed foods from our diets ), frugally, and I learned to garden, can, cook from scratch, and we wild foraged alot.

Now we are back in SW ont, and although hunting land is hard to find out here, we are able to raise our own meat and eggs, Although my garden was a bust this year, we are able to buy local produce and pick our own strawberries, peas, cherries, blueberries, beans, peaches, apricots, apples, etc.

We are also buying 1/2 a cow from a friend who pasture raised it.

Next year we plan on having a pig, possibly our own cow for milk and meat , as well as our chickens, and goats. Possibly rabbits, although my dh doesn't want to clean them Hopefully my garden will be able to grow (it was under water for a month due to unseasonal amounts of rainfall.) I have hopes of making my own cheese and continue to make many things from scratch. If I cannot have a successful garden, at least I live in an area where locally grown produce is abundant.

We have lived this way for at least 12 years now, and my kids know the benefits of why we live/eat this way. They hunt with my husband, they understood that the meat birds were raised for dinners, they know where all their food comes from, and how it comes to our table.

They know about how the banana harvesters are treated, just so we can have our bananas for 39 cents/lb. they know how the meat and egg birds are treated, just so we can have our chicken for 99 cents/lb.
They even know about the child labourers who "quite possibly" made their running shoes. (I would not willingly support this, although, I do believe it is very difficult to find out how and by whom, things like this are made )

We try our best to be conscious of the things we buy, but we still have to become alot more aware, IMO. So, that is my goal.