Food Inc

[dragonlaurel]

Thanks for all that, LadyHenevere! It is heartening to see what I believe to be a real groundswell of consciousness about our food. Food is so much a part of our health, our social connections, our planet, our wallet, our politics. Just reading school lunch menus tells you a lot about who has power in America. Food touches everything.

I hate to go on and on about CSAs in every thread tonight , but that's the "alternative" food source I work with. Our most recent workshop offering is about how to become more efficient as an operation to help meet the HUGE demand for CSA we have in our area. I could easily double my current business (only 10 families now, true) right now without even trying. A little effort could triple it. A local CSA has 1400 families! People are definitely hungry for change.

I'm also amazed and heartened at how much extra effort people are willing to put forth for good food. They set up egg deliveries amongst themselves every week to distribute my eggs. They pay $2.50/lb for free-range chickens when they could get chicken at a fraction of the cost in the store. They pick up their CSA deliveries each week and work out elaborate pick-up schedules to save gas. They take Sat mornings to come buy at the market. It's really neat how much effort so many people are making.

I offered a canning class this summer and had to cut it off at 7 participants. People are definitely changing.

Keep on talking about the CSA's. It's one of the smart ways this society could go about feeding itself.

Mountain Pioneer- You are preaching to the choir about this system needing serious changes. Until then- get open pollinated seeds for all the stuff you need to grow and save what you can. Pun intended.

 

[Beekissed]

The people I work with really, really need to see this movie! Every time I forget I'm with the Bleeding Hearts, I'm so Much an Animal Lover that I Can't Bear Them Being Killed People and casually drop that I am butchering this or that this weekend, they freak out and act like I'm performing illegal abortions on my place......

Today, I was talking to my mother about killed the unfatted calf, Two Bites, next weekend and they freaked again....asked me why I just didn't "sell her" instead of "killing her"?

WHAT????

I bought her to eat....why then would I sell her? So I explained that, if I sell her, then someone else would kill her and eat her eventually and I wouldn't know if it were done humanely or not. Then I asked if they eat meat and they said they did. Of course. SHEESH! Then I asked how they thought their meat was killed and they hurriedly stated they "didn't want to talk about it"!

How convenient for these folks to spout humanity towards animals and dream that their meat was conceived from fluffy boy and girl cows who don't die but just kiss and hold hooves and then have baby meat wrapped in cellophane. Awwwwwwwww, what a sweet story!

If they weren't my boss and her SIL I'd MAKE them listen and tell them just what kind of industry they are supporting.....but you just can't help stupid, can you?

AND I need the job.......

Sorry, had to rant a little about feeling this frustrated every time some animal nazi does their little humane act....

 

[Wifezilla]

I have a SIL who can't watch if you cut up a whole chicken you bought at the store already butchered and in a plastic bag

I mean seriously...she still EATS chicken. It's not like I slit its throat in front of her. Where does she think chicken comes from anyway???

 

[Dace]

In mt 16 yr old history class the teacher made them watch a film about slaughter houses. She would not excuse anyone from the room. DD said it was very disturbing and graphic. I think that kids need to be aware of what they are eating but I also don't get why a history teacher is showing this.

Last night we were watching a Food Network show where they had a bin of pretty white Peking ducks....for cooking. I was surprised (and pleased) that they showed the chef's dunking the birds in hot water and removing the feathers, they also showed one chef breaking down the bird. DD7 started in with the ohhhh poor duckies! Took that little teaching moment by the reins and explained that it was perfectly fine and that is what meat looks like! I talked about our little fuzzy butts and what did she think was under those feathers?

 

[hwillm1977]

If they weren't my boss and her SIL I'd MAKE them listen and tell them just what kind of industry they are supporting.....but you just can't help stupid, can you?

I saw an animal lover (which I consider myself as well, I eat meat) who took out a classified ad in a paper complaining about hobby farmers, how cruel it was that they kill their animals and why couldn't they just buy their meat at a grocery store like everyone else?

lol... I can't imagine the brains behind that one

I'm going to look through posts about the CSA's, I'd really like to start one myself but am a little intimidated at this point... still in a learning phase So keep posting about it!

 

[okiegirl1]

I know I'm going to have a "duh" moment after I ask this, but what is a CSA??

 

[freemotion]

Community Supported Agriculture. The customer buys a share and picks up a certain amount of produce as it comes into season, throughout the growing season. At least that is how it happens around here!

 

[me&thegals]

Sorry about that--I need to quit tossing that acronym around without defining it. It is as Free says.

The idea is that the farmer and customer share the risk. Technically, since the share is prepaid, if the farmer has a complete loss the customer if out of luck. In actuality, though, no farmer I have ever met has been willing to do that. When there are major crop failures (like in the terrible flooding last year), the farmers around here have given refunds.

This year, I had complete tomato loss due to the blight. My customers are used to about 50 varieties of tomatoes in all shapes, sizes, colors and flavors. My FIL was very gracious in giving me all his reds, and I was grateful, but it was quite different from the variety and volume my customers would normally get. They took on the risk with me...

So, as a customer, you get fresh, local, beautiful and usually organic produce. As a grower, you have a definite, pre-paid customer base. There's no working really, really hard before market and hoping the weather is good and that people are buying, as your market is already there (your CSA customers).

It also gets people thinking local. I include info about other local food opportunities in my newsletters and hook my customers up with them at cost.

It also gives the CSA farmer an existing market for new products. We sold more chickens than we wanted to when we did our first batch of 100 meat birds. Our eggs sell out every week. Hopefully I will have enough honey for sale next year, and I hope to be up and running on soap and lip balm before Christmas. Because of these existing relationships and already-built trust, I think I will have a much easier time selling all these other products than if I went in cold.

 

[okiegirl1]

ahh!! I hadn't heard of that before, and I don't even know if we have anything like that around here.

we have a co-op, but that's all I know of.

hmmmmmm...... I'll have to do some checkin'

 

[Lady Henevere]

I think this is where I found the CSA I'm using: http://www.localharvest.org/csa/