Farm-rasied meats

After reading Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma, I decided one of the best things I could do for my family was to avoid meats from animals raised on massive feedlots. Mr. Pollan does a masterful job of laying out all the things wrong with feedlot-raised animals so I won't go into it much here (EDIT: but you can read this online article from The Atlantic to find out more). Suffice to say, I am happy to avoid them. But, since vegetarianism isn't in my nature, I needed to find a viable alternative. I started doing a little research, looking for farm-raised meat that I might be able to get my hands on. It turns out that there are quite a number of farms in New England that sell meat and eggs from their animals. None seemed just right though for this change in diet I had planned - some were too far away, others offered a very limited selection, a few only sold meat "by the cow" (or 1/2 cow) or had a too-expensive "a la carte" system. Luckily, we found Chestnut Farms.

So, now, once a month we pick up our share of 15 lbs of assorted meats from animals raised by Kim Denney and her family as part of Chestnut Farm's meat CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). In our red-and-white cooler, we get various cuts of beef, chicken, and pork (we opted out of the lamb) - all are farm-raised, free-range, and hormone- and antibiotic-free. And local. Again, I'm talking about animals that are raised on a place that more-or-less looks like the image in your head when you hear the word "farm" - something like this...NOT like this.

In addition to being better for us and better for the environment, the meat we get tastes unbelievable. The pork is like no other pork I have ever tasted. The chicken tastes more "chickeny". The beef is flat-out delicious. All in all, I couldn't be happier with our decision to go this route. Sure, it's more expensive than buying our meat at the supermarket, but I don't think it is all that much more (we pay $7-$8 per pound for everything - so while $7 for a pound of ground beef is quite a bit more than what we'd pay at Stop & Shop, we even out with the tenderloin steaks). Regardless, I think it is worth it - given the quality of the meat we are getting, I'm happy to pay more. As Michael Pollan explains in Omnivore's Dilemma, Americans currently spend the smallest percentage of their income on their food than ever before. It comes down to choices and we've made the conscious choice to spend more money on our food than our cell phones.

On a non-food level, one of the best things about being part of the Chestnut Farms meat CSA has been the experience of getting to know the people that produce our food. Every month when I pick up our share, Kim is there to greet me. She spends a few minutes chatting with everyone and somehow remembers everyone's name. Each month before the pick-up, Kim sends out an info-packed email newsletter about the goings-on on the farm as well as what has been happening in her and her family's lives. There are regular "open barns" where the public is invited to spend an afternoon on the farm. Our kids have met Kim and they understand that she raises the animals that become our food and they are acutely aware that the food on our plates came from a once-living animal (a fact which makes our daughter Emma a tad uncomfortable, which I actually think is a good thing - more on this in a later post).

In my quest to provide my family with high-quality, healthy, local foods, I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Kim and her family. Their decision to do what they do has given me and my family the opportunity to choose where and how our food is produced.

P.S. check out this great article in a recent issue of edible Boston about Chestnut Farms.

(pig and cow images from Chestnut Farms website)

Philosophy of Eating - Part 2

Before I continue with this "Food Manifesto", I'd like to clarify a few things stemming from Part 1.

First, what I am attempting to do here is to lay out, in some logical format, the tenets that drive my food actions (purchasing, cooking, eating, etc). These are not intended to be prescriptive in any way, but more of an exploration into the way I currently view food and an attempt to explain, as best I can, why I do things a certain way.

Second, these tenets are my ideals. They are not always realistic and are therefore not always realized. Given a choice between 'A' and 'B', I will choose the one that best fits with my food philosophy. But sometimes 'C' is the only option - whether because of economic, geographic, medical, or practical constraints.

Third, each principle here is a result of some conscious thought process that involved some sort of "cost-benefit analysis" - some decisions are more informed than others, but none are merely arbitrary (for the most part anyways) - I've thought about each of these and have my reasons for leaning one way or another. I'd love to have a stack of research articles to back up my beliefs, but sometimes I don't (though I'm convinced they're out there if I just had the time/inclination to go looking).

Lastly, I'm not an expert on any of these matters. I'm just a guy who thinks that the way we approach food has important consequences for our health (in all senses of the word), as well as the health of our land and our society and who has decided to spend some time thinking about these consequences. Now, where was I?

To summarize Part 1 - I try to adhere to the following tenets when dealing with food-related decisions:
1) Home cooked foods/meals are best
2) Variety is good
3) Eat locally

Now, on to #4

4. Avoid as many pesticides, antibiotics, and growth hormones as possible
Basically, this means buying, growing, and eating "organic" foods. However, "organic" is such a snake's-nest of a word that I think it's best to be more specific. For something to be certified as organic it must meet a set of standards controlled by the USDA. On the face of it, these standards ensure that anything labeled as "organic" meets some minimum set of criteria that precludes the use of pesticides, synthetic fertilizers, hormones, and antibiotics, among other things. However, there are numerous farmers out there, particularly small, local farmers, who grow crops or raise livestock which are not certified organic, but which meet or even surpass the USDA's standards. So, even though they have not gone through the certification process and cannot therefore be officially labeled as "organic", they are "organic" in the original and important sense of the word . Also, it might be "better" to buy something from a local producer who is mostly organic, but not certified than from a mega-farm 3,000 miles away that is. Again, it's about choices, but "organic" or not, I prefer my food without the added chemicals

5. Eat meat from farm-raised animals
And by 'farm' I mean the type of place that first comes to mind when most people hear the word 'farm'. Farm-raised livestock eat a more natural diet - i.e. the diet they need to be healthy. I'll go into this more in a later post, but I am fully entrenched in the idea that beef, pork, chicken, and eggs from animals that live on a farm are about a billion times healthier for you than anything raised in a feedlot (by the way, I think this should be self-evident if you've ever actually seen an industrial cattle or pig yard). I keep looking for the definitive science to back me up on this, but it's difficult to figure out what is real and what is "spin" - most websites out there on the topic seem to start with a conclusion in mind, one way or the other, and then work backwards to find the data to support them. What I need is a good nutritional science review article on this subject. But for now, it makes sense to me that healthier animals make for healthier food and farm conditions are more conducive to producing healthier animals. So, I'll choose my locally farm-raised meats (which are also "organic") over the meats available in the supermarket.

6. Avoid artificial ingredients, preservatives and otherwise overly "processed" foods
This one should come as no surprise. Artificial ingredients can do some important things - they keep food fresher, longer, they can increase nutritional value, and they can make food taste and look better. However, they can also do some nasty things - some have been linked to hyperactivity and attention deficit disorder in kids , others are linked to obesity, diabetes, and liver disease and processed meats have been linked to prostate and pancreatic cancer. I won't even pretend to think that a few scientific articles makes my point or even that all food additives are toxic. But clearly, they're not all benign either. My point is, given two similar food items, one with artificial ingredients and one without, I believe that the one without is a healthier choice (notice I didn't say that I would always choose that one). Food additives cannot be avoided and our pantry has plenty of items with them. As with many of the previous tenets, the amount of artificial ingredients in our food comes down to a matter of choice and compromise - ideally, I avoid them as much as possible; realistically, I avoid them when it makes sense to.

Still more to come, but it's late and I am out of steam. Hope these ramblings still make sense when I read them in the morning.