A funny thing happens when you grow your own food (at least part of the year like we have to, not many plants live in the snow) and you watch your own chickens grow from little chicklings .. it is almost imperceptible for me but I have grown to feel much more personally identified with my food.
When I take a bite of meat at lunch at work I get a flash of factory farmed cows, pigs, chickens. I mourn the degradation of life, wasted by it’s use in high throughput food.
Mind you, I am really not the squeamish type. Its not the death but its the life that I am thinking about when I get that flash, when my heart burns with sadness.
I don’t think I am developing an incipient form of a food disorder, overly sensitive about food, just to feel and be precious.
I think that growing my own food and chickens has led me to an unexpected place - hope, raised self-esteem, and a greater love for all beings. All these words over-articulate a simple experience of simply yearning to eat honest food, food I have raised and cared for myself.
Our chickens will start laying soon. Protein. Good, got that covered. Spring will bring our garden and early lettuces. Slowly we will be able to eat the main portion of our food from our own soils, picked by our own hands.
We will be getting our first dairy goat(s) soon so we will be able to unhook from the factory-farmed teat that is pumping me and my family full of excessive growth hormones (artificial or not, the cows today have been bred to be overproducing over-hormoned breeds that, by definition, are putting out an undernourished, depleted milk that very likely is contaminated with an excess of naturally produced growth hormones.)
Remember, I am a scientist with a background in reproductive cell biology. I am not the maudlin sort. I understand on the molecular level how growth hormones effect our bodies and I am learning how our high throughput food is impacting my health negatively, forced my young daughter into an early puberty, and may be impacting my other even younger daughter and my baby boy.
Our high throughput food is feminizing, its packed with mammalian estrogens and phytoestrogens that make us look more and more like the very over-hormoned over-producing cows that give us our “wholesome†milk products.
I can’t say with certainty where it will all end but I think I am trending toward a sort of conditional vegetariansm. Mindful eating, mindful consuming of wholesome homegrown veggies, eggs, and goat milk products (chevre, yummm). We could very easily grow up a whole mess of hogs but I am in a phase right now where I am not interested in more killing than what we really need. We also need to lose some weight so a lower protein input is not that much of a bad thing.
What are YOUR thoughts on food these days?
Are you checked out and just eating to feed the tummy? Are you reveling in a diverse but not particularly healthy diet? Are you full on into a meat-stravaganza? Or are you pretty much even-keel, eating the same as you ever do, not giving much thought to any of it?
I guess I would have to say I am aversive to high throughput food and needing slow food, not because someone told me it was fashionable or shamed me into it, but rather, because I have tasted how good honest authentic food can be and somehow that has seeped deeper than I knew, until recently.
12 comments for this entry ↓
1 Aldea // Feb 10, 2008 at 8:41 am
I agree with you on how it feels when you grow your own. I feel humbled on some level - it’s hard work, and makes you realize just how small you are in this big world.
2 Nicole // Feb 10, 2008 at 10:47 am
Nika, I can honestly say that I don’t exactly know where I’m at right now in regards to food. I’m definitely at a crossroads. A few weeks ago, I lost the desire to eat meat. So I stopped, for now. I’m not really sure what it means but I’m listening to my body. Going to the large grocery stores has become such an uncomfortable experience that I can hardly stand it anymore. I’m trying to learn how and where to shop without having to drive all over the city. It’s a slow process and I feel that the changes have been happening to me rather than myself making the changes.
That was all kind of vague but that’s how I’m feeling right now. Thanks for the great post!
3 Janna // Feb 10, 2008 at 3:11 pm
Nika,
Thank you for this lovely, thoughtful post, that articulates much that has been on my mind lately.
I’m currently reading Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, and it’s awakened my husband’s and my dream to move out of the city, grow food, and be self-sufficient, and to raise our (future) children in such an environment, where they know where food comes from, and are part of the cycle of growing it.
I still do eat meat, although increasingly am limiting the animal products we eat from unknown sources. I recently subscribed to a meat CSA that someone put together in our area, and am looking forward to stocking our freezer with humanely grown animal products.
Thanks for beginning this discussion.
4 Anon // Feb 11, 2008 at 12:04 am
I applaud you for your conditional vegetarianism.
My question for those of you still considering raising animals for meat - is will you be sending these animals out to be butchered — or will you be killing these animals yourself.
If you are sending them out to be butchered, the question for you is why?
If you are going to be killing these animals yourself — the queston for you is - what is your emotional state when doing this?
Have you thought about why milk production and veal production are hand in glove? It is my thought that milk production is not viable without the corresponding killing of animals.
5 Libby // Feb 11, 2008 at 8:30 am
Nika,
Interesting questions all. We moved to a small farm too late to raise our chuldren her….big regret!…but still with lotsof time to raise vegeetables, herbs etc. With a cold old farm basement, we can put away enough to last until spring, but I still find myself cruising the produce aisle looking for the wonderful thngs that come from 1000s of miles away. Some self discipline is in order.
We have also branched out to wild meat. We snare rabbits, and in the fall my husband shoots some geese. Friends who hunt give us venison and moose. After a marvellous, chemical free stew of rabbit braised in a homemade red wine, it’s hard to go back to the chemical mess that passes for meat in the supermarket, so I guess I’m becoming more of a part time meat eater.
We even try to get the manure from our garden from some Mennonite farmers who feed their cattle organic meal. There’s so much to think about in trying to clean up our food source, but I se so much illness around me, I am convinced we are doing terrible things to ourselves with our supermarket diets.
6 Curt // Feb 11, 2008 at 10:51 am
Nika, nice article, and well thought-out. I’m somewhere in between things myself. We don’t have room to grow things, living on a hill with nothing but woods. I could make room, but the time to give a garden justice may not be there, with both of us working. I’m going to try at least herbs this year, though.
On meat, being a barbecue lover at heart, the easiest thing to do is to go to Sam’s and buy whatever they have. I’ll admit that I usually do this for a competition, for several reasons. However, for home use, I’m finding myself either buying half a steer from a farm I know, a hog here and there from other farmers I know, or buying more expensive cuts from a better butcher. The large grocery store meat department is pretty much skipped over.
With local farmers, I can verify they’re giving care to the animals. I’m not an animal rights person (more animal welfare), and I believe some animals are here to feed us, if we want to use them for that. However, we can overdo it, and we can treat them badly. I try to at least support those that do their best to treat the animals well.
In today’s world, I can’t keep my job and raise all my own food. I’ll buy from locals as much as possible, though, and support their efforts, even at a higher cost to me.
7 nika // Feb 17, 2008 at 1:51 pm
Aldea: indeed - I get that feeling when I look at Hubble deep field photos - we are truly sub-atomic (and less) in importance!
8 nika // Feb 17, 2008 at 1:54 pm
Nicole: I completely know what you mean, I feel the same way when I go to the only food store within like 50 miles (I have to go at least 50 miles to find anything that is not big box food store and then its just expensive big box whole foods).
9 nika // Feb 17, 2008 at 1:57 pm
Janna: Dont wait for that long off day, do some raised beds like we do (http://humblegarden.com) - they are amazingly productive. Meat CSAs are awesome. The little piggy you see above was part of last summer’s CSA at the Many Hands Organic Farm in Barre, MA.
10 nika // Feb 17, 2008 at 2:03 pm
Anon: If you check out some of my previous posts you will see that I am not the squeamish sort. I dont know about you but I have killed farm animals before and I have butchered them. What I am having a serious issue with is enabling the factory farming.
While there are quite a few americans who are utterly out of touch with their food source, I am betting the people who commented here and those who read foodie blogs in general have a better clue. I try to give people the benefit of the doubt and not give off a strident attitude in that respect. This is about conversation and I think its best to keep a positive open mindset.
11 nika // Feb 17, 2008 at 2:05 pm
LIbby: your life sounds wonderful! (and delicious) It is SO VERY HARD to find clean organic manure.. getting that clean carbon and nitrogen back into the soil is some of the hardest stuff we all can do.
12 nika // Feb 17, 2008 at 2:08 pm
Curt: Herbs are a delicious beginning! If you have time (and I am not sure if you have done this) check out our garden blog (http://humblegarden.com) to see what we had to do to our backyard to make some space.
You are doing the exact right thing supporting those local ranchers and farmers. You are lucky to know how to find them!
When I was a kid, living in Iowa, we had an enormous chest freezer and we would freeze away sides of beef. It wasnt until we moved to Texas that I realized that things were different in different parts of the US.
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