As I mentioned a couple days (weeks?) ago, I spent a day at an organic farm recently. They had a brunch buffet in their barn and then showed everybody around their farm and explained what they do and what it means to be produce organically.
The beautiful pig you see above spends a lovely 7 or 8 months with his family before being…well, slaughtered, and turned into organic meat. Since I’m a vegetarian, it still makes me cringe a little, but it’s good to know that these animals had a good life before their untimely end.
Pigs love mud! Take note of the beautiful pig tails on these animals. On conventional pig farms, they are either removed or the other pigs take a bite out of them for lack of space.
Another perk that comes with organic food is that it doesn’t have as many antibiotics. On conventional farms, animals are basically kept barely alive and on heavy medication throughout their very short life span.
The kind of chicken that is raised for meat actually couldn’t even get much older even if it were allowed to do so, because it has been genetically engineered to put on so much weight that it would soon become too much for its bone structure to carry.
THe first time I read about that I thought it was insane. Would the government really allow that? Well, the food industry defends their practices by saying that animals are products (and not creatures.)
The farm I was on only raises chickens for eggs, and what you see here is part of the outdoor area the birds can access.
They also have some cows for meat and a couple sheep that function as lawn mowers.
If you’re interested in learning more about meat processing and food processing in general, check out Jonathan Safran Foer’s “Eating Animals.” It is nicely written and mixes an engrossing personal approach with well-researched facts.
There is also a number of movies from the last decade or so that deal with these issues, like We feed the World, Food Inc., Our Daily Bread, and others.
The information you will get isn’ t always easy to digest, but it’s worthwhile knowing where your food came from.
P.S. If any of you have been sweating as much as I have these last days, let it be known that meat production is the number one cause for environmental problems.
allmymoons 