Happy Food: Sarah's Social Action Snapshot
Joel, Teresa and Rachel Salatin
A lot of the food we eat now is pretty sad. How can it present a happy face to us when it's laden with heavy doses of pesticides, hormones, Genetically Modified Organisms and covered in antibiotics, with perhaps a sprinkling of Salmonella and e-Coli on top. Not exactly what you want to sit down to eat three times a day. Despite these alarming facts, we can each make happy food choices for each meal. I am referring to nourishing meals that are made with happy foods free of all of the nasty stuff I mentioned that will bring a big grin to your face.
I had several meals that made me really happy while at Polyface Farm in Virginia. My hosts
A Polyface barn; it was really cold, snowy and beautiful.
were Joel and Teresa Salatin, residents of a 50 acre farm nestled in the glorious Shenandoah Valley, south of Washington, DC. Joel looks like your stereo-typical farmer. He speaks in a heavy drawl, greeted us in blue jean pants and top and is devoted to the farm that he inherited from his parents.
a bull at Polyface
However, beyond the facade, Joel is actually a radical farmer (or as he labeled himself, a lunatic farmer) who is quietly helping to revolutionize our food system. Joel is a star of Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma and our upcoming documentary, Food, Inc. He runs a sustainable farm that really shouldn't be viewed as radical; it's just unusual because it's non-traditional but really should be the status quo in agriculture. Joel, along with his son Daniel and a team of interns, raise pigs, chickens and cows in an ecologically sustainable way ("beyond organic").
All his animals lead happy lives by roaming the fields rather than being held in small confined areas, standing in their own feces, as is the norm on industrial farms. Since they're enjoying life in the fields, they eat what grows in the pastures (grass, not corn!). And, their waste is recycled amongst the animals, creating zero waste . Industrial agriculture, on the other hand, produces enough polluted run-off equivalent to some US cities. And, most importantly, Joel and his team care greatly about the animals rather than viewing them as merely a consumer commodity.
Polyface piggie
I'm a stubborn vegetarian who didn't switch to meat after visiting Polyface. However, I developed a much greater appreciation for farmers like Joel who raise their animals under natural, humane conditions while ensuring our environment is protected. Whether or not you're a vegetarian like me, you can make your meals a lot happier but choosing as many sustainable products as possible. Learn more with Environmental Working Group's latest produce pesticide list, the Eat Well Guide for local food sources and Polyface Farms.
- Categories: Environment
The fundamental ideology here is no different than the one that caused us to find ourselves in an environmental, health, moral holocaust.
Animals are NOT food for humans, nor should they be looked at as "commodities."
What is tragic here is that even this "farm" uses needless resources to fatten animals, increases noxious gasses contributing to climate change, and the animals will die prematurely in a system that considers their that lives exist only to serve human narcissists who think the "Bible" gives us permission to exploit entire species for our own purposes.
While this location is not a factory farm, it still acts on a flawed premiss of pretense.
What we need in the new global community, is a rethinking of human place IN nature, not comparing ourselves to REAL carnivores, and a new paradigm for educating children to have a mostly plant based diet which would teach them reverence for all living beings. Imagine!
Eating pork is NOT necessary. Eating eggs is NOT necessary. When animals must be fed and slaughtered to please a perverted, acculturated palate, and animals suffer, we never move forward . We are ALL BEINGS, some human, some others.
We never had the "right" to steal animals from the wild, and we still do NOT have the right to force breed them, steal their young, and confine them in unnatural existences over producing plant foods from Mother Earth, where our earthly medicine came from....
Sarah, I envy your experience at the polyfarm. You had an experience that I have been wishing to have for years. I have in recent years developed a passion for environmental care especially through teaching my people better ways of farming than relying on chemicals. Here in Africa, people are now used to burning their gardens just before planting, in order to get rid of weeds and it has lately been of great concern to me. I have bought five acres of land that I hope to open a demonstration farm that I could use to teach rural communities better farming methods. I wish I could also one day visit the polyfarm to learn their methods.
Wow, this makes me very happy to hear! A farm that actually lets their animals roam around freely and that are grass fed as opposed to corn fed. Not only is this more humane for the animal, but also it helps to prevent some food born illnesses that are caused by over crowding in today's "Farms".
Thanks, David, for your comments. I agree that Polyface is a magical gem. After my visit there, I told my dad that if he's going to eat meat, he should buy only from Joel. my dad proclaimed, "wow, Sarah, this is the first time you've ever told me to eat meat!."
Hi Sarah, Nice snapshot of Polyface Farms, one of my favorite places on earth. Your comments are especially poignant in that they come from a "stubborn vegetarian." In my personal odyssey with pasture-raised meats I have found the vegetarian crowd to be very receptive to more thoughtfully produced meats and their contribution to a more stable environment, happy animals, healthy people, thriving rural economy and the rest of the long, happy list that attends pasture-raised animals versus confined livestock and field crops. I'm looking forward to your documentary. Their farm is 4 or 500 acres by the way, I'm not sure which.