A Life-Altering Read

I am currently reading a book that might very well change my life. The Omnivore’s Dilemma reveals the nasty truth about how much of our food is grown, processed, and distributed. Aside from determining never to eat at McDonalds again and reading the labels on everything, I want to eat only meat that is humanely grown and slaughtered.

The first half of the book deals with the fact that corn and corn products are in most commercial foods. Animals which should be eating grass are being fed corn because it is cheap and because they gain weight more rapidly, making them ready for slaughter sooner.

But the descriptions of industrial farms with animals confined in small indoor areas standing in their muck for their entire life are absolutely disgusting. Their diet of corn laced with antibiotics is all they ever know. They cut off an industrial pig’s tail because otherwise another pig will chew it off causing infection because they are in such close confinement. They kill 400 cows an hour.

Even the “organic” label is debunked. You know those free-range chickens we all have come to envision as having the run of the range? In reality to satisfy the organic definition, they spend the last two weeks of their lives in a confined area that has a door at the end leading out to a grassy area. However, most of them never go through the door.

But there is another way to farm. I am so taken with the approach at Polyface Farm in Swoopes, Virginia. Joel Salatin and his family have created a layered environment for raising chickens, beef, hogs, turkeys, and rabbits that is “grass” based. Chicken feed is the sole off-farm source of fertility. Chickens are moved every day to a different patch of grass so they can get nourishment from the grass, worms, grasshoppers, and crickets and so they can then go to work fertilizing it. The hens in the “Eggmobile” are rotated behind the cattle so they can eat the fly larvae out of the cow pies, thereby getting rid of an insect problem. The other animals are also moved often so as not to over-graze any part of the farm.

There is a necessary balance between the amount of land and the number and types of animals Joel raises. Polyface Farm is built on the efficiencies that come from mimicking relationships found in nature and layering one farm enterprise over another on the same base of land. Using no purchased fertilizer or antibiotics, on 550 acres he is able to produce yearly:
30,000 dozen eggs
12,000 broilers
800 stewing hens
50 beef cows
250 hogs
800 turkeys
500 rabbits

Joel Salatin is a conservative libertarian who has not a lot of good things to say about our government and its interference in farming. I may not agree with his politics, but I’m definitely intrigued with his approach to farming.

I haven’t yet finished the book, but I’m already determined to stop buying meat, even organic meat, raised using the current industrial methods. I’m excited about making a trip down to visit Polyface Farm. I spoke to someone today who told me Joel delivers his meat to multiple sites in the DC area each week for pick-up. I want to get on the order list.