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We've paid the extra for free-range eggs for as long as I can remember, but never seriously looked at where our meat comes from. But we should! It's just so hard to pass-up cheap meat when you have a large family and a modest income, but really we could do better.
ReplyDeleteIt's easy to choose free-range eggs when they're so visibly labelled, but for so many other products it can be difficult to shop ethically. Who has time to research which companies have clean records when it comes to human rights abuse, animal cruelty, environmental issues, etc? Thankfully we've just got hold of a little booklet that has pulled together the research from various organizations and rated products based on these considerations. You can check it out at: http://www.ethical.org.au/guides/
Have you come across something similar produced specifically for the US market?
How convenient to have such a reference. I've not seen anthing like that yet in the states. I'll check out the website.
ReplyDeleteWe live in a rural community so free range eggs are easy to come by and cheap. I think that it would be very easy to find a local livestock owner who would agree to raise beef and pork naturally if the price was right.
Living in the Mid West and growing up on a farm has raised my awareness regarding our food chains. What's sad is that today the family farm is being fazed out and ag businesses are taking over. There are a lot of environmental consequences to these big operations. With the current gov't subsidies farmer's can grow a crop that would otherwise cost them money to grow. It's really messed up.
I'm right now fascinated with the chemistry of "natural" and "artifical" flavors....it's very scary to think about what we put in our bodies. It's no wonder we suffer from cancer and other diseases.
Self-sustaining environments really do interest me...the challenge to make it would be awesome and I imagine life would be less hectic in many different ways.
I have worked on a few projects involving land and water degradation, and my client (a scientist) was explaining how modern technology has allowed commercial farming to squeeze more and more out of our deteriorating soil, but how that path leads to a dead-end sooner or later. I imagine most of our fruit and vegies don't have anywhere near the amount of nutrients they should have if the soil was healthy.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of 'artificial' flavors, and highly-processed food in general, I had another client once who was involved in the production of virgin cold-pressed coconut oil. Now coconut oil is high in saturated fatty acids, and as such is a victim of all the bad press surrounded saturated fats that started (early last century?) when butter was suddenly linked to heart disease and the world went margarine mad. However, the rate of heart disease actually increased as I understand it, and now the scientific world understands the evils of trans fats. (Sorry if my history is a bit over-simplified here — I'm going by memory.)
At one point the 'experts' told us eggs were bad for our health too — the simple logic being that they are high in cholesterol. Now it seems that eating eggs can actually lower your blood cholesterol. Who knows what they will tell us tomorrow.
So I'm of the general view that if it's growing out of God's green earth, it's probably a lot better for you than if it comes out of a packet. In other words, the less processed the better. Simple philosophy and it doesn't require a degree in biochemistry or food science!
Being relatively self-sustaining interests me too. I can't imagine ever going 100% with food — I have no interest in slaughtering cattle for one thing! But it's a dream to one day build a fully sustainable home that doesn't require external services like electricity, and possibly even water and sewerage. It can all be done with good design principles, and it's frustrating that more people don't have the foresight to do it when we're consuming our planet's natural resources like they're infinite. Not only that, but I imagine a house that relies on the principles of solar passive design for heating and cooling would be a healthier and more pleasant environment to live in than our typical heated and air-conditioned homes.