Food, Inc.

I'm with hikerchick. I'm on a first name basis with the women who grow my veggies and beef, and know my pig farmers fairly well. I get my eggs from the birdies in the back. Yes, I shop at the grocery store, but lots of my food comes from people I know.

The beef I eat is primarily grass/hay fed. We are in the second year of drought here, and both the grass and hay are not what the could be. My farmer supplements early for greater marbling in the meat, since fat cells are laid down when the animal is young. Buying directly from the farmers also makes me more aware of the needs of farmers than buying from the supermarket. My veggie CSA is shut down for 2 weeks for the plants to recover. The drought and extreme heat are hurting them, and they have river frontage with good soil and a strongly producing well.

My veggie farmer is looking for a larger location, with cheaper land. She will probably be turning over her current location to a program called Urban Roots. Urban Roots teaches high school students about truck gardening, and in this case organic farming.
 
That's good to hear....especially since I just bought a bunch of pork on sale yesterday...
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I bought a small farm and started raising and growing my own food. That isn't helping the small local farmer that much (although I do try to patronize them), but at least I'm contributing less to the problem.

Are you completely 100% self sufficient??
 
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I bought a small farm and started raising and growing my own food. That isn't helping the small local farmer that much (although I do try to patronize them), but at least I'm contributing less to the problem.

Are you completely 100% self sufficient??

Well, considering I can't generate enough electricity yet to run my computer, and since I need an ISP in order to write messages on this site, and need site administrators to run it, and other people writing to it for me to respond to, I'd say the answer to that question is obvious.

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There are not many jobs that a person lives 24/7 and is totally 100% intertwined with your lifestyle. Farming is one that does. I'm not talking about giant corporation farms....but those of us who are still a family farm. I just get really tired of people who think they are informed, but most often aren't, thinking that all we farmers are sitting back collecting government payments and getting rich. There are still those of us who make our life and living on the land because we want to, not because we're getting rich off of it.

This I'm aware of... it's a hard lifestyle when you have to wake up at 3:00 in the morning to make sure that your investments are ok... I'm talking about poultry not crops... But in your case it's the same way.

That's the problem... farmers aren't making any money off of the government. They give you just enough to make you happy... and it's not even close to enough. Not when the food industry is making billions off of your crops.​
 
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For the record, I don't believe it was me who said that. And I haven't seen the film, so I don't know if it says it or not.

I did... and I took it back...
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But I need to see it again as I'm not sure exactly what they said but it blew me away... I guess your just going to have see it!
 
They give you just enough to make you happy... and it's not even close to enough. Not when the food industry is making billions off of your crops.

And that refining process turns food in to "Non-food" which actually causes disease.​
 
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And that refining process turns food in to "Non-food" which actually causes disease.

Ahhh, the old C.S Lewis 'robber barons' quote. One of my faves. That has taken on a new life in this age and time.
 
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And that refining process turns food in to "Non-food" which actually causes disease.

I guess it depends on how you define "food".
 
high fructose corn syrup isn't food in my book. Neither are most soy products. If it has been mashed, boiled, heated, extruded and turned in to a flake, nugget, or puff (which destroys all the nutrients, damages the proteins, and then requires it to be "fortified"), that isn't food either.
 

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