Food Declaration

I find it very easy to be both an environmentalist and a meat-eater. All the meat I eat is local and sustainably raised, and I don't eat much of it.

Our diets should not consist of as much meat as they do anyway, people were not meant to be pure carnivores and this "meat and potatoes" mentality is not healthy. Motto mention how much more humane the small farm system is, how much safer small butchery operations are than industrial meat packing that slauters feces covered, overly fat animals, and not to mention how much of a better quality the meat is from an animal living as nature intended, factory meat tastes like fatty nothing!!!

Marcie that was poetic!

:) Thanks Janet - poetry is easy when it's real, know what I mean? This guy is so fantastic - I wish I could get him into a venue here. Not that Santa Cruz needs any more awakening, but it's just nice to have the consistency from lots of voices!

I get Capay Farms to drop a box for me every two weeks...it is more expensive...but it's local and organic...worth just a few bucks more!

WarrinerPaying a little more up-front seems more expensive but isn't in the long run. Food isn't cheap nor should it be if it's good quality. Quality satisfies and less is needed.

But we need to be aware of the power of our dollars in business and politics. They are watched carefully.

I remember my grandparents having a farm. We used an outhouse and chamber pots. They had cows- dairy and feed, pigs, chickens and veggies, along with a substantial base of tobacco (KY). Then something happened (most likely tobacco decline). I was too young to understand, but my grandparents had to "Leave The Farm" and "Move To Town". Within a few years of the move my grandfather died and my grandmother moved into subsidized housing. I don't know which happened first or which caused what.

I am 48 and for the first time in 40 years this fall, I tasted a real fresh from the tree apple, no make that several varieties of real apples. The adjectives to describe that experience lack the feeling behind the experience.

At this point does it really matter which caused what or who came first? It seems that us folks here are in agreement about the big picture. The smaller differences seem insignificant to me as we face the bigger challenge of (like Chris said) bringing this culture back.... Read More

Am I even on the same page as you guys?

Well Marcie it sounds like you're on the same page with me anyway. I may be in a different chapter than some Food Dec friends, but we are all in the same book.

Does it matter how we got here? In many senses, no. But if we are going to undo the damage or move forward to to a new and better phase I think we should be very aware of history. I know this tends to make me sound like a real pessimist sometimes, but we can't succeed if we underestimate the scope of the challenge ahead.

Of course there will be tremendous pushback against people like Marion Nestle and Michael Pollan as soon as their ideas start to gain traction. Multi-national agri-businesses will attempt to portray "food talks" as extremist kooky ideas. Companies like Monsanto and Syngenta will continue to promote themselves as being on the cutting edge of sustainable agriculture while they sell their patented GM seeds and the chemical cocktails needed to grow them.

Follow the big money to find the fraud. The two go hand in hand in any venue. Ethics might as well be redefined as a slight mispronunciation of a location in England at this point; it's certainly absent from the vocabulary of most large American businesses and their upper management.

And let us not forget that Cargill, a major food *producer*, ... Read Morealso has an extensive "strategic partnership" with Kroger, and via them also King Soopers and Ralph's and a number of other large supermarket chains. Monopolistic tactics? Heaven forbid that anyone should accuse them of such...and go unpunished.

Wake up people. Climate change is going to cost us all a heck of a lot more than dealing with it will.

love this!!

I'm curious, but who actually believes the gov't has our backs? With all the political contributions, special interests, and those damn subsidies... why wouldn't gov't want to keep the agri-biz & pharma companies in bed with them? There's a lot of profit to be made and we, the people, are ancilliary. So we got a garden at the white house... and this is the trade off?

Looks like the only "change" we can expect from Obama is that now we have a democrat in office who is as bent on global corporate domination and the extinction of the middle-class as the previous administration was. I'm shocked...not.

Love this. We are thinking of going solar. If ibwas not a chef I would be a farmer -

we're about to grow energy along with crops, chickens, bees, cats, dogs & a kid.

Awesome!

I don't have access to the best help money can buy,and my husband and I both have full time jobs. No one else does it for us. Our vegetable garden certainly takes time and attention, but we managed to harvest copious amounts of tomatoes, eggplants, zucchini and peppers. Vegetable gardening may take commitment, but the beauty of it is that you can provide lots of food for yourselves plus some to share without having a lot of money, or the "best help money can buy."

Ditto from Texas. Have just finished planting the winter garden and still harvesting from the summer garden. Bountiful amounts of okra, eggplant, and basil.