Questions you should really be asking about your food.

The more I learn about food, the more interested I am about it. Where most people couldn't care less about seeing the cow they're planning to eat (or that even grosses them out,) I find it really fascinating and satisfying. Have you seen the Portlandia skit about the couple in a restaurant who won't order the chicken until they meet it?

No, I'm not that extreme! Ha! I don't need to know the animal's name or if it was the type to put its wing around it's buddy's shoulder. I am, however, very interested in knowing most of the other questions this couple asked. Is it local? Is it organic? How was it fed? What was it fed? Who is the farmer? These questions are very important. Most consumers just want to enjoy their food. They don't care what the meat's history is. I used to be that way too. I ate for enjoyment and comfort, not for health and nourishment. The more I became aware of how food affects the body in either a positive or negative way, and the more I learned about how food is medicinal, the more I found out just how important these questions actually are. I now eat to maintain my heath, not for taste. Real food actually tastes better, makes me feel better, and makes me less sick. Naturally, I don't want to get sick again, so these questions remain very important to me.

Is it local / Who is the farmer? That's a great starting question. When it's local you save money because you're not paying for this shipping costs. You also support the local economy, helping small businesses in your area succeed. Furthermore, when it's local you can go and meet the farmer, even make special requests! You can rest easy knowing exactly how your food is raised. You no longer have to wonder things such as, "Did the company spray glyphosate on this?" When you understand that many common farming practices makes food very toxic, you really want to know if those toxins are in your food. You want control over your body and your health, don't you?


Is it organic? The certification will help answer a lot of questions right away. It means the food is not GMO, does not have glyphosate (Monsanto's patented pesticide made specifically for their GMO crops) intentionally sprayed on it, and has a good nutritional content. If something is certified organic it isn't necessarily the healthiest option, but it's always a better option than non-organic. When it comes to meat, we can't be sure that "organic" means well-raised, though, which is why the next questions are more important.

How was it fed? The way animals are raised substantially impacts the quality of the meat. When animals are caged and don't get to move around, they don't develop properly, and this ends up meaning the meat is not only less nutritious, but unhealthy for us. The meat is fattier, more acidic, more toxic (because the toxic were not exercised out,) and less flavorful. Just look at what exercise does for the human body. It's the same in animals! Would you want to eat an animal that has been so sedentary its whole life that its brittle nutrient deficient bones break from the sheer weigh of the body? Well, that type of chicken meat is most common. Mother Earth News did a fairly indepth study on free-range vs caged chickens and eggs. I think the photos in this news story do a good job of showing why cows are healthier to eat when they've been pasture-raised.

What was it fed? This question couldn't be more important. It is more important than whether the meat is organic or not. Let's look at humans first: if a human spends their life eating only sugar and wheat flour, how healthy do you think he'll be? Probably very obese with multiple health issues, such as diabetes, autoimmune diseases, heart disease, severe psychological damage, and more. Would you want to eat an animal that also had all these heath problems because of the way it ate its entire life? Well, if you're a meat eater, you already do on a regular basis. If you want a good introduction to how sick feedlot cows are, I highly recommend either watching or reading Food Inc. Another very insightful documentary is King Corn. What you'll learn is that cows are not actually capable of digesting grain, but feedlots feed cows grain because it's cheaper and it fattens the cow faster. Farmers are actually trained to surgically remove stomach ulcers from cows that formed from trying to digest corn. There's another major consideration about what the animal was fed. We eat what the animal ate. If the cow was fed corn, candy bars, and garbage its whole life (and yes, that does happen more often than you want to know,) the meat is going to made of nutrients from corn, candy bars, and garbage. If the cow was fed grass its whole life, which is what cows are naturally designed to eat, we eat the nutrients from the grass. Grass is loaded with nutrients, because it pulls nutrition directly from the soil that the cows personally cultivate by walking on it and pooping on it (sustainability!) Humans cannot digest grass, so we get the nutrients from it by eating the animal that ate the grass. Important stuff - there's great reading material out there.




I typed this while I enjoyed a wild-caught sustainable salmon steak with an organic lemon, after just picking up the half grass-fed cow we just bought from a local farmer for half the price per pound of the grass-fed meat from the local grocery store. Good times.