you are what you eat

It's not very often that I get on a soap box. Its not that there isn't anything i'm passionate about. There are many things actually... my faith, the environment, child poverty and compassion international, to name a few. The main reason I avoid the box is that I have the worst memory retention of anyone I know. I have things I believe in and I have reasons for those beleifs, I just cannot recall many of the facts to support those reasons. Especially when I'm put on the spot. However, I am so enthusiastic about the following that I thought it was time to get on the box. I can hear the eyes rolling already ( :
So... I've had a steadily increasing interest over the last few years in organic food. I've always known our food was full of junk but for some reason I never really thought about it in depth until somewhat recently. But after a few years of reading and listening and thinking, I have become convinced that Americans are committing mass suicide through their mouths. Young people today are the first generation that will have a shorter life expectancy that their parents. After MSG, high fructose corn syrup, pesticides, hydrogenated oil, and the couch potato trend (and who knows what else!), what do we expect?
Anyway, I recently decided to make a real effort to go at least partially organic. It seemed a very daunting and possibly expensive task. I've been frequenting the natural foods section at Wegman's for snacks and some organic produce, but it wasn't much. Buying organic dairy or meat is ridiculously expensive so I was hesitating to go there. Then I was searching online one day and was thrilled to stumble upon Seven Bridges Farm. This is a local farm that sells all natural and grass fed beef and pork; wonderful stuff that isn't full of growth hormones, or mad cow, and the cows are happy up until the day they die ( : So I decided to go for it, dreading the cost. Lo and behold, for about $2.00 a pound our freezer is now full of steaks, sausages, loins, chops, tips, ground and every other cut you could imagine for less than we would have spent at the grocery store!
When you buy beef at the store it is coming from a feed lot (unless labeled grass fed). In all fairness I have never seen one myself, but from what I read they are quite disgusting. Animals packed in tight so they can hardly move, standing in piles of their own manure, given growth hormones, and fed concoctions of corn (which is not part of their natural diet) and remains of other cows. This diet is the beginning of many of the food "issues" we've been having over the last several years ie: mad cow, salmonella, etc. Yum yum.



So there is the humane issue, of course, and then the health issues. Growth hormones which lead to early onset puberty in children (and probably aren't good for the rest of us either), cows that are butchered for food no matter how sick they are (and then their unusable remains are put back into the feed of the cows that are still living), meat that has traveled many miles to the store, and then sits in the store until it is purchased, minimal testing for mad cow (Website on mad cow disease)...

Here's a piece that Fox news did on feed lots/grass fed cattle.

Ok, i'm done for now, but there's more to come. I bet you can hardly wait!