Pasture vs Barn raised poultry- A topic inspired by Country Thyme Farm

I say the 100 mile diet is too big of a radius. It should be a challenge to see how close to home we can eat for the majority of our food.

Last year, even though I didn't grow a garden of my own (too busy with a new baby!), I had beef from my corral, potatoes and carrots from my mother-in-law, beans/zucchini/spaghetti squash/tomatoes from my mom, surplus tomatoes from a friend (they became canned diced tomatoes and salsa), pumpkins from another friend, chives and green onions from my own garden, plus my own apples, raspberries, rhubarb and nanking cherries. I still have a lot of my fruit and pumpkin puree in my freezer! Usually I have Saskatoons, too, but I didn't get out picking last year - hard to go picking with a new baby strapped to your chest.

I gave away lots of apples, apple pies and jams. I definitely received more produce than I gave out, though. People who garden are generous like that!

The nearest tiny little town of ~100 people has their own version of take-a-penny-leave-a-penny - except instead of pennies, it's produce. Go to the post office or sometimes even the liquor store, and there will be boxes of tomatoes, cucumbers and zucchini, free for the taking. It's a pretty cool thing.

authenticfarm wrote:I say the 100 mile diet is too big of a radius. It should be a challenge to see how close to home we can eat for the majority of our food.

Last year, even though I didn't grow a garden of my own (too busy with a new baby!), I had beef from my corral, potatoes and carrots from my mother-in-law, beans/zucchini/spaghetti squash/tomatoes from my mom, surplus tomatoes from a friend (they became canned diced tomatoes and salsa), pumpkins from another friend, chives and green onions from my own garden, plus my own apples, raspberries, rhubarb and nanking cherries. I still have a lot of my fruit and pumpkin puree in my freezer! Usually I have Saskatoons, too, but I didn't get out picking last year - hard to go picking with a new baby strapped to your chest.

I gave away lots of apples, apple pies and jams. I definitely received more produce than I gave out, though. People who garden are generous like that!

The nearest tiny little town of ~100 people has their own version of take-a-penny-leave-a-penny - except instead of pennies, it's produce. Go to the post office or sometimes even the liquor store, and there will be boxes of tomatoes, cucumbers and zucchini, free for the taking. It's a pretty cool thing.

That is a cool thing, that is why I love small towns.

SoControversialSue:

This is a HUGE topic that is like gastrointestinal upset, often caused by many things, some of them unknown.

I agree with Country Thyme, we are a nation of spoiled whiners. Having never been hungry we think of food as our right. It is not. It is a huge privilege for which we should fall to our knees and weep with gratitude.

When I rule the world...no one will be able to eat a carrot until they have worked soil, planted seeds, weeded, watered, harvested, cleaned and stored. No one will eat a canned peach until they have boiled jars, made syrup, peeled 40 pounds of fruit, processed, and lugged to the basement to store. Lastly, no one will eat meat or a meat product until they have seen an animal born, schlepped food and water to it, cleaned up behind it, tended its health needs, watched it be shot in the head, hoisted, gutted, cut and wrapped.

On one front we battle IGNORANCE of our food supply. On another front we battle LAZINESS from those who would never consider doing a single thing to put one morsel of food into their own mouths (raising it). We battle ENTITLEMENT in a generation who have never been hungry a day in their lives!

Add in industrial farms who do not farm because of an ethical, moral or philosophical drive to provide food, but to MAKE MONEY. Anything with a beating heart and instinctive needs should NEVER be raised by a corporation! Corporations, by their very nature, are soulless, faceless, blameless bastions of evil and as a society we have been atrocious monsters ourselves to allow these entities to raise and torture our food. Why have we done it? Refer to the above lazy, ignorant and entitled. The promise of cheap food! For a corporation to raise food in vast quantites and still provide it to us as we think it ought to be priced, means they commit acts of cruelty and evil. WE ARE THE PROBLEM! And we are the solution.

But..nothing changes until there is a moral and philosophical shift in our thinking. Instead of bussing our school kids to the ski hill or historic site, bus them to a slaughter house. Bus them to a berry field in July or August where they may spend 8 hours picking fruit. But oh dear, sakes alive it might traumatize the poor, wee bairns. Damn straight! That's the point! Not one of us should open our mouths and stuff anything in without a deep sense of gratitude and reverence. And that only comes when we blast our complacent ignorance and stupidity out of the water.

Our kid was indeed traumatized when our cute fuzzy chicks, who grew into galumphing, harmless blobs, were whacked and plucked, gutted and bagged. But guess what...do you think chicken fingers grow on trees? No they do not! They grow on chickens. And for you to get them on your plate, a chicken has to die! SO know it, deal with it, appreciate it and be a person who demands excellence and accountability from those who raise your food. Oh yeah, pay them for it too and be glad you have the opportunity to do so.

Not sure if this is on topic, but Uno's post made me think of it.
Hubby always says the lack of respect for the producers of food in North America comes from never havig a true famine. Europe values and respects their farmers and growers because the KNOW what it is like to go hungry.
Many people are going 'back to the land' but I wonder if it is just a trend.
Authentic, I like the post office thing. Would love to get something like that going here.

A friend of mine said gardening was too much work and she didn't have the time. I asked if she shopped at the farmers market or bought local food. She said no that it was too expensive. I said. So you know how much work it is . So let me get this straight. You want someone else to work hard to make food for you, but you don't want to pay him for it so that you can work less hard. You want the people who grow food to work harder for their money than you do. We have lost our connection to the whole. Its all about our individual , selfish needs and wants. I don't think people should be allowed to do or not do things that are going to adversely affect generations and generations that come after. I loved reading your post uno . I think everyone should have to dig up some lawn and supply some of their own food I recently asked everyone I came into contact with what they thought the three most important elements of their life were. Out of the many many many people I asked, only one person said " air, water and food. " We definitely have our heads buried.

I love this topic as much as I hate it. It encompasses several issues:

• Food supply
  
• Animal conditions
  
• Entitlement
  
• Understanding of the circle of life

I have to agree with CTF: I don't think factory and commercial animals or farms are a requirement to feed this world. The earth works on, what I call, exponential quantities, or when humans do it, exponential farming. The premise of exponential farming is simple: The more food we consume, the more food-offspring (seed) is produced.

I love to use the Spaghetti squash example. Sit down, this is lots of numbers. Remember those word problems in school? If a train is travelling at this and another at this blah blah blah, well, here it is again.

One vine produced 19 full sized fruits for me several years ago, though I average 5 or so fruits a plant now. One Spaghetti squash, when I’m being picky for shape and size of seeds, will usually give me 80 ‘perfect’ seeds. Lets begin.

Typical germination rates for well-stored seed are usually over 90% (often hovering around 98%), however we’re going to use a 65% germination rate, to prove a point as well as to account for crop loss, bad seed, flood and so on. Ready?

65% of 80 seeds leaves 52 viable seeds. We’ll say that of these 52 seeds, 75% of those grow to full term (39 plants). Despite my experience, we will say that each Spaghetti squash vine produces only 2 fruit (78 fruit). 78 Fruit, yielding 80 perfect seeds, of which only 52 are viable, 75% of which grow to full term, you get the following information:

78 fruit x 80 seeds = 6240 seeds
6240 seeds at 75% maturation = 4680 plants
4680 plants x 2 fruit = 9360 fruit.

So year two we we start with 9360 fruit. Watch this:

9360 fruit x 80 seeds = 748,800 seeds
748,800 seeds at 75% maturation = 561,600 plants
561,600 plants x 2 fruit = 1,123,200 fruit.

Year 3:

1,123,200 fruit x 80 seeds = 89,856,000 seeds
89,856,000 seeds at 75% maturation = 67,392,000 plants
67,392,000 plants x 2 fruit = 134,784,000 fruit.

Year 4:

134,784,000 fruit x 80 seeds = 10,782,720,000 seeds
10,782,720,000 seeds at 75% maturation = 8,087,040,000 plants
8,087,040,000 plants x 2 fruit = 16,174,080,000 fruit.

Billions of fruit in 4 years, BILLIONS. Intensively plant this with corn, beans and/or peas and your yields are exponential. Throw in leafy vegetables like lettuce, spinach and kale, all of which companion each other out and you have created a system that promotes the growth of 5+ different types of edibles in a single area. This entirely avoids mono-culture, creates jobs, handles pests and weeds, doesn't require spraying and is ENTIRELY sustainable. One could go as far as running ducks, chickens or geese in these fields filled with produce.

This model, too, is applicable to the production of animals on a back yard scale. Up until, really, the last 100 years, the majority of people ran a few birds and had a family cow, and darn near everyone had a garden that fed their family. Even a low producing hen at 100 eggs a year produces enough offspring and produce (eggs) to feed a family of 2. One hen, and all you need is one rooster.

Think about it: Even if we assume half the eggs are either eaten or not viable, that still leaves you with 50 offspring. Cull that down to 40 to failure to thrive or disease, then half that for boys and you end up with 20 hens and 20 cocks. If those 20 hens start laying in 20 weeks and produce 100 eggs a year, that's 2000 eggs. If you butcher those roosters, that's 20 birds in the freezer, plus the offal, and the bones. Bones make soup, stock and so on, so do heads and chicken feet. Liver, heart and other organs are highly nutritious foods with readily available nutrients that our bodies assimilate rather well. Expontential. This is all the same with cows and goats and pigs as well, with each animal producing a valuable byproduct (eggs, milk, and so on) to help sustain life.

Besides, weren't reports released that in the US alone, over HALF of the food produced ends up in the garbage?

That covers food supply.

Animal welfare is also covered in the above. Small, family farms are able to regulate and maintain their animals in better, friendlier, kinder conditions. Do they all? No, however the majority of those farms use cage free, free ranging methods. The quality of life, meat, and nutrient density is (love this word) exponentially increased.

Part of living life this way is the understanding of the way things work and an independence from a chemical laden food chain. Learning to work with what we have, the byproducts of our production and so on will allow us to use every part of the animal, field and left over stems in the ground and make 100% complete use of the entire circle, as the earth does within a forest. Every leaf that hits the ground feeds worms, hides bugs, turns to compost, emits nutrients.

The biggest problem we have in today's food market, in my humble opinion, is an undaunted sense of entitlement, and I'm not talking about the consumer. What I'm about to say will offend a vast majority of people. Organic/organically produced food is overpriced. Period.

Your big time commercial farmer who farms for Big Ag is paid a wage based upon yield. They don't yield, They don't get paid. Their yield is Their worth, is Their paycheque. All of the money They put in to fuel, hiring staff, equipment, repairs, fertilizers, petrochemicals and so on, that all comes off Their end payout, whether They made Their money back or not. Why is this so different for small time organic farmers? Why do They get to factor in Their 'salary' based on an hourly wage?

For $250, I can buy enough carrot seed to (already accounting for losses) start a 4 acre, mono-culture carrot farm. If I do that, it's all me. I have nothing put into it but the days spent hoeing the ground, tilling, pulling up weeds and so on. Lets say, to purchase or rent equipment is $1000, I'm currently into my 4 acre farm for $1250. Everything's planted, I walk the fields daily after my in-city job (even if you don't have one, that's irrelevant), and spend an additional 3 hours a night tending the acres of planted carrots doing something I enjoy, as a business. Come harvest time, I'm up until the wee hours of the evening, plugging away, spending countless hours out, losing immeasurable amounts of sleep.

4 acres of carrots will give you approximately 60,000 carrots when planted intensively. Bundles of 6 'fresh', top-on carrots go for $2.50 cents at Super Store, non-organic. That's 10,000 bundles or $25,000.00. You are ACTUALLY into this project for $1250, leaving you with $23,750 profit. At commercial prices. Even if I were to push this one step further and pay for my acres, I'm still waaaay in the green. Where I live, we're looking at $400 an acre, but lets just bump that up to $1200 an acre so I'm more regionally on the high end, I'm still at a profit of $18,950. My first year. First. Year. Selling at commercial prices. Now if I start calculating for my hourly wage times days times weeks, suddenly I'm in the hole. However, really, my wage is my profit divided by hours, not hours times rate.

If you were smart, which many people are who do this on a small scale, you would plug in a second carrot crop, lettuce or onion seed when you pull up your first harvest. You would get a second yield and then plant down another batch of carrots, which would come up earlier the next year, possibly allowing you to get 3 full harvests off your intensively managed organic land. Even multiplying your above mentioned profit, sans $1200x4 for your acreage AGAIN, to cover extra costs, twice over to show 2 yields, on the low end, at the 'commercial' prices, that's $37,900 in profit.

If you sell at 'commercial' prices, which in my humble opinion are where organic prices should be (commercial should be HALF what it is now), then you could market to MORE consumers who would be able to buy MORE goods and you would have a larger customer base, less waste and so on.

This incredulous sense of entitlement to make more than or the same as the guy who's farming 15 quarters, paying for large equipment, doing mono culture, having to pay for pesticides and so on just flabbergasts me, and I think the organic market is the death of itself.

That's my take on it.

In the Okanagan it is 100 thousand an acres. Ditto what uno said, kind of. We just have to be careful with being too simplistic and not recognizing that this is a chicken and an egg issue. I do believe regardless of the cause of the problem part of the solution is easy, get people back connecting to the land. Too many people don't understand that basic needs are food , water, shelter and relationships, not electronics.

I got all excited reading Sweetened's very indepth and intelligent response. I thought, you can buy land for less that $5000 an acre? Point me at it!

Up here, on this mountainside, land runs a reasonable (choke, gag) $60-$75,000 an acre. For bedrock. Where you can grow nothing. Not even enough soil for a cat to cover his poop. I'd have to grow them short, stumpy, dirt free carrots.

This is an onion like topic, many layers. I agree with Squee that organic produce is overpriced. But they're appealing to a certain crowd who have the money to spend and wouldn't be caught dead mucking in their own garden. I don't know, I still think food is too cheap or..we pay the original producer too little and the FAT hand in the middle gets too much. When the guy cutting and wrapping the meat makes more than the guy raising the meat, we have lost our minds!

uno wrote:I got all excited reading Sweetened's very indepth and intelligent response. I thought, you can buy land for less that $5000 an acre? Point me at it!

Up here, on this mountainside, land runs a reasonable (choke, gag) $60-$75,000 an acre. For bedrock. Where you can grow nothing. Not even enough soil for a cat to cover his poop. I'd have to grow them short, stumpy, dirt free carrots.

This is an onion like topic, many layers. I agree with Squee that organic produce is overpriced. But they're appealing to a certain crowd who have the money to spend and wouldn't be caught dead mucking in their own garden. I don't know, I still think food is too cheap or..we pay the original producer too little and the FAT hand in the middle gets too much. When the guy cutting and wrapping the meat makes more than the guy raising the meat, we have lost our minds!

To your two points, Miss Uno, if land is priced so high (why do you think I moved out of BC ) then perhaps paying for your land the first year isn't reasonable. However it's not unreasonable to see a good chunk of money could be put back into the land's purchase price every year, and still come out ahead. It's jut a matter of altering the profit, again, after costs it's profit divided by time for a wage. I completely agree, a lot of the ridiculously priced land is a detriment to the start-up farmer who isn't a trust fund kid or who doesn't come from a farming background.

In addition, to the point of who it's marketed to, I entirely agree with you. However it seems to give the farmers who market that way, the right to complain that not everyone is willing to pay their prices and they get all devalued and offended. I'm the idiot who pays 6 dollars for a bag of ice, but you're not going to get nearly that price if you, as the saying goes, sell ice to an eskimo.

Sense of entitlement is the huge problem. Lack of, or ignorance of, a sense of depth into what goes into everything, as you said, is the other.

I was thinking about pride of accomplishment last night as I was cleaning up the property. The time of winterfilth is here!

Here I do all my own work and with very little help, either human or mechanical. Shovels and wheelbarrows are my friends. And I work more than full time. I love the feeing of pride I get when I look out at my well cared for property, hand dug gardens, rows of growing plants, healthy animals, neat fences, etc. When people say, what a nice place you have here, I say thanks and feel proud, happy and accomplished.

I have friends in the city with big money. They have beautiful gardens that are manicured by gardeners, gorgeous landscaping that has been bought and paid for, done by professionals, fancy houses decorated by expensive decorators. I don't have any jealousy, nor resentment, nor envy. They work hard for what they have. I think a lot of the time I hear a little reverse discrimination from some people elsewhere online (not you guys of course! ) Just because you pay for what you have and don't actually do the work yourself, you are not 'less than'.

However, when I say to my well heeled friends, "what a nice place you have here!" and they say "thank-you!" I can't help but think, how sad that they won't feel the same thing I feel...the sense of pride and accomplishment in my own work.

Sue,

They would rather go to the gym, etc. than get out in nature and really feel how good it is to grow it

yourself, or clean the yard. It's a good feeling. You don't need to go to the gym, have treadmills etc.

Plus your'e saving the money you pay others, for what should be "your" workout.

If your'e not well, or have a disability then I understand.

Sweetened-----I don't blame anyone for "not" moving out here. I can't wait to get back to the interiour.

I don't think people were meant to live in cold like this. Been here 5 1/2 yrs and it's never felt like

home.

lady leghorn wrote:Sweetened-----I don't blame anyone for "not" moving out here. I can't wait to get back to the interiour.

I don't think people were meant to live in cold like this. Been here 5 1/2 yrs and it's never felt like

home.

I also don't blame people, the bitter cold is not for everyone. I do love it here, however I must admit, if I were ever to come across a large sum of money, I would buy some fly-in only plot of land, put down a log house, and spend the rest of my life in the middle of the mountains like a hermit.

Here is a great land of opportunity mind you, a good place to 'get on your feet' and 'build a nest'. Every bird picks a new tree eventually.

lady leghorn wrote:Sue,

They would rather go to the gym, etc. than get out in nature and really feel how good it is to grow it

yourself, or clean the yard. It's a good feeling. You don't need to go to the gym, have treadmills etc.

Plus your'e saving the money you pay others, for what should be "your" workout.

I think this often, LL!



People say, you're in pretty good shape for an old bat. Do you work out?

I say, everyday!

How long? they ask.

Minimum one hour, often 8+. I reply.

Where is your gym? they inquire.

In the back yard! I respond.

Lucky you! they say.

You don't know the half of it, I reply.

They haven't wrestled with goats lately. Silly people, don't they "know" what they are missing?

This is a great post , keep it going. I am enjoying all of your comments.

I enjoyed reading this thread. Though I do not like thinking about the butchering of animals, I know it is what happens. I have done the butchering of chickens and seen the rabbits being done etc but I was not brought up seeing anything like that. I am NOT comforatable butchering but would if I HAD to. There are people that are willing to butcher for me in trade and that is great for me. They butchered for me (only my use of course) and they got a litter of meat kits to grow out for themselves. I was happy, they were happy.

This is not the same as butchering but much closer than the grocery store. I buy the majority of food from the store but am very proud of the rabbit we have in the freezer, the eggs my few hens provide and the whole family started seeds a while back and I picked some baby spinach and radish the other day. Very proud I was. My daughters think it is great as well.

This year we are putting in a small garden. Today actually. I tilled up the soil and put a fence around. We will plant our started peas and beats and plant some lettuce and carrots. This is very small time but if the children are exposed, hopefully there will be at least an appreciation for the food we eat. I hope.

So many things trouble me about the world and the "direction" things are going but to see some eggs and vegatables that come from my own land/animals, makes me happy and peaceful inside.

I love bartering:)

chicken crack wrote:I enjoyed reading this thread. Though I do not like thinking about the butchering of animals, I know it is what happens.

This got me thinking, and I'm not sure if its even related to this topic or not.

Moose works different hours than I do, so after work I walk the half a block over (just through the parking lot, really) and I go sit down at McDick's for a bit and wait for him. I read, use wifi, whatever. You get to know the 'regulars' because you become one.

One of the regulars overheard me talking about the farm and he asked if I eat meat, I said yes. He asked why and I mentioned something about being omnivorous and under the illusion of being at the top of the food chain. I told him I assumed he was vegetarian. No, he said, he would eat meat to survive, but doesn't need it to live because he's 'better' than that. No animal needs to die in a society, he says, that can feed itself on plants.

So I wondered, where is the justification in that? For all the science that points to eating meat and lots of it, there's an equal amount of studies that point to eating no meat and only live food, then cooked food, then some fish, but no chicken, and you can't have eggs but they're really good for you even though tomatoes and wine cause cancer and cure heart disease. Dental information indicates we are, indeed, omnivorous, and even 'vegetarian' cultures around the world often consume insects as a protein supplement.

I'm not anti-vegetarian. In fact, I'm just about to the point if the meat doesn't come from our farm of someone we know's farm, then I'm not eating it. But I wonder, for people who are 'morally' vegetarian, is it because the plant doesn't have eyes? Doesn't have a voice with which to scream (for the general public anyway, see [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]) or a mouth with which to talk?

The concept of Biocommunication is quite interesting, and I think says a lot towards the nature of nutrients in our food.

Wikipedia wrote:Plant perception or biocommunication is the idea that plants are sentient, that they respond to humans in a manner that amounts to ESP and that they experience pain and fear. The theory is dismissed by scientists because plants lack a nervous system.

A theory of such a magnitude being discredited on the simple thought that since it doesn't function the same as we do, thus it cannot feel, speak or hear, is unfortunate. It's why if there was life on other planets that didn't have water or require water to sustain life, we would believe it not to be alive, or feel pain, or be sentient, or some other notion simply because it is not built like us.

Plants communicate by using pheromones, just as many mammals do, so why is it implausible they could sense, read and understand our own pheromone releases and respond to them accordingly? [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] showed promising evidence that plants communicate and react to stimulus in the environment including, essentially, declaring war on attackers, creating chemicals to make their leaves less desirable to the bugs. There are also studies that prove plants communicate more readily with plants of the same species, and will change their pheromone release dependent upon what type of plant or tree is set nearby, as if changing the language they speak.

I bring this all up here because research indicates Organically grown produce is more nutrient dense than their conventionally grown coutnerparts. One example of this can be found [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], done by independent research groups.

This particular website ads a startling and disturbing fact to the research:

NDNR wrote:USDA trend data on garden crops from 1950-1999 demonstrate a decline in protein, calcium, phosphorus, iron, vitamin A, riboflavin and vitamin C of between 5% and 35%. Similar declines are seen in both corn and soybeans – the feed for many animals in the American diet. Given these well-documented declines in addition to the nutritional deficiencies found in human testing samples, even moderately more nutrient-dense foods are a desirable addition to the American diet.

Can we not, then, consider the treatment of our plants along side our animals? Imagine if the studies and 'crackpots' like myself are correct, and that plants are alive and eating them is just as 'murderous' as the omnivorous human who chooses to have meat in their diet. Commercial crops, sprayed with pesticides, must be the internment camps of the plant world. Genetically modified fields would be the equivilent of segregation camps filled with radiated victims of nuclear attacks, kept close enough to another population that others can get sick.

I think the treatment of plants and crops is equally as important as that of animals, and I believe the moral issue should be re-directed. I suppose this rather veered from what chicken crack said, but it just reminded me of something I thought may be relevant to the post.

Schipperkesue wrote:I was thinking about pride of accomplishment last night as I was cleaning up the property. The time of winterfilth is here!

Here I do all my own work and with very little help, either human or mechanical. Shovels and wheelbarrows are my friends. And I work more than full time. I love the feeing of pride I get when I look out at my well cared for property, hand dug gardens, rows of growing plants, healthy animals, neat fences, etc. When people say, what a nice place you have here, I say thanks and feel proud, happy and accomplished.

I have friends in the city with big money. They have beautiful gardens that are manicured by gardeners, gorgeous landscaping that has been bought and paid for, done by professionals, fancy houses decorated by expensive decorators. I don't have any jealousy, nor resentment, nor envy. They work hard for what they have. I think a lot of the time I hear a little reverse discrimination from some people elsewhere online (not you guys of course! ) Just because you pay for what you have and don't actually do the work yourself, you are not 'less than'.

However, when I say to my well heeled friends, "what a nice place you have here!" and they say "thank-you!" I can't help but think, how sad that they won't feel the same thing I feel...the sense of pride and accomplishment in my own work.

Well put. The disconnect with the land combined with lack of a personal sense of accomplishment is a major contributor to the social ills we are seeing these days. There are so many people running around with disregulated brains and bodies pumped full of cortisol. One of the best ways to regulate people so that they can be calm and "in the moment" is to get there hands in dirt. Let them plant and seed and nurture to the point that it feeds them in return.

Ah...moral vegetarians. Don't you just love em? No animal had to die for me to have this organic carrot! Oh yeah? You think carrot fields occur naturally in nature? You think thousands of acres of land is just automatically free of trees and shrubs and grasses and waterways? Like...are you stupid?

How many animals were displaced and died as a result of their homes being chopped down, uprooted, yanked out and plowed under? Burned? Shoved into brush piles and torched?

None of us are blameless. It seems our very presence here is an insult to some other species. We either live in their space or farm on their space or pollute their space. Humans, it almost seems, are the equivalent of global garbage. BUT..when one faction of humanity begins their little rant about how their carrots are so much less harmful...oh shut up.

We ALL have blood on our hands. To me the difference is the people who OWN it, who see it and who do what they can to make sure the least possible amount of misery and suffering was attached. THen there are those who run around shouting, not me, not mine, I live in the city, I buy packaged meat, I am not part of the problem! Oh yes you are! You ARE the problem!

Haha Uno, I love it!

The people who say "the world can produce enough food to feed us all, if only we were all vegetarians" need to get a clue.

It's wonderful to be vegetarian/vegan if you live in a place where you can produce fresh fruit and veggies, locally, year round.

But when a vegetarian/vegan lives in Canada, and they're importing food from Florida, Mexico, Costa Rica and beyond ... guess what? THEY ARE KILLING THE PLANET. How much carbon was just created for them to get Mangoes in January? Where did their quinoa come from? Oh, so avocadoes are a miracle fruit? Too bad they imported them from south America in the middle of frickin' winter inside heated trucks.

Meanwhile, if that same person was an omnivore, they could be eating locally all year round - local meat, local veg, local fruit. Sure, they'd have to do a lot of gardening and preserving and have a very large deep freeze, but I believe that the omnivorous way of life is the only sustainable way for Canadians to live.

authenticfarm wrote:THEY ARE KILLING THE PLANET.

Most would say the planet can't look you in the eyes, can't scream, doesn't breathe and scientists would say it doesn't have a central nervous system, thus doesn't feel pain.

It's not having to hear or see something die that gives people a 'moral' pass go card.

I think, in central Canada especially, throughout the warm season our bodies are naturally accustomed to more vegetable based diets, whereas in the winter, as is natural with all meat eating creatures, our bodies crave fatty meats in order to 'store up' for the winter. Humans are far more primal than many would like to believe. We just stopped listening when everyone started shovelling crap at us.

You realize, of course, that vegetarian is an indigenous word for lousy hunter.

bckev wrote:You realize, of course, that vegetarian is an indigenous word for lousy hunter.

*Snicker*

I too have been judged for eating meat. So what! It is delicious! Judging other's eating habits is like thinking they shouldn't eat a donut because you are on a diet. Eat what makes you happy and healthy and don't judge.

One more thing. When someone judges another for their eating habits, they may not be taking the whole picture into considerations. I have deadly allergies to nuts and legumes. Without animal products I would have a hard time meeting my complete protein requirements..