Where does my food come from?

The answers start getting very interesting with a little bit of research.

Rosie Chickens come from Petaluma, California. Known as Organic and Free Range birds, it was a bit disquieting to learn that their notion of ‘free range’ meant that each chicken had the luxury of a square foot of space. Not only did this make me wince, but I thought about how much space that was compared to a chicken in a conventional poultry operation. I’ve never really looked into the standards of life for the meat and poultry business. I figured that if I supported organic and free range products, I didn’t need to know in detail about the inhumane treatment of the animals meant for our tables. The thing is, I still haven’t gone out and researched that particular nightmare, just trying to learn what the standards are in the organic and ‘natural’ market is eye opening enough.

Take milk for example. I began looking at milk in order to find a brand that was local and not ultra pasteurized. The two brands of organic milk sold in most stores are Organic Valley and Horizon. The Internet is a valuable tool and gave me some interesting information. Organic Valley is a national company with localized co-ops. Their northwest co-op are small dairy farms throughout the northwest that make sure their cows have actual time under the sun. Horizon is another story. Their Idaho facility houses 4000 dairy cows in barn cubicles. There are no pastures where these cattle can even roam as the land is dry and covered in sagebrush. The cows are lined up in front of troughs of organic feed and spend their lives confined to their small space with occasional time spent out in crowded pens on the hard pan. There has been vocal debate within the dairy industry and government as to what the standards for ‘organic’ should be. Horizon skirts by the organic label and yet its mammoth production has taken on most aspects of conventional dairy farming: a conglomerate that has allowed numbers to dictate practices.
Articles on the Horizon hubbub - http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2005/04/13/milk/index.html
http://www.motherjones.com/news/update/2006/04/organic_milk.html

What I keep reading is that the standards for ‘organic’ are open to some pretty loose interpretations. There are loop holes that allow an operation like Horizon to keep their Organic claim and yet, they price out their smaller, more sustainability conscious competitors. We, the consumers get to make a choice – but how many people are really going to go to that level? I might be making an assumption here, but I believe that for most Americans, ‘Organic’ is a venture into a new world. Look how long it took for the public to get on board with the badness of trans fatty acids. When I decided to go organic – I trusted the labeling to give me what I wanted. I believed that organic milk came from healthy cows out in the pasture. I believed that free range meant that my little roasted chicken had once run around the barnyard eating bugs (free-range is another term that has some open ended definitions). The farming industry is embroiled in this debate and it seems like the small, artisan farmer is the one who is going to suffer unless we, the consumer, use our dollars to support them.

And now we have something else to add to the conversation: the government’s green light for cloned animals. I sit here and wonder about diversity. We have already seen such a loss in diversity in our agriculture. Knowing this about plant culture I now wonder about animal culture. Is this also happening in the world of meat and poultry? As a matter of fact – yes. One kind of chicken, one kind of turkey, one kind of pig. Cloning just takes any chance of diversity out of the picture. In a world where our viruses evolve practically overnight, isn’t it dangerous to take away the ability to have slightly different immune systems? Isn’t it deadly to predominantly grow only one varietal of corn in this country? I guess the answer is a scornful no from the conventional agricultural business. Hell, they put enough chemicals on and IN the plants and animals to make them impervious to just about anything.

So I tried to find local chickens that weren’t standard table fair. I haven’t found anything too close so far. I did find a small organic farm that brings chickens and other meats to the University district farmers market starting in the spring. It is suddenly harder to sit down and eat in a restaurant when I think about all this. Even though I have a choice of menu, I have little choice into the ingredients used to make my selection. And perhaps that will become my new search – for restaurants that use organic produce and sustainable/organic animal products. This is the problem with getting curious, it keeps leading me to new questions. However, it also creates a firm commitment in me to support local and organic farming as well as producing what I can for my own table. For now, I know which milk products I am going to stay away from.

Perhaps that is all I can do today.