I finally got to see Food, Inc. last night.  That’s how the movie ended, with simple text on a black screen urging viewers to change the world…  Seems tough with the entire US food industry and farm policies stacked against the consumer.  So, this morning I’m doing my small part.  My daughter and I are headed to the Matthews Farmers Market.  April to November, they have a Saturday morning operation (downtown) that is open 7:15 to noon, and a Tuesday operation that runs 10am to 2pm (near Presbyterian Matthews Hospital).  They even have a winter market every other Saturday downtown.

My garden (previous post) has done well this summer, but can’t provide all our veggies.  But my main mission is to pick up my grass-feed beef order from Baucom’s Best, a local operation near Matthews.  A parent of a student turned me on to their operation.  I grew nostalgic for the grass-fed beef my grandfather raised.  He gave my mom a half a cow each year at Christmas–we had a freezer just to hold that beef.  I realized that the beef I grew up on, was healthier than the feedlot beef my kids were eating and decided to try something different.  Why grass-feed beef?

Well, here’s what is under the FAQ section at the Baucom’s Best website:

Isn’t All Beef Grassfed?
The term grassfed beef can be confusing to some, after all most cattle enjoy grass as part of their diet during their lifespan.  However, this does not make them grassfed.  Conventional cattle start receiving grain just a few months after birth and spend the last 90 to 120 days at a feedlot where they have no access to grass at all.  Although cattle from “natural’ or organic beef producers may stay on pasture their entire lives, most are still supplemented with grain.  True grassfed beef consume no grain at all.  Why is this distinction so important?  Because all of the wonderful health benefits of a grass diet diminish as soon as grain is added, even just a little grain.  If the “natural” or organic beef you are buying isn’t 100% grassfed, then  you are missing out on more than just antibiotics and growth hormones.

I recently read a book called Buffalo for the Broken Heart: Restoring Life to a Black Hills Ranch, by Dan O’Brien.  Great read.  O’Brien switches his cattle farm over to buffalo (another story) for several reasons, but along the way he does a good job explaining why we’ve come to favor corn-fed over grass-fed meat.

• Corn-fed meat can go straight to market, whereas grass-fed meat is supposed to cure for a while.
• Corn-fed meat has more fat (marbling), so it doesn’t burn or char as easily on the grill.
• Corn-fed meat is cheaper (due to the surplus of corn the US maintains).  American farm policy tipped the scales in favor of cheap corn in the early 1970′s.  Since then, the majority of our beef supply has become corn-feed.

So yeah, it may cost you to change.  But, you can “vote” for change in our food system when you spend your dollars.  Beyond cost, their are numerous health and environmental reasons to choose grass-fed over corn-fed.  That’s probably best left for another post.

On the outside chance someone will still follow/read the blog, here’s what comes to mind now that students are gone and summer is here. I just finished The Ominvore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, by Michael Pollan (2006).  Wow.  What do you eat for dinner when you can eat anything-and how do you know it is safe? That, in a nutshell, is the omnivore’s dilemma.  More importantly, Pollan tries to trace what we eat to the sources.  Along the way, you discover some of the “why” we eat what we do…and the answers are sometimes quite unappetizing.

I was thrilled to move to a yard this fall that gave me the room to garden again.  Our last lot was too small.  Here is my 10 x 20 foot raised-bed garden at about 60 days:

My Garden

My daughter helped me plant this in mid-April.  I’ve got tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, onions, potatoes, corn, squash, carrots, and herbs (oregano, basil, rosemary, cilantro, mint)–all in this small space.  We started harvesting cucumbers last week-so good.  While I can’t grow all my veggies, I’m glad I can show the kids where food comes from, other than the grocery.  I’ve read the average piece of produce in an American supermarket travels some 1,500 miles!  It takes a tremendous amount of oil to ship out-of-season “fresh” produce to our grocery stores.  So, my little garden is an attempt to save some oil in a way.  People make a great deal of fuss about buying organic without realizing that large-scale organic (like Whole Foods) uses a lot of energy resources.  Perhaps the MOST “environmentally-friendly” food choice one can make is to buy local.

Pollan also explores industrialized meat production.  I don’t want to get to far into that topic today.  He affirms much of what was documented by Eric Schlosser in Fast Food Nation (2001).  Another gripping read about the American diet, if you have not already read it.  If the topic interests you, keep your eyes open for the new movie Food, Inc., coming to theaters this summer.  Check out the trailer (it features Pollan and Schlosser):

So, do you know where your food comes from?

This morning we toured the dairy farm and integrated organic farm at EARTH U. before departing for the south.  The diary farm was a quite modern operation.  Students were artificially inseminating dairy cows when we arrived!  What we really came to see was their biogas electricity generation facility.  Manure from the pigs and cattle was used to generate methane, collected in large hanging blivets shown below:

Biogas Collection System

The gas is then piped to a generator that burns the methane to generate electricity.

Then we toured an integrated organic farm.  I was most impressed with the number of organic systems they featured from around the world.  The simplest explanation for this system was given to me by Rudolpho, the supervisor: “The plants feed the animals, the animals feed the soil, the soil feeds the plants.”  In this system, waste equals food for something else.  Nothing is wasted.  And of course, no pesticides, inorganic fertilizers or antibiotics are used.

The picture below shows the Mandala system, which I think originates in Brazil.  In the center is a circular pond, and there are eight concentric rings of plantings (one for each planet). The pond, when filled, will have fish and the small fenced area around it can house rabbits or chickens.

Mandala Garden

This 250 meter X 250 meter garden relies heavily on intercropping and polyculture.  Plants are selected to feed the owners and accomplish tasks like pest control.  For example, folks back home add marigolds to a garden to control nematodes (worms) that may damage roots.

We left EARTH about 10 am, then drove about 8 hours south-mostly in the RAIN-in a vintage Toyota Tercel with bad shocks.  We were probably 8,000-10,000 feet for over half the drive, so we saw a lot of white (clouds).  Had a flat tire on the way, but the driver changed the tire in under 5 minutes. We arrived at Las Cruces Biological Station another OTS site like La Selva.  It is located near the small town of San Vito near the Panamanian border. The food and lodging are wonderful, but I can’t tell you much about what it looks like until the clouds clear and the sun rises.

We left La Selva Biological Station around noon today, then drove about an hour west to Earth University.  At the website, you can find this description under Our Identity:

EARTH, inaugurated in1990, is an international, private, not-for-profit university dedicated to education, extension, research and the generation of value through production, transformation and commercialization activities. The academic program, leading to a “licenciatura” degree, emphasizes the agricultural sciences and the rational management of natural resources. The University seeks to contribute to sustainable development, with a special emphasis on the humid tropics; a region characterized by immense biological and cultural richness, yet threatened by social marginalization and inappropriate agricultural and natural resource management systems.

Pretty impressive facility, I must say.  Amazing what folks can do with enough resources.  The campus is a beautifully manicured modern university sprawling across 8,000 plus acres.  They recruit the best and the brightest mainly from Latin America.  The website states there are 400 students from 23 countries around the world. At least 80% of students are granted full or partial scholarship. EARTH U. has graduated 1,082 professionals from 19 countries in Latin America, Europe and Africa.  Below is the library building, obviously built with funds from the Kellogg Foundation.

Kellogg Library at EARTH U.

We were given tour of the grounds this afternoon by two sophomores.  Each has hopes of returning to their respective communities and beginning businesses in medical herbs or ecotourism.  The coolest thing we saw was an organic banana farm and processing plant.  They even use the banana stem leftovers to make banana paper.  Supermarket chain  Whole Foods has been selling EARTH University Brand bananas from the farm for a few years now.  So, find a Whole Foods store near you and support “the EARTH!”

Organic Banana Farm