This weekend my husband and I watched a fabulous movie. It was so good that we even had the 11 year old watch it Sunday afternoon with us (our second time watching it!).
Before I tell more about the movie though I wanted to talk about our animals and how we raise them. (really this does tie in with the movie) We only raise a few animals, right now we have 26 chickens, 1 heifer and 1 steer. In a few weeks we will be bringing home some new piglets - last year we raised 4 hogs. This year we will raise at least that many and we are also planning to add a few turkeys. There are a few differences in the animals we raise and what is raised on many "farms". We do not use antibiotics for our animals. I recall several years ago I had an egg customer tell me that she could eat the eggs from our chickens, but anytime she ate eggs from the supermarket she had an allergic reaction. Once I found out that she was also allergic to antibiotics I was convinced that the reason she could eat my eggs was because I did not use antibiotics. Most producers today give daily antibiotics to their animals. All our animals also have pasture access on a daily basis, so they can root, chase bugs, graze or do what they SHOULD be doing. Unfortunately most of the meat that end up on your table does not live a normal or even a clean healthy life.
Some of our chickens being chickens!
And some of our pigs doing pig things!
The movie we saw this weekend affirmed to us that we have been doing things the right way all along even though some in our agriculture community don't understand why we do things the way we do. The movie was called Food, Inc. and it is documentary. It covers how the food industry has changed in the last 50 years and how it has effected the nutrition and health of our entire nation.
In all honesty I had not seen this previously, because I thought it was a Michael Moore type film. However it was far from that. I knew that fewer and fewer companies were providing more and more of the food. For instance there may be bacon by 8 different "companies" on the supermarket shelves but there are really only 3 or 4 large corporate producers. The types of animals have also changed over the years and the animals grown for food today are not the same type of animal grown in your grandmother's day.
I could go on and on, but I don't want to spoil it for you. I do hope it is a movie you will consider watching if you have not already. If you have seen it, or when you do, I would love to hear your reactions and thoughts.
Until next time......
For those of you that say grace before a meal ask for food that will keep you, and the planet, healthy.
-----Food, Inc
