Busy bee!

I've been cooking but not blogging. I apologize! It's the pictures that get me. I have to take the pictures and then upload the pictures... and it's thwarted my blogging efforts. Also, I'm in a theater production right now that is taking up my evenings!

I've been experiencing a Pandora's box sensation recently. I've started educating myself about our food system here in the United States, specifically about the meat system. Now that I know I can't just stand around and continue eating the way I've been eating. I find this terribly annoying. Why does it have to be so bad??? Why can't it just be kind of bad but I can look away politely and enjoy my dollar menu cheeseburger? Like every American, I am practiced at diverting my attention away from suffering and towards the 30% off sale rack. Child labor sweat shops? No big deal! Exploitation of immigrants? Whatev! Destroying the earth for oil? My car gotta run! But I think each of us have a breaking point and I've reached mine with the meat industry.

What is in Pandora's Meat Box? Well, here are some of the issues I've recently learned about.

1. CAFOs. Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations. Miles of square pins that animals live in with no access to grass and stand in their own shit until they are big enough to slaughter. http://www.epa.gov/region7/water/cafo/index.htm

2. Pink Slime. Rather than let cows eat grass, which in itself kills most E. Coli in their systems, major meat processors take the 'meat trimmings' and mince it and spin it until it looks like pink slime, then they wash it with ammonia, and then add it back into the ground meat in order to try to kill the E. Coli. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/31/us/31meat.html

3. Conventionally raised chickens cannot walk many steps without falling because of how confined they are and how quickly their genetically modified genes make their bodies grown. There have also been instances of cows being unable to walk under their own bulk. (Movie: Food Inc.)

The majority of what I know is from the book Omnivore's Dilemma and the movie Food Inc. I'm also terribly concerned that the majority of antibiotics used in the United States go into our food animals. Or maybe that's a good thing. Maybe I just need to readjust my thinking. There are millions of people who don't have health insurance who can't afford a doctor's visit and the prescription of antibiotics, but everyone can afford a double cheeseburger from the dollar menu!
The way I see it, each time I purchase something I am voting for it. I am saying that some aspect of this product is worth my hard earned money, be it for the cheapness of the product (example: Kraft Mac&Cheese. I love this stuff. It's so good and tasty and naughty for only $.88 a box!) or for the healthfulness of the product (example: broccoli. It's not my favorite veggie but it's gosh darn good for me.) or for the environment benefits of the product (example: all natural cleaning products. Comet gets the stains out much better and faster but if it makes my skin itch to touch it, I can't imagine what it does to the environment as a whole.) or a combination of factors. I'm to the point that I don't want to vote for feedlot-raised meat. I don't want to vote for animals that were raised living in their own feces and then killed inhumanely.

The problem is that it's hard to do the research on how animals were raised and killed. Companies are purposely opaque and no reporters are allowed into the slaughter houses of the big meat packaging companies. To make it even more difficult, sometimes organic meat is not raised or killed in a better way than their conventional counterparts, they are simply raised without chemicals or antibiotics. As Pandora's box opens, more and more information comes out that disturbs me.

The only meat I feel comfortably certain that the animals lived natural lives and humane deaths are local farmers. I've decided that for the next 3 months I am going to try to eat only meat that I purchased from my local farmers. When I don't know the origins of the meat, I am going to try to eat vegetarian 75% of the time.

Here's how I've been doing:

Monday March 29th
Lunch- pasta leftovers (vegetarian)
Dinner-chicken pot pie-chicken of unknown origins

Tuesday March 30th
Lunch- carrot soup (homemade with homemade chicken stock from farmer's market chickens), salad with no meat.
Dinner- Pasta (vegetarian)

Wednesday March 31st
Lunch- Yats leftovers (vegetarian)
Dinner- 6 inch veggie sub from subway

Thursday April 1st
Lunch- Pepperoni pizza rolls (meat of unknown origin) and a salad with no meat
Dinner- 2 pita breads with hummus (vegetarian)

Friday April 2nd
Lunch- carrot soup and potato chips
Dinner- fried chicken (chicken from local farmer), green beans with bacon (bacon from local farmer), mashed potatoes with gravy (gravy made from chickens from unknown origin)

Saturday April 3rd
Lunch- Yats (vegetarian)
Dinner- Steak with garlic butter, mashed potatoes, salad with no meat. (Steak was labeled as organic and free range...but who knows the actual conditions...so I'm going to say unknown origins on this one.)

Sunday April 4th (Easter)
Lunch-Turkey, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, salad. (Turkey of unknown origins)
Dinner- Ham, cheesy potatoes, carrots, peas, salad (Ham of unknown origins)

I feel okay about my efforts thus far. Sunday was the real killer but how are you going to tell Grandma that you won't eat her turkey because it was probably inhumanely raised and killed?

Anyone know where to get local aged pork products like prosciutto?

I'll keep everyone informed of my efforts over these next three months.