BlogHer - Sustainable Agriculture - Comments

The inspiration just keeps going around

Beth Terry — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 22:49:29 -0600

@ClizBiz Make the switch! Go you! Okay, enough with the cheering. It doesn't really fit my personality. But seriously, I do think it feels better to support local small farms that are doing their best to bring us healthy foods. And yeah, sad about the baby cows, but I think it's the price we pay for milk, so we make our choices.

@Spend Wisely Texas Wow. You're not kidding about being inspired to visit where your food comes from. I have some serious catching up to do, and quite a few blog posts (yours) to read. Fantastic!

Beth Terry
www.fakeplasticfish.com
@fakeplasticfish
FaceBook

You inspired me

SpendWiselyTexas@gmail.com — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 20:51:01 -0600

Since reading your post, I've started visiting the places from which I buy my food (and blogging about it). I have been trying to buy the bulk of my food from farmers markets. Now I'm taking it one step further and visiting the farms itself. The best part about visiting the farms is meeting the wonderful people. For the most part they are small family operated farms that are growing organic vegetables and truly trying to sell healthy tasty food.

Spend Wisely Texas - Living Well and Spending Less in Texas

Holy Cow!

ClizBiz — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 17:06:03 -0600

Awesome post, Beth. Your initiative continues to inspire. Half-way through the post, I got up and checked the original location of my current milk package - Lucerne in Pleasanton, CA. Too far and too corporate, I'm sure. I need to switch to Royal Crest or some other local dairy that's easier on the environment.

Also, I was floored by this statement:

"The farm generates 90% of all it's electricity needs from cow poop. And the remaining solids are composted."

That is so awesome. Who doesn't love poo power?

I was less thrilled with the babies being taken from their mom right away. I'm sure the cows aren't happy about it either.

~ClizBiz

BlogHer Contributing Editor, Animal Concerns, Proprietor, ClizBiz

Glad to pass on the inspiration

Beth Terry — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 03:35:43 -0500

I was inspired by Michael Pollan, Colin Beavans, and others who decided to visit the farms where their food was grown. I hope to take more field trips like this. Hope you'll blog and let us know about your farm visit adventures.

Beth Terry
www.fakeplasticfish.com
@fakeplasticfish
FaceBook

You've inspired me!

SpendWiselyTexas@gmail.com — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 21:35:36 -0500

My family doesn't drink milk but my husband and I were just discussing whether we should visit some of the local farms to see whether we should buy our food from them. After reading your article, we'll definitely make the trip.

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Spend Wisely Texas - Budget friendly things to do and buy in Texas.

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It was cool to see the

Beth Terry — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 12:02:20 -0500

It was cool to see the processing operations, although most of it was hidden inside big stainless steel tanks that to me all looked alike. My favorite parts were seeing the machine that washes the glass milk containers and especially the ice cream machine!

Beth Terry
www.fakeplasticfish.com
@fakeplasticfish
FaceBook

My husband's family ran a

jenrik06 — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 09:55:44 -0500

My husband's family ran a dairy farm for MANY MANY MANY years. They've since retired but they never processed any of the milk. They just raised and milked the cows so this is pretty cool to see the processing part of the dairy biz.

Your Fun Frugalista

Jennifer

http://frugalfrontporch.blogspot.com

Thanks, Paula

Beth Terry — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 21:17:45 -0500

It was a fun trip. One of my blog readers asked if I would have the courage to go see where my meat comes from. I'm going to have to do it. It may turn me into a vegetarian. Or not. But I think if I"m going to eat meat, I should face the reality of it head on.

Beth Terry
www.fakeplasticfish.com
@fakeplasticfish
FaceBook

Great round up & pix

paulag01 — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 15:43:42 -0500

What an excellent article with photos and your comments. Such a joy to read the behind the scenes and the reasons behind it. My reading of The Omnivore's Dilemma amped up my own food consciousness as well...

Paula Gregorowicz
The Paula G Company
http://www.thepaulagcompany.com

Learn 5 Steps to Move from Fear to Freedom (free)

"The Meat We Eat" - Elise's latest on this topic

Lisa Stone — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 13:45:29 -0500

Hi everyone,

Just wanted to make sure you saw the important follow-up to this topic that Elise posted yesterday: The Meat We Eat.

Lisa Stone
BlogHer Co-founder
Surfette

Man, I'm totally hungry now.

Liz Rizzo — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 09:40:10 -0500

Is that wrong?

I'm totally going to look for Niman Ranch pork now. Thank goodness for Trader Joes!

Liz Rizzo

I blog at Everyday Goddess and On The Lot.

As a vegan, I still appreciate this post

Elisa Camahort — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 09:01:01 -0500

Thanks Elise.

I can dream that everyone will someday believe exactly what I believe, but the reality is that I'm happy anyone eats more mindfully and makes changes to do so. Every step we take is better than throwing up our hands and taking no steps at all.

For those people who are in a geographical and financial position to do so, making sure to buy meat, dairy and eggs from such operations is a wonderful step.

Just remember: "organic" and even "free-range" don't equal the kind of situation Elise describes above. But hey, if you're reading this, you're on the Internet, so I know you can research your purchases!

Elisa Camahort
BlogHer
elisa@blogher.org

Great photos!

Kalyn Denny — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 21:35:57 -0500

Great photos and a very informative post.

Kalyn Denny
Kalyn's Kitchen

I'm mostly a vegetarian

Mrs.Micah — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 20:30:58 -0500

I'm mostly a vegetarian these days. My theory is that animals should fulfill their telos, or goal, purpose, reason for being. Being in a pasture, breathing the fresh air, having space to exercise...all these are part of any animal's telos. I want my food to have had a chance to live. My husband's family lives next to a farm and we can watch sheep frolic in the spring. It's beautiful.

Being eaten may be a part of their telos too, it certainly is when it comes to other animals. But being in factory farms is so anti-telos.

And unless things are as they should be, I don't really want to participate in it.

So we use (at most) 1 package of chicken per week. Once we did sausage instead. Some weeks we don't eat any meat.

Sorry for rambling on. Your post showed me, again, why I choose to eat this way!