Do You Know Where Your Food Comes From: It Will Become Super Importand If It's Not Already

Boar's Head meats and Walmart apple juice are the most recent food recalls on the table. Romane has E. Coli. A North Carolina meat plant recalled over 35,000 pounds of ground beef due to a potential plastic particle contamination. Perdue recalls 167,000 pounds of chicken nuggets after consumers find metal wire in them.

This leads me to today's article: Your food. Do you know where it comes from?

Do you know where your food comes from?Photo byRichelleg

The Issue

Food recalls are not unusual. The unfortunate reality is a multi-faced monster. Produce is almost always harvested before it is fully ripe, transported great distances, kept in storage for extended periods of time, and handled a lot. Dairy and meat are no different.

A Different Option: Foods Grown Close to Home

There has always been a movement back to clean food, but since 2020, consumers are growing increasingly interested in foods produced locally. Growing your own food doesn't require a farm anymore. For small yards and patios, raised garden beds and pots work beautifully.

Some even go so far as to raise their own cows for milk and poultry for eggs. Some people grow their own beef or pork or they purchase these goods from reliable local vendors. Farmers markets are becoming popular again. People are tired of dirty food. People are tired of the broken system. People are tired of eating lettuce that's traveled 2000 miles and is full of excrement.

Growing, raising, or purchasing locally produced food can provide a great sense of security and comfort, and learning now before SHTF is the best advice I can give you.

Know where it comes fromPhoto byRichelleg

The Value of Understanding the Origin of Your Food

The food system of today is a bigger mess than a big box store on Black Friday. In order to intentionally choose what to feed your family, it's essential to understand the farming, raising, and processing practices of your food if you're going to buy it.

*While not all food from grocery stores or commercial kitchens is unhealthy, I will discuss the broad methods and variations in food quality between locally produced, processed, and sold food and that which is found on shop shelves.

Where Is Dairy Produced?

Not all dairy is the samePhoto byRichelleg

Dairy products are often made from the milk of cows and goats, although they can also be made from the milk of sheep and buffalo. You can buy milk and milk byproducts from large dairy farms owned by commercial enterprises, from small family farms that sell pasteurized milk in supermarkets, or through a herd sharing program from small local farmers.

There's also raw milk; I drink it.

Why Is the Source of Dairy Important?

It matters where your dairy comes from. Clean and healthy milk comes from clean and healthy animals raised in a clean and healthy environment. When deciding where to buy milk, you should take into account factors including shelter, feed (grain-fed, grass-fed, or pasture-raised), innoculations, and sanitation.

Not all milk is the same.

Not all dairy is the samePhoto byRichelleg

Because milk can be raw, pasteurized, ultra-pasteurized, homogenized, non-homogenized, organic, A1, A2, and so on, it's crucial to know where your dairy products are coming from.

How to Locate Dairy Farmers in Your Area

There are a few ways to locate local dairy producers: go to the farmers' market, search Facebook for nearby farms, local farm & homestead groups, or simply ask around for local herd sharing alternatives. Ask your neighbors. And if you're able to, get your own cow. There is nothing on earth like fresh milk from a happy cow.

Depending on your local legislation, you will probably need search harder to buy raw milk. This safeguards the producer because raw milk is subject to stricter laws.

Farmish is an app (I am not an affiliate, just sharing information) that your phone store should have that uses your zip code to find what you're looking for from local farms and their prices.

Eggs

We have access to eggs from a wide variety of species, including chickens, ducks, quail, turkeys, pheasants, and geese. Eggs can be bought from local producers that sell directly to people, family farms that supply local grocery shops, and commercial enterprises with huge poultry operations and big box stores.

Why Does the Origin of Eggs Matter?

It's critical to know where your eggs come from for moral and health reasons.

Compared to small "backyard" producers, birds produced for commercial production are raised in a completely different environment. Eggs grown in a long, enclosed barn without access to the outdoors are most likely what you buy at the grocery store. It's also possible that the eggs at supermarket stores are months old when you buy them.

Free range and pasture-raised eggs don't mean those chickens are in the sunshine all day like their labels show. Not all eggs are the same.

Egg factoryPhoto byRichelleg

If you want to buy fresh local eggs from a backyard flock or a larger operation, think about the feed, egg collection schedule, sanitation procedures, and shelter (coop type and cleanliness).

Remember that a farmer should be happy to share images and information with you, even if they are unable to let you visit their coop or run for biosecurity reasons (which is a good thing). Whether the producer washes the eggs before selling them and what they wash them in, is another factor to take into account.

How to Locate Local Producers of Eggs

You can look for local egg producers by going to the farmers' market, searching Facebook for nearby farms, looking through local farm & homestead groups, or simply asking around for recommendations. Depending on where you live, some people even have little farm stands at the end of their driveways with self-serve egg stations. Farmish is another option here.

Not all eggs are the samePhoto byRichelleg

Where Is Meat From?

I can hear the trolls now: "Meat is from animals." LOL

Meat can originate from farms that sell directly to consumers OR from operations, big or small, that sell to a packer/buyer who ships, prepares, and packages the meat for retail sale. This is similar to the other food categories we have covered.

Farms that sell directly to consumers have several options for doing so:

• Meat cuts that have been packaged and processed (either on the farm or at a facility, depending on the species and state law).
• Alternatively, they may sell consumers fed animals for processing and finishing.
• They might offer whole, half, and quarter animals for a customer to pick up at the processing facility.

Not all meat is the samePhoto byRichelleg

Why Does the Origin of Meat Matter?

It matters a great deal where your meat comes from. The animal's living conditions, diet, and amount of stress are all factors that directly affect the safety and quality of the meat. With thousands of animals crammed into barns eating M&Ms and moldy bread, you'll also want to make sure a place like this has a good screening process and doesn't throw everything into the meat grinders.

The meat of an animal may become tough and flavorless if it was under stress during its life or during its slaughter. When meat chickens flap their wings excessively before being killed, the muscle may bruise and result in "green muscle disease," which gives the meat an ugly green hue. Ever heard of "spaghetti meat?"

In addition to the time required for processing, packaging, and delivery to the store, the fresh meat pieces you are buying from the supermarket can have been sitting there for ten to fourteen days. As long as it has been managed appropriately, this doesn't mean it's dangerous for you by any means. But it's something to consider.

Not all meat is the samePhoto byRichelleg

Naturally, frozen meat from the grocery store and local suppliers can be older. The main issue with ageing fresh meat in coolers is that meat packages frequently contain preservatives that make unfrozen meat appear fresher than it actually is.

Not all meat is the same.

Ingredients Added to Packages of Meat

When buying meat, you also need to take the other ingredients into account. For instance, carbon monoxide is often added to meat packaging to preserve the red color of the meat as it ages. (Untouched meat will start to have a grey/brown tint, which is entirely normal.)

Be mindful of the nitrites (NO2) and nitrates (NO3) added to cured meats, such as hot dogs and bacon. These substances—especially nitrites—have been connected to the "big c."

How to Locate Local Producers of Meat

You can check for local meat producers in your area by going to the farmers' market, searching Facebook for farms in your area, looking via local farm & homestead groups, or just asking around. The Farmish app works here too.

Where Is Produce From?

There is a big hunk of fruits and veggies that aren't even grown in the US, let alone in your same time zone, or even state. People don't eat local anymore, and they certainly don't eat with the seasons like our ancestors used to. It's super easy for someone in Maine to go to the grocery store in Februrary and grab oranges and bananas.

Dusty dirtPhoto byRichelleg

Most produce travels thousands and thousands of miles to get to us, washed in bleach, and waxed. Produce that is grown here in the US usually comes from giant farming operations that grow food out of something that resembles soil but is overworked, oversprayed, and overharvested. The amount of nutrients that produce used to have vs. now would shock you. Frutis and veggies are shells of their former selves.

Not all produce is the same.

Locating fresh produce that's local and in season is pretty easy. Just visit a local farmers market, utilize Facebook or Google to search local farms, or use that app again. Buy good food in bulk and learn how to preserve it for a rainy day. The difference between fresh food and what you used to think of as fresh food is literally night and day.

Not all produce is the samePhoto byRichelleg

I hope today's article has opened your eyes to a different world of food, not the ones we're used to. Where your food comes from matters, what you eat matters. I urge you to learn how to feed yourself real, raw, complete food. If you can't grow your own, find out where you can get it from. The sooner the better!

Attributions:

Where Does Our Food Come From? (n.d.). https://www.eatright.org/food/planning/food-security-and-sustainability/where-does-our-food-come-from

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/sp/where-does-our-food-come-from/