out here on the road

We are traveling by car across the US yet again, and once a day we stop for lunch to stretch our legs and get some grub. The options are few out here on the highways of our great land for those of us who wish to eat sustainably-raised food, or care about where our food comes from as well as how it is raised and even slaughtered.

Oh yes, be sure, I always pack a cooler and a sack of REAL FOOD, snacks and stuff for breakfast and dinner when we stop to camp and I can cook. I even bring homemade soup we can sip cold. But the car ride gets old after a few hundred miles and we need to stop and stretch. So when we do, we always try to find a local diner or restaurant, a “mom and pop” stop among the plethora of McDonald’s, Wendy’s, and Hardee’s. Sometimes we find one, sometimes we don’t.

Today we thought we found one, “The Friendly Grille” just inside the IL border. Too bad road construction blocked the road it was on and kept us from finding it.

So it was back onto the interstate, and  we traveled on down the road another 15-20 miles or so, as far as we could go before we needed to fill up the tank again. This time, a Country Kitchen. My honey was happy to see one; it had been a while. I have never seen one, so off we went. And then it was obvious: another chain restaurant. A small chain, but a chain again. Oy.

This prompted an interesting conversation about where food comes from. Another “aha” moment. I have not really seen the breadth of this prior to now. There seem to be three groups: 1. McDonald’s and Wendy’s and the big chains, 2. the small chains and 3. the Moms and Pops. To my knowledge, the big chains AND the small chains get their food from central suppliers, for the most part. I am guessing that MickeyD’s et al have their own main suppliers, and the small chain restaurants also get their food from suppliers such as Sysco, etc. These may vary by area, but there are still companies whose main business is to get groceries/staples to restaurants. So both the large chains and the small chains are purchasing the same brands, the same foods, full of salt and preservatives and lots of long ingredient labels. Yuck. Not sure about where the mom and pop restaurants get their food stuffs; probably depends upon their size and location. They, too, may use the same food distributors…so it’s all the same dead food, (enzymatically dead) the same processed food to varying degrees, the same pasteurized food, the same GMO-laden food, conventional food, pesticide-laden food…out here on the road. Ugh.

Another observation: once we were in this “small chain restaurant”, there were no good choices. Here’s what’s on the menu: a burger or steak from a cow raised on a feedlot, eating food it is not meant to eat while standing in its own fecal matter, and slaughtered assembly line fashion, pulled pork bbq from a pig raised in a cage, chicken from hens raised in cages with what Joel Salatin has pointed out “fecal particulate” in their lungs, salmon-no doubt farm-raised and fed GMO feed at the least. Hmmm. Hard to be a sustainably-eating carnivore out on the road.  Very difficult choices. What one does when faced with these bad options is, of course, a personal decision. It may come down to just how hungry you are. And as I always say, a blessing does a lot to make whatever you eat more palatable…as well as a request for forgiveness for what I call the Food Industrial Complex and some actions to help remedy the situation. Join the Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund…join a CSA…volunteer on a farm…purchase your food at a farmer’s market, vote with your pocketbook…and when you are on the road, bring your own food with you. Try to research sustainable food options on your route beforehand! And if the only options you have are gas station convenience stores every 60 or 70 miles out here on the road, well, just do your best. 😉

“Real Food 101″, aka,”Real Food for Dummies” or Top 5 Things You Can Do for Your Health

I have been meeting many people along the way on our trip across the country from Maryland to Wyoming and Colorado and back again. We have passed through Maryland, PA, WV, OH,  IN, IL, IO, NE, WY, CO, SD, MN, WI, and now we are on our way to IN and MI. In addition to everyone I met and had the privilege of teaching at my Cooking for Well-Being conference in Colorado, I am having wonderful conversations with folks about real food and good health. All sorts of people are being introduced to Nourishing Traditions and the Weston A. Price Foundation, realmilk.com, the Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund and the Nourishing Our Children Campaign. Makes me so happy to be spreading the good word about all this good food!

My husband Franklin Taggart calls me an “inspirer”: someone who calls people to realize what they are capable of…and shows them that they “have the goods to do what they need to do”. I must say I love to inspire people to good health, good food, and help to provide them with the tools, techniques and resources to “take their power back”: their power to eat well and be well…to decide where they purchase their food and from whom (from the Food Industrial Complex with all of its implications for the health of the people and the Earth or from farmers, farmers markets, CSAs, etc etc) …(Joel Salatin of Polyface Farm has been reminding us that we “vote with our pocketbooks” when we choose our food. Who are you/we voting for today?!)

So along the way I have had questions from friends, family and acquaintances which are really  the same question: “what can I do that would be easy *and* high impact?” So I have come up with the top 5 things anyone can do that are simply a “switcheroo”, involve no training or classes, or menu changes. Just swap what you are using now with the following, and the nutrient density of your food will go up. In my private practice with clients of all ages and in my own life, I have seen hunger decrease,  thought become less foggy, children become more focused, weight drop off, and cholesterol levels beautify. (For information on the cholesterol myth, see Uffe Ravnskov, The Cholesterol Myth as well as Dr. Mercola’s Huffington Post article on the same.)

And so, the top five:

1. Use real salt. Throw out that Morton’s salt and purchase some salt that is high in trace minerals. Celtic Sea Salt from the Grain and Salt Society is highest in trace minerals, so I use that. Just check out the label…all “sea salt” is not the same. If they can tell you about the trace mineral content on the label, you’ve got a good one.

2. Use pastured eggs. Swap out supermarket eggs, free range eggs, organic eggs, or eggs fed “vegetarian feed” for eggs from hens *on pasture*. Buy them from a farmer or the farmer’s market, or from your CSA. Chickens are omnivores; the most nutritious eggs will be those from hens that eat a good amount of bugs! (Just check the color of the yolks…eggs from chickens that eat bugs are bright, deep orange…if your yolks are light yellow or the whites runny, they *are not* nutrient dense eggs!)

3. Use pastured butter, aka, butter from cows that eat grass. Don’t rest on your laurels and think the term “organic butter” is enough. “Organic” says nothing about whether the cows ate grass. Look for “pasture butter” from Organic Valley, or Trickling Springs Farm in the DC metro area. Look for butter at the farmers market , or get some *real cream* and make your own. (Butter has the perfect fatty acid profile. Stop slurping that fish oil and pile on the good old fashioned grass-fed butter!)

4. (If you eat bread at all) Eat sprouted bread or a true sourdough bread. There are several brands on the market that make sprouted bread, sprouted bagels, sprouted English muffins. Find a baker that makes real sourdough, or make it yourself! (Be sure you slather on the pastured butter, as it will help to neutralize the rest of the phytic acid that has not been neutralized by sprouting. For more on phytic acid, see  Living with Phytic Acid)

5.Eat grass-fed meat and poultry. The nutrient profile is very different for meat and poultry that is raised on pasture. Far more nutritious for you, better for the animal and for the planet. (All meat is not the same–comparing meat from animals raised in the Food Industrial Complex with meat from animals raised on pasture is like comparing apples and oranges–)

Okay, that’s the beginning. We’ll call it  “real food for dummies” or, “real food 101”. I am not going to go into fresh, raw milk at this time, as so many people in our country do not have access to it. (To find out about the state of raw milk in your state, check out the map on the Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund’s website or check out www.realmilk.com) I am not going to go into fermentation or soaking your beans and grains, or making your own stock. That’s for level 2. Take it easy. Go slowly. One step at a time.

FDA’s ARMED RAID on my FARMER

We went to Capitol Hill yesterday, yes, we did…my raw milk buying club…and lots of other folks…400 or so of them, from as far away as California (thank you, Mark McAfee of Organic Pastures)…to protest the FDA ARMED RAID on our FARMER, Dan Allgyer. Our Amish farmer. What did Dan do? He was milking our cow who lives in Pennsylvania and delivering the milk to me and my club members who live in Maryland.

Let me be clear, folks. This was not a raid conducted in the name of “food borne illness”. No one has ever been sick from Dan’s milk.

FDA officials insist milk needs to be inspected and pasteurized to guarantee its safety.  Raw milk proponents flatly deny the claim, saying raw milk is much safer than the pasteurized version and want the government to back down.

“There’s no record in the CDC of any raw milk killing anyone,” said Mark McAfee of Organic Pastures Dairy. “But you see pasteurized milk sickening 422,000 people and 20 deaths — and 80 people if you look at miscarriages.” (See full article HERE)

It was a raid because the FDA considers our club’s milk “contraband”, crossing over the state line from a state where producing, selling, and consuming raw milk is LEGAL, that is, Pennsylvania, to a state where it is illegal, that is, Maryland. However, the FDA doesn’t have a case, because that is not contraband, it is OUR MILK from our cows.

So, we went to Washington yesterday. Capitol Hill. Upper Senate Park, with the Capitol in the background. Beautiful day. And Mrs. Moo (a beautiful cow) came to Washington, too. And she was milked on the Hill, in the District of Columbia, where producing and selling raw milk is also illegal.  We consumed some raw milk, too. (Drank it “at our own risk” , according to the signs.) I got to pour gallons of that liquid gold and hand it out to eagerly waiting hands. Children and parents, reporters and lawyers, cameramen and women, speakers and organizers…and they ALL LOVED it.

I say “liquid gold” because it is so. The color of the milk reflects the spring grass the cows have been eating. I also say “liquid gold” because it represents a strong challenge to the Dairy Industrial Complex in this country. The Dairy Industrial Complex (DIC for short) doesn’t like raw milk and it doesn’t like people like me to purchase it directly from my farmer. More and more people are doing so every year, according to Sally Fallon Morell yesterday. The number of people drinking pasteurized milk are decreasing steadily, as the numbers drinking raw milk rise. If this keeps up, the DIC will cease to exist. It will go out of business. And that is EXACTLY what they are afraid of.

So they intimidate people and play on their fears of getting sick from E. coli and other harmful bacteria and they (the DIC) and the FDA and the CDC perpetuate the false information and the misinformation about the health benefits of raw milk. The truth is, folks, that we are comparing apples and oranges. When the FDA and the CDC scare you out of drinking raw milk by telling stories of illness, they are not giving you accurate information. Raw milk is not even in the top 10 foods that cause food-borne illness in this country. What is? Chicken! (see FTCLDF)

Yes, pasteurization was developed in response to people getting sick and dying from drinking raw milk. But that  milk was contaminated milk, from sick cows. Why were the cows sick? Because they were raised in what I daresay was one of the original CAFOs (confined animal feeding operations) …in cement buildings in cities, with no fresh air, no sunlight, NO GRASS, no room to move, and NO SANITATION. Not to mention that they were fed things cows should not eat. NO WONDER the milk was bad and caused illness and death. But one CANNOT COMPARE that milk to milk from COWS RAISED ON GRASS. In the sunlight. On the pasture. THE WAY COWS ARE SUPPOSED TO LIVE. Not to mention the fact that RAW MILK IS LEGAL in many states in these United States. Legal and certified. Facilities inspected for cleanliness and cows inspected for health. Clean, pure, health-full, enzyme rich, lactase containing, delicious raw milk. And people in those states aren’t dying off in droves. Hmmmmmmmm. Very interesting. In fact, it is only illegal in 10 or so states.  (See Raw Milk Nation: State by State Review of Raw Milk Laws from FTCLDF)

There is much at stake here, folks. Our FREEDOM OF CHOICE…Freedom to choose what food we eat and where we purchase it… and from whom we purchase it.  DIRECT FARM TO CONSUMER SALES. Our rights.  Our HEALTH. Someone said at the Rally for Food and Farm Freedom yesterday, “if it were up to the FDA, we (those who want to eat real food) would either starve or die of chemical poisoning.” Which is of course, what much of America is doing. Dying of the chemical soup the FDA allows in our food. Dyes, food additives, food “fractions”, “food products”. Is it a wonder that so many American children are obese? Are diabetic? Hmmmmmmmm.  The kids at that rally were not obese. Not diabetic. Don’t suffer from ADD and ADHD. Are not on the autistic spectrum. Their moms are feeding them REAL FOOD. REAL milk. RAW milk. “Children who start out on raw milk are very healthy children, as all of you know. They don’t have asthma, they don’t have allergies, they don’t miss days at school, they don’t get sick, they don’t have digestive problems,” said Sally Fallon Morell at the rally, to applause and cheers.

Just a few parting thoughts…thanks to the organizers, Liz Reitzig and Karine. Thanks to all the speakers for their wisdom. Thanks to my Honey for designing the T shirts you see in all the photos “FDA LEAVE MY FARMER AND MY RAW MILK ALONE” as a fundraiser for our farmer. (If you would like to purchase a T shirt and support Dan, click HERE.) Thanks to the FARM TO CONSUMER LEGAL DEFENSE Fund. Thanks to the WESTON A. PRICE FOUNDATION. Thanks to Sally Fallon Morell. And thanks to Dan Allgyer of Rainbow Acres, our brave and honest farmer, a good man, for all his hard work in raising our cows. We support you and are with you.

And one more thought…if we wait for someone else to do what we know needs to be done, it will never get done. Take part in this RAW MILK REVOLUTION folks. As Sally said yesterday, “There’s no force on earth greater than the educated, committed consumer, and passionate moms.” (Which, as you all know, I am one.)

…stay tuned…more photos to come.

reflections on Wise Traditions 2010…

Here I am with Sally Fallon Morell in front of my table at WT 2010!

So I’ve been home 6 days…and this is my first chance to write about my experience at the Weston A. Price Foundation’s Wise Traditions Conference in King of Prussia PA. What a wonderful conference! The FOOD! The FOOD! The FOOD! (did I say “the FOOD”?!) Unbelievable. Don’t know how they did it. (Actually, I do know, having been an event planner, conference manager and catering company owner in the not so distant past. ) It was  QUITE A FEAT, and pulled off quite well by the staff of the WAPF and PTF Associates. Over 1500 people registered before the conference began, and I am guessing another hundred or so on-site. All those people. All those happy people…people IN SEARCH OF something more, something REAL…real information about FOOD, FARMING and the HEALING ARTS. This year’s conference was focused upon THE POLITICS OF FOOD…and if you don’t think food is political, think again.

One of the most basic things, one of the most primal things, is to eat. All of us do it. Everyone must eat to live. We are challenged, though, in this day and this age to EAT TO THRIVE. The food at this conference, the basis of the teachings of Weston A. Price and the foundation that Sally Fallon Morell began over 12 years ago is about EATING TO THRIVE.

Eating is a political act. What one chooses to eat, where one purchases one’s food is a political act. Every day we are voting with our pocketbooks…do you support family farms or factory farms? “Animals expressing their animal-ness” (as Joel Salatin has said it), or CAFOs? Do you support small enterprises or big business? REAL food or processed food? Surviving or THRIVING for yourself and your family?

With The Barefoot Cook, Amanda Love at Sunday Brunch. Great Job, Amanda!

Every meal we ate at the conference was REAL food: meat and turkey and eggs and produce and cheese, butter and milk from sustainable farms. REAL milk…raw milk. Delicious, nutritious, FULL of live enzymes and vitamins and good health.   Soaked oatmeal or quinoa every morning for breakfast. Hand-made sausages on soaked flour biscuits. (Only my fermented KETCHUP or mustard would have made them better!) REAL butter. Lots of it. 170 pounds per meal served! The ferments. The FERMENTS! Cortido, chutneys, salsas, red cabbage, garlic flowers…The BREAD! Soaked or sourdough…easy to digest, covered with real BUTTER or coconut ghee if you preferred. NOTHING PROCESSED. NO REFINED SUGAR. NO COFFEE.  Can you believe it?! 1500+ people on no processed food, sugar or coffee for 4 days! And the food was plentiful. Our bodies were in FOOD HEAVEN, and our minds worked well through the packed conference days because of it. No late afternoon blood sugar crashes sending us off for a chocolate or coffee fix; focused minds.  Thanks to all the farmers and organizations that contributed!!

Serving hundreds nourishing, traditional food!

Eating is a political act. If you care about small farms and your right to continue to purchase from them, as well as your right to nutrient-dense food, GET INVOLVED.  The Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund is a great source of information and can keep you up to date on what is happening. Support the Fund and the Foundation so that they can continue to support and protect the farms you want to purchase from…through farmer’s markets, CSAs and on-farm purchases. It matters now more than ever. See FTCLDF’s info on S. 510 HERE.

One week ago today, I taught an all-day session on Pulling It All Together: Fitting Nourishing, Traditional Food into Your Busy Life to a room of over 85 people. A veritable tour de force! Seven of my normally two and a half hour classes in less than 5.5 hours…and hand-outs to boot! Lots of information and lots of fun. What wonderful folks attended. Sandy in the front row…Marie who doesn’t like her beans mushy…the lady who has a thing about plastic! I so enjoyed their questions and our dialog. THANKS to everyone that attended, and especially to the two gals without whom it could not have happened: Susan Lucas and Amy Berger. The session was filmed…thanks, Steve!…and I am GREAT ON CAMERA, if I do say so myself! If you would like to order a copy of the session, you may do so HERE.  (Check back with Fleetwood Onsite for individual session recordings.) I will also have DVDs of the session for purchase in the near future.  More on that later. :))

So, just a few reflections on a wonderful conference.  I am sure I will write more in the days to come. I encourage you to attend next year…for information…resources…and connections. If you love nutrient-dense food, cooked in a way that is delicious AND good for you, come and be with your tribe. I know I will. The FOOD ALONE is worth it.

YUM! Sunday Brunch: all farm-fresh sausages, bacon, egg and veg frittata, soaked waffles with fresh whipped cream!

 

 

Notes: The people of Pennsylvania and several other states in the U.S.  are blessed to be able to purchase raw milk in stores in their state. If you want to know more about raw milk and your rights to it, see www.realmilk.com,and support the Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund, HERE.

I got to ride behind Joel Salatin…

…you’ll just have to believe me.

In the days before pictures, the written word was all we had to capture thoughts, impressions, moments. Well, that’s all I’ve got to use today to convey my visit to Polyface Farm Saturday…heartbroken, almost…as all 110 of my glorious photos went the way of a curious 4 year old playing with buttons on the digital camera. He found the “trash all” button, and they were lost forever.

How can I convey how happy I was, privileged, blessed, in fact, to be riding on the hay wagon directly behind the Lunatic Farmer HIMSELF, Joel Salatin, who was driving the red tractor pulling about a hundred of us? A man with so clear a vision, and so unwavering a focus upon it.  It was his mission today to explain to those of us that came to the benefactor event of the Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund and Farm to Consumer Foundation what he is doing at Polyface Farm, and why he and other small farmers need the organization and the support…and he got choked up later in his speech after lunch as he expressed his gratitude for their assistance twice since its inception.

It was a beautiful day in Swoope, VA. Bright sun, a lot hotter than the forecast had promised. My son and I arrived about 15 minutes early, as I wanted to deliver 10 quarts of fermented Peach Chutney and fermented Lemon Thyme Garlic and Garlic Dill Pickles to the caterer upon arrival.  We were met by Mike, a white dog who stands taller on all fours than my very tall 4 year old. He welcomed both of us by jumping up and placing a paw on Bodhi’s chest, knocking him over. The day at the farm had begun! We will see ducks, pigs, chickens, (layers and broilers), cows and rabbits before the day was over.

So…instead of a chronology of the day…just a few “snapshots” (pardon the pun)…

I went over to say hello to Joel, who had just flown in the night before from somewhere, whom I hadn’t seen since I was honored to be on a panel with him and Sally Fallon Morell to discuss FRESH: the movie last November. Gosh, had it been that long? I introduced him to my son, Bodhi, who was so excited about meeting The Farmer, Joel. He said he liked Joel’s hat, (yes, that beat up, worn out, full of holes farm hat that is Joel’s trademark) and told him he had brought his cowboy hat, too. They decided together that Bodhi’s brand new white cowboy hat from Cheyenne, Wyoming was probably a lot like Joel’s “city hat”, which he would rotate in after his farm hat had truly lived its last days. Bodhi was thrilled to “talk hats” with Joel. Then he ran off to play with the cat.

The first animals we saw on the hayride were pigs…fifty or so pigs, some pink, some brown, some spotted brown on pink…the pigs see Joel’s red tractor approaching and RUN to greet him and us. Came right up; no fear. Each pig about 50 pounds, running and playing and chasing each other in a paddock, contained only by a single wire of electric fence. They seemed to laugh, giggle, romp and roll. They would move in a day or so to the next paddock we could see over the hill, where the grass was green and tall. They would grow to about 400 pounds on grass and acorns and starchy roots. (This is about 160 pounds more than confinement pigs…they grow that big foraging and rooting around…one thing confinement pigs do not have the pleasure of doing.) Joel explained that the job of the pigs was to create upheaval–in their routing around with their snouts, and running around with their hooves, they overturned much…creating the space for new growth to begin after them.  As Joel explained the ecology and economy of it all, he invited us to take a big sniff and notice their was no odor. A far cry from the conventional pig farms, where one can smell the stench of confinement miles away.

The fields…sooooooo beautiful. So lush, so green. A horticulturist’s dream. I looked around and identified a few species, some of my favorites…the steely blue-lavender color of chicory against its dark gray/black stalks, gorgeous, bright golden yarrow swaying in the breeze, thistles! Oh, the thistles! Rich lavendery-purpley-magenta thistles…dark green, tall, woody stems and prickly leaves. Red clover…grasses that looked like brush-tails and 40 or 50 more species growing, growing. When Joel stopped the tractor in the middle of a pasture to ask folks to note the variety of plants growing, and that this pasture had already been grazed 2 or 3 times this year and would be grazed again, I had a fantasy that he must have noticed me pointing out the beauty of it all to my son as he drove.  “Where did they all come from?” one of the guests asked. No seeds were ever planted, no species introduced. This is Nature creating as she does when all is in balance. When one stewards the Earth.

Next, the broilers. A thousand birds on one pasture…all in movable chicken houses, all on the grass with shelter and sun…a line of 10 or 15 of these movable houses I am guessing with about 15 birds each (could have been 20;  I didn’t count). Again, you could see where the houses had been yesterday–that grass had been “mowed” down to the dirt. The houses are moved daily to new, fresh grass… so there were stripes of already eaten pasture, covered with chicken poop and then stripes of lush pasture not yet travelled…all the way through. It was here that my boy found the most exotic and exquisite caterpillar that he played with while Joel spoke…yellow and orange and black, with black spikes sticking out all over and two black antennae. (You’ll have to trust me on this one, too. The close up of the insect was beautiful.)

The cows…oh, the cows. I will never forget the sound of the munching of the cows. Munch, munch, munch. Have you ever heard a cow munch grass? Just wonderful. So…chewing, chewing, chewing! I noted that we were driving over a pasture that had been grazed very far…down to the dirt…and how it was covered with cow pies! (Did you know that grass-fed cows drop 50 pounds of cow pies a day?! and that when you step on them, they are bright GREEN inside?!!!) On the far end, in the grassy pasture, were 50 or so cows, and opposite from them, in the “already been grazed, almost dirt, covered with cow pies pasture” was an “egg mobile” with lots of hens running around outside it, pecking the ground, pecking the cow pies for luscious, divine fly larve. (Did you know that cow pies contain all the enzymes that chickens need to digest their food?! Gosh, Nature really knows what she is doing!) Sooooooooo on one end, the cows grazing in the lush green grass (the “teenager grass” Joel calls it, the high growth grass that one WANTS cows to graze–timing is everything when you are a Grass Farmer!) and on the other end, the chickens, laying hens, doing what Joel calls “Sanitation” on the field. They go through and EAT AS CHICKENS ARE MEANT TO EAT, BUGS out of the cow pies. Not “vegetarian feed enhanced with omega 3s”! (I had pictures of those cow pies and those chickens pecking through them for treats!) The result? Nutrient-dense, ORANGE-YOLKED eggs. Pure nutritive gold.

Transparency. This is a word Joel uses all the time–transparency. The ability to see through, to see all. The willingness to be seen…to be looked at, and to be held accountable. Michael Pollan used this word in The Omnivore’s Dilemma when he wrote about his experience at Polyface. Transparency and the circle of life. And the naturalness of the circle… I will never forget the scene of my 4 year old child swinging on the swing in the tree right next to the open killing shed. He and a bunch of girls and boys ages 4-9ish…running, swinging, laughing. Yep, just a few feet from where the chickens are slaughtered and cleaned for sale. I had no worry about germs…this was Polyface farm and I knew that because of the way birds are processed on this farm all was well. The birds are “processed” right outside where all can see, in manageable batches once a week, instead of in a big factory operations that reek of the stench of killing thousands of birds at a time. Here, by hand, no odor, no stench…just transparency. Come and look and see where it is done, how it is done. And then choose to eat or not.

How happy I was, how grateful, yes, feeling blessed to be in the presence of one hundred or so like-minded folks who care enough about their rights to real, fresh from the farm food (really, not just proclaimed on a box from a supermarket) to offer up $250 or more each to help ensure small family farmers do the work of farming, and lawyers do the work of defending their right to do so. We shared a meal of local, sustainable meat, cheese, wine and vegetables with others who had come from as far away as Gainesville, Florida and Minnesota, Arizona…all to support each other, to support the farmers, to support and ensure their right to sell directly to consumers, and for the consumers right (that means you and me) to purchase directly from them. We heard from the head of the FTCLDF and from others who are spearheading the movement to protect what Joel calls “the rights of my several trillion members” i.e., the right to feed one’s own body with the foods one chooses…and the challenges to that right.  Sally Fallon Morell, another visionary, another of my favorite people…I met Sally 12 years ago when she taught me and a group of others how to make butter from real cream. Sally’s efforts inspire me daily to “teach, teach teach…”. She is one of the founders of the FTCLDF, FTCF, and of the Weston A. Price Foundation.   Thank you Sally for all you do for all of us. And for the children. Sally spoke about the three things are needed for a successful renaissance in farming: 1.  Creation of customers (WAPF does this), 2. Legal Defense (FTCLDF does this) and 3. Figuring out the best ways to farm. . . the farmers do that. And after a day at Polyface, it was clear to all who attended that Joel Salatin has done that.

Cathy Raymond of the FTCLDF raffled off  lots of donated items in thanksgiving for people having come…homemade, artisanal bread, local wine, hard copies of Nourishing Traditions, one of my own DVDs: The Ketchup Revolution and a Preparing Whole Grains and Legumes chart, gift certificates to the Polyface Farm store (you know they don’t ship!)…among others.  Our day ended with a visit to the farm store ourselves, for a couple dozen of those ungraded Polyface Eggs, the best hot dogs in the world (made from real meat and not meat parts you wouldn’t want to eat), and of course, chicken. As I packed a happy, exhausted child into his car seat and began to drive out, I caught Joel’s eye and waved my thanks. He stopped his conversation and walked over to me in the van, and grabbed my hand to thank me for coming down. He asked after my husband, whom he had met 8 years prior, and was happy to hear of the miracles that have happened in his health this year. The last thing I said to the self-proclaimed “Lunatic Farmer” was to thank him for being my inspiration. “Whenever I am foggy about why I am here or what I need to do”, I said, “I think of you and your focus and your clarity, and I say, Joel is my model.” May I be as clear about why I do what I do, and as focused in bringing it to fruition. Thank you Joel Salatin, for all you do for all of us. As I write, I am choked up and grateful. And maybe we’ll just have to take another trip down to Polyface Farm soon. With the camera. 🙂

Why I’m going to Polyface Farm Saturday

This weekend, I’m taking a drive to Polyface Farm in Swoope, Virginia. It will take me about 3 hours to get there…and it is NOT  “mapquest-able”! Into the rolling hills of Virginia to the “Farm of Many Faces”, to have a tour and lunch with the foremost Grass Farmer in this country, Joel Salatin.

I’ve been to Polyface before, about 10 years ago when I was just transitioning back to eating meat for health reasons after a few years of being a vegetarian. I needed to know where my meat was coming from, how the animals were raised and slaughtered. It mattered. It still does–now more than ever. I was also looking for a local source for sustainably raised meat for my organic catering company, The Basic Feast. I found it at Polyface Farm.  I knew I had found Polyface when the pasture was deep, lush green compared to the burnt out, dried out and gray pasture of the farms that surrounded it. These cows graze on more than 40 different species of plants (what Joel calls his “salad bar”).

I will be delivering multiple quarts of my FERMENTED PEACH CHUTNEY and FERMENTED PICKLES to donate to a luncheon for people supporting the Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund and Farm to Consumer Foundation. They are non-profit organizations set up to support small, sustainable family farms and their rights to produce REAL food for us…as well as our right to purchase it directly from them. If you care about small farmers and value your right to purchase from them at farmers markets, CSAs and on their farm, DONATE to the cause. Any amount of money helps…for more on FTCLDF, click HERE. To DONATE to the Fund, click HERE. If you would rather donate to the Farm to Consumer Foundation, click HERE.

You know REAL food counts–to our health, our children’s health, and to the health of the Earth herself–soil and planet. Let’s support those small, sustainable family farmers who do their best to provide us with the best food they can. As Joel told me more than 10 years ago, “I encourage you to vote with your pocketbook.”

All the best to you, always!