[liamona]

Originally Posted by funchy

I think we'll just have to agree to disagree on the "necessity" of meat to get needed nutrients in a healthy diet.

I don't think it's necessary, exactly! But that's okay.

What I meant is that just because modern methods are producing meat in unhealthy ways, doesn't mean that meat itself is the problem. if it were, there wouldn't be all the evidence that people have thrived on it for millions of years.

Originally Posted by funchy

Survival of something doesn't imply necessity. People also used to die before they turned 30 and bathe in the same creek they dumped the chamberpot.

I didn't say survive—I said people THRIVED on it.

That's why Weston Price's research was revolutionary—he didn't study any old group of people (especially those dumping chamberpots in creeks! LOL).

He went around the world studying people thriving in optimal health. And all of them ate meat some of the time (the ones who ate the least, the isolated Swiss villagers in Loetschental Valley, consumed a lot of dairy).

One picture provided by a farmer's market web site does not imply all vendors at the market grow locally, have nice healthy looking animals, don't load the cows with drugs, feed them only grass, no feedlots, etc.

Actually, there's a lot of small vendors who post pictures of their farms. I was surprised.

Even if your cows are grass fed (almost all are not), they are shuffled around and resold at auctions. Then when they hit maturity, they're shipped to feedlots to be given garbage-feed to "finish" them. Then they're shipped again to some centralized slaughterhouse. Every time they're shipped and shuffled around, there is stress. Disease loves stress.

Not all producers do that. In fact, farmers like Joel Salatin of the infamous Polyface Farm will ONLY sell to local people. He will not ship his farm's products anywhere, no matter what the asking price:

COMMUNITY: We do not ship food. We should all seek food closer to home, in our foodshed, our own bioregion. This means enjoying seasonality and reacquainting ourselves with our home kitchens.

The problem is that even if the consumer wanted only properly-produced meat, it just isn't available. The US food meat supply is corrupt. It's poorly monitored and the industry is controlled by special interests. Legislation helps the big producers and greedy, but those who want to do things right get nowhere. Unless you're breeding, raising, and slaughtering the animals yourself, you really don't know the quality of the meat.

All the more reason why meat-eaters need to insist on eating meats that are from animals raised properly, instead of throwing up their hands because of the problems, or burying their head in the sand when they see information on factory farms. Nothing will change if we only look at the problems!


A site like EatWild.com is invaluable to search for the few people doing things the right way. They even have a directly for 100-Percent Grass-Fed Dairies. This is a list of things the site looks at as criteria for inclusion in its directory:

We welcome new suppliers who meet the following production standards (revised 5/08):
Criteria for Listing on Eatwild

• We raise our animals in a low-stress, natural environment and treat them humanely from birth to market.
• We protect our streams and other natural water sources from harmful animal impact.
• We manage the grazing pattern of our animals to enhance the growth of the pasture, the health of the land, and the nutritional value of our products. To do this, we take into account the specific soil conditions, vegetation, altitude, growing season, and temperature range of our climate.
• When high-quality pasture is not available, we feed the animals stored grasses, which can include hay, haylage, and grass silage. We do not feed them grain, soy, corn silage, or concentrate.
• We do not treat our animals with hormones.
• We do not treat our animals with routine, low-level antibiotics. Those animals that we do treat with antibiotics due to health problems or injury are removed from the program.
• We do not confine our animals except for: 1) brief periods prior to and during birthing, 2) to protect them from extreme weather conditions, or 3) to prevent “pugging” of the soil during wet weather.
• We raise our dairy animals on pasture with little or no grain or concentrate. (We will list you if you feed your dairy animals a small percentage of grain—6 pounds or less per day, provided you specify the type and amount. This information must be included in your listing.)
• We raise our poultry outdoors on good-quality pasture as soon as they are old enough to withstand outdoor conditions. (Note: Having “access to the outdoors” is not enough. The birds must be getting a significant amount of their nourishment from growing plants. This means that they need to be in a large area of grass, or moved frequently so that they always have a good supply of fresh pasture. Unlike ruminants, poultry can be fed a significant amount of supplemental food, such as grain and seeds.)
• We raise our pigs or rabbits outdoors on good pasture. (As is true for poultry, they can be given supplemental grain, nuts, seeds, fruits, and other nutritious foods in addition to grasses.)
• Organic certification is desirable, but not essential.

Eatwild reserves the right to remove a supplier from the website if there is reason to believe that the supplier does not meet these criteria, or if for any reason inclusion of the supplier might reflect negatively on Eatwild.