Ignorance WAS Bliss

Being the avid reader and Concerned Citizen that I am, I read several nonfiction books each year. In the past year or two I have read several that discuss food safety, efficiency, eating in general, animal welfare, and other related topics. I should not read these books. Let me clarify: I should not read these books until I can afford pasture-finished beef and free range poultry. Now I have a big conundrum to ponder. (I have been dying to use that word for about a week now.) I do feel a certain amount of guilt and dismay that most of the beef I eat spends the last months of its life on a feedlot in Kansas, standing in manure and eating a vegetable (corn) that does not agree with its digestive system. I don't want to consume meat from an animal that has eaten by-products of itself or of another animal. I am worried that the antibiotics used on these animals may be transferred to my body (and my children's bodies) with unknown consequences. (Some doctors suggest growth hormones and antibiotics are part of the reason kids are hitting puberty earlier.) I don't know how to tell if something is "really" organic and free range, or if companies are being their usual tricky selves in marketing and packaging their products. I am currently unable to grow most of my own food, due to lack of so many things, and the Farmer's Market does not have much to offer during the cold, long months of winter here in Michigan. Sigh.

I do dream of a day when I drive to a local farmer and pick up my freshly butchered, free-range, pasture finished, happy-as-can-be-meat. I'm not afraid of the hard work involved in growing a garden, harvesting and storing the results, and cooking from them year round. I hope to have a small orchard, berry bushes, and the like someday. Really, I'd rather not live in a cookie-cutter suburban development. But if I can't grow a lot of my own food, I will support local growers. I hope I can afford to do that much, at least.

Many of these writers are concerned with the fossil fuels used to transport food from the far reaches of the planet right to the neighborhood Kroger. We all know pineapple does not grow in the northern United States, and yet we can buy pineapple year round. Some fruits and vegetables don't taste very good after traveling so far and being picked before they were truly ripened, but I don't know if I can give up bananas just because they don't grow right where I live. I wish I understood the world economic situation better. Is it good or bad to export all these things? I did read in Business Week a few issues ago that the US exported more potatoes than it imported -- and both numbers were in the millions of pounds. Why are we exporting so many potatoes if we can grow them ourselves?

I'm not sure what the solutions are to all of these problems. Frankly, I think the government has a lot to do with the demise of many small farms. So much of our farmland is used to grow corn and soybeans, which are then altered to produce - among many other things - high fructose corn syrup. Is that bad for you? Who knows! So many different opinions, and now I am a Confused Citizen. Years ago I stopped eating veal and lamb because I saw the little stakes the baby animals were tethered to for the duration of their short lives. Now I'm thinking the little shelter and 14-foot radius allowed them is better than the alternative if they were older. I haven't eaten meat since I finished reading the book. Hayden requested hot dogs for dinner, and that's what we're having, with homemade oven fries (regular and sweet potato) and some sort of vegetable that wasn't grown anywhere near here. Am I going to eat the hot dog tonight? Probably. I feel ill-equipped to become an activist, but I'm going to try to be an educated consumer, despite the mixed messages. I'll let you know if I succeed.