Friday, September 15, 2006

Beef Cattle, Organic Twinkies and Pop Tarts

I confess I am more than a little thrown off about what and how to eat after reading The Omnivore's Dilemma, our latest book club book
If you are fan of Whole Foods you may want to think twice before reading it---I went recently in Santa Fe and it was just not the same. But the farmers market, already a favorite, went up in my esteem. Unfortunately where we live there are no local markets one of the many things I miss about DC . My distress is not limited to how to purchase meat but also
fruits and vegetables--mono cropping of baby green lettuce has consequences as well. So three couples in our bookclub have gone on the quest to aquire a grassfed local raised steer to split 3 ways. What an adventure. It turns out that the guy in out our back view shed raises cattle for slaughter and that yes we could buy one after they go for fattening on grain feed for 60-90 days. When we explain that is what we do not want that we want just grass fed--he already thought we were some crazy city folk and now he has a great story to tell at the bar later tonight. Anyway we can buy one before they are sent out and we just need to coordinate with the local slaughter house which is about 1 hour away. The power of the word.

Newsflash, As I was wiriting this we learned that some cattle are better grass fed than others....more to come soon

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

hi pecos!!
thank u very much for coming to my blog! ^^
this is new to me. grass fed and grain fed? *blush*
i like american beef! bbyeee...

Jaelithe said...

That sounds like a good book! I'd like to check it out. I'm a (99%) lacto-ovo-vegetarian, but I live with two omnivores.

My mother lives on a farm in Spokane, WA, where she has started to raise her own chickens and rabbits to eat so she won't have to eat much commercial meat. She also keeps goats for milk. Last year she bought a young steer and kept it and grass-fed it herself until it was old enough to slaughter.

Pecos Blue said...

Niki
They are all american the questions is are you eating beef or corn fed beef which we have been told is better but really is not health wise and actually taste wise as well. Believe it or not the fact that beef is feed corn all stems from WWII.

Jaelithe--

that is very sweet. go mama. not sure I can go vegan so I am making what strides I can in the omnivore realm.