Are Centre Region's Conscientious Omnivores Getting a Slaughterhouse They Want?

The locavore movement keeps growing. In the last few years, the small local farmer has reemerged as friend, hero, and businessman...actually it's more often a businesswoman. The smaller local farmer new shine has brought with them the other businesses. Seed savers and restauranteurs and brewers are integrating the market. And of course, the local slaughterhouse and butcher.

The last time I ate a fast food burger was the same day I watched Supersize Me. It was shocking. I don't think I was ever a fast food kid...well...I did work at Wendy's in high school. But I wasn't one of those every chance I get I'll eat a 99 cent burger types. Then when I read Fast Food Nation, I felt vindicated. And curious. Like a lot of people I know now, I started asking the question, "Where's my food come from?" I read Peter Singer, Michael Pollan, Barbara Kingsolver, Francis Moore Lappe, and some others.

The industrial meat system terrified me. I read a piece, "Farmacology" in Johns Hopkins Magazine regarding the massive antibiotic inputs into chickens in industrial chicken, pig, and cattle farms called concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs). Johns Hopkins researchers were finding that "nontherapeutic use of antimicrobials is building dangerous genetic reservoirs of resistance. If they are right, industrial agriculture is fostering and dispersing drug-resistant bacteria that impair medicine's ability to protect the public from them." It's an arms race. Eventually, we could lose. Rolling Stone's Jeff Tietz wrote a similarly alarming story on pig production (excerpts here) featuring the goriest details about manure lagoons and piles of dead pigs. And last month Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health and Arizona State University researchers found evidence suggesting that previously banned antibiotics for poultry production are still being used by the poultry industry.

I've said nothing about the violence incurred on the animals across their whole lives. There are frequent reports of worker mistreatment and higher levels of drug and alcohol problems among such workers. And the enormous effluent waste CAFOs create lead to pollution on a scale unimaginable a century ago such that play into the expanding dead zones in our bays and gulfs.

So if you want to be a responsible omnivore, what can you do? Maybe we go back to that small farmer and that local butcher.

On Friday afternoon at 4:30 we will talk to the people starting Rising Spring Meat Company, a slaughterhouse and butcher shop in Spring Mills, Pennsylvania. They bill themselves as "your connection to a farming community that is dedicated to producing quality livestock and meat" including cows, pigs, sheep and goats expertly butchered to cuts of beef, pork, mutton and chevon.

So we'll be asking them about these things. How are they different from the big boys? Can I trace some mutton from the farm through the plant with any confidence the animal led a sheeply life? Will I get a good-tasting slice? Is money staying in our area?

Listen in on Friday from 4-5 pm. Call in (814) 865-9577 with questions and comments. You can also join us on Facebook and Twitter as well.

Veggie Commons in Central PA

Two of our former guests, Chris Uhl and Dana Stuchul*, have started an intitiative in Central Pennsylvania called Veggie Commons. Their yard is one of the most productive food spaces in the area and here you can see it:



Stuchul says, "We are increasingly interested in doing more for ourselves and learning in the doing and stretching the boundaries of what's possible. Just our notions of a lawn looks like grass. Well really? If it's receiving lots of sun and you like to eat and if you have just the tiniest bit of experimentation urge, plant something and harvest it and eat and enjoy it. You'll notice that it's beautiful in the doing as well."

Seems that in the New Year, many of us could do with more fresh vegetables, bread, and eggs instead of what we've been eating over the winter holiday. Maybe I'm just speaking for myself...but I doubt it.

Later this spring we hope to have at least Stuchul back on the show to talk about work in the commons and the work of Ivan Illich.
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*Dana Stuchul and Christopher Uhl are both on Peter Buckland's doctoral dissertation committee.

Catering for the local economy by sustaining a healthy appetite

Krystn Madrine, the "kitchen maid" of the Sustainable Kitchen came on the show yesterday and served up some great thoughts on how we feed ourselves and how we can do it better. To Madrine, sustainability means, "being able to keep it going... and with food the path we're on is not sustainable." Listen to her talk with us about food security, regional food systems, sustainable food systems, seasonality, health, and knowing about your food.

What we found so great to hear about are all of the people Madrine gets to know from her work and the web of pretty direct benefits buying her food brings. Learn more about her work with Chef Andrew Monk and the Sustainable Kitchen by listening to the show at this link. You can find them each week at the Boalsburg Farmer's Market on Tuesday and on Saturdays at the North Atherton Street Farmer's Market at Home Depot. They also cater lots of events. To see what they are about you can go to the State Theater in State College on Wednesday Sept. 21st for the showing of Forks Over Knives.

P.S. The Veggie Patty sandwich and the Italian Wedding soup is amazing.

Farmers markets in full swing

June means that the farmers markets and community supported agriculture (CSA) are in full swing. If you are looking for fresh local produce, local meats, eggs, cheeses, or milk, fresh cut flowers, honey, or a nice place to spend some of your afternoon, go to the local markets.

In the Centre Region we have several markets within about 25 miles of State College each week:

• Tuesdays: Boalsburg Farmers Market at the Pennsylvania Military Museum and State College Farmers Market on Locust Lane
• Thursday: Huntingdon at Portstown Park
  
• Friday: State College on Locust Lane and Philipsburg on Main Street
  
• Saturday: North Atherton in State College at Home Depot, Bellefonte at the Gamble Mill, Millheim Farmers Market, and Philipsburg
  
• Last Saturday of the summer months Village on the Green Market in Julian, PA
  

If you want to find farmers markets and farms near you, use the search feature at the Buy Fresh Buy Local page through the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture website. It's also a great way to get in touch with your local growers to see about buying weekly shares of food that can be delivered to market for you. Or if you just want local flavors served up for you in beers or meals, restaurants and bakeries can be found too.

If you want to get some insight on vendors or have some to leave, you can also use Local Bounty as well. It's a website that offers "users the chance to find local sources for goods of all kinds — from apples to art, pets to pumpkins. Users can enter information about local producers, write reviews, and rate their experiences."

Eat fresh. Eat local.

Animal and Human Welfare

Gene Baur is the co-founder of Farm Sanctuary. He works for food system transparency, for animal well-being, and for healthier living through plant-based diets. In this interview, we discuss problems and solutions toward a more humane and sustainable food system.

Principles of a healthy, sustainable food system

The sustainable food movement's roots are branching.

In June 2010, The American Dietetic Association, American Nurses Association, American Planning Association, and American Public Health Association met to develop a set of shared food system principles.

For the first time, national leaders in the nursing, nutrition, planning, and public health professions worked collaboratively to create a shared platform for systems-wide food policy change.

Endorsed by coalition members, the principles were written to support socially, economically and ecologically sustainable food systems that promote health — the current and future health of individuals, communities and the natural environment.

You can read their combined statement here (pdf). What are your thoughts on sustainable food systems? How do you support it?

A more sustainable diet

We can have more control over our diets than almost anything else we do. It's hard for a non-expert to control the fuel efficiency of our cars and trucks or the distances we are compelled to travel for our jobs. Face it, most of us feel pretty powerless when it comes to whether or not our power comes from coal, natural gas, or wind energy. But we have lots of control over what we eat.

One of the biggest impacts Americans can have on their diets is to reduce or stop their consumption of animal products. Suffice it to say that the total energy inputs that go into livestock like pigs, cows, and chickens are astronomical in comparison to grains, fruits, and vegetables. Additionally, the pollution side effects of intensive livestock operations can be remarkable, including watershed crippling fecal runoff from dairy farms to the infamously toxic feces lagoons at hog farms. Chicken farms where chickens are raised to get maximum breast size and weight receive enormous amounts of antibiotics, thereby driving antibiotic resistance (picture courtesy of Johns Hopkins Magazine). Simply put, the factory farm industry jeopardizes ecosystems' health across the country.

And this says nothing about the ethical implications of what the philosopher Peter Singer might call unimaginable animal suffering (see this blog about Singer's visit to Penn State last year). Animals in "factory farms" are sometimes beaten, are kept in filthy conditions that are highly toxic, and kept from having any pleasant contact with their own species.

Finally, the health effects of a meat-intensive diet are by now well-documented. Heart disease. High cholesterol. Increased exposure to lethal E. coli.

Today's guest, Mick Kunz, president of the Penn State Vegetarian Club, will talk to us about why people choose to forgo animal-intensive diets. We will talk about the difference between vegetarianism and veganism and the range of differences in there including so-called "freegans." Whatever the range, the average vegetarian's diet has a smaller environmental impact than the average American meat eaters. Kunz will walk us through the moral, environmental, and personal health reasons people hold for going vegetarian and vegan and provide us with some tips on what we can do to reduce or eliminate our animal product intake.

Listen in today from 5-6 pm on The Lion 90.7 fm. Have questions or a comment, give a buzz at 865-9577 or send an email to sustainabilitynowradio@gmail.com.