Killing Fields: The True Cost of Cheap Meat

[handmade34]

http://www.gmwatch.org/gm-videos/26-gm-in-latin-america/11733-killing-fields

"Much of the cheap meat and dairy produce sold in supermarkets is only made possible as a result of serious human rights abuses and environmental damage in one of Latin America's most impoverished countries. This film documents the experiences of some of those caught up in Paraguay's growing conflict over soy farming"


interesting in the face of concern over rising food prices... time to rethink how we grow, produce, market and consume our food.


http://www.localharvest.org/

[HopeHoops]

1. Bring it closer to home. Poluted rivers, fish kills, dead zones, antibiotic resistant bacteria...

And people eat this shit?

:shrug:

[handmade34]

5. the food we eat today

is not the same as the food we ate 50 years ago... much different

[HopeHoops]

9. No kidding. I remember when McDonalds actually used BEEF in their burgers!

Yeah, I know - long time ago.

[uppityperson]

2. Buy local as much as you can. We are lucky in having bought a small freezer, can buy salmon/beef

lamb from people we know who raise the mammals and catch the fish. This applies for veggies and fruits also. Buy in season and as local as you can as it saves in land abuse, animal abuse, petrochemical abuse.

Barbara Kingsolver's book "Animal, vegetable, miracle" is a great inspiration and is out in paperback, found a copy in a second hand book store.

Eat local. Eat in season.

[handmade34]

6. also time to rethink

urban gardens and ways of consuming

[uppityperson]

7. You can plant edibles in with flowers. I discovered Scarlet Runner beans

Beautiful vines and flowers and the pods are edible until they get too big. Then the beans can be dried and used as dried beans. I'm looking for a smoother runner bean, may have found one, as the scarlet ones have fuzzy pods. The fuzziness goes away when you cook them, but I end up blanching/freezing a bunch and they stay a bit fuzzy.

Do you really need bananas every day in February? Think about how far that food had to come to get to you. Look at the package of veggie taco mix and think about what it took to make it and get it to you.

It is an interesting way of being, of looking at the true cost of things. Of course I eat oranges that have been shipped a long ways, but not as much as I used to. Try to eat more in-season.

Spring-greens
Summer-stems
Fall-fruits
winter-roots

Did you read Kingsolver's book? It has an easy recipe for mozzarella cheese also, rubber gloves help as it is hot to handle.

Edited to add, I know you started talking about meat, but a lot of it applies for all food. My meat I mostly know, had a commercial hamburger patty at a senior center last night with an aging relative and could barely eat it.

[Maine_Nurse]

3. Makes me very glad I hunt most of my meat behind my home. nt

[handmade34]

4. ...

:-)

I don't eat meat but would only eat home grown or caught locally if I did

[demigoddess]

8. I buy organic meat from a local guy, TASTES BETTER

than the ***** from the store.