As a single working mother of three teenagers, I made daily decisions about the diet and sustainability of it for our family. As they grew and my free time to ponder became more limited, these decisions grew harder. I’ve spent days (cumulatively per year) deliberating over food choices: the organic sausages versus the much less expensive “all natural” and not natural ones, the local and enormous cloves of organic garlic for $12.99/lb versus the smaller ones from Canada—only $6.99/lb when I’m not growing my own, the delicious whole grain bread baked 10 miles away but with non-organic wheat (which we now know is pesticide ridden) versus the plastic wrapped “organic” brand that tastes like cardboard in comparison.
Organic, free range chicken from Tangletown Farm in Glover, VT. Unfortunately, farmers have to wrap their chickens in plastic as most of sold frozen.
I am extremely familiar with the multitude of labels and the increasing angst of the consumer who wants to do right by the environment, her kids’ health, and her wallet.
Eric Zencey writes in The Other Road to Serfdom “a commercial enterprise” —which could be a household in my estimation—“is sustainable if it conserves the capital stock on which it depends.” Is the expense of shopping at Whole Foods or, in my case, Hunger Mountain Coop where I can spend double what I might at Shaws or Hannafords sustainable? Especially when you have a 6’3” athletic son who likes to eat a couple pounds of hamburger or half a chicken in one sitting? I’m spending my financial capital in order to preserve the family health capital. Often the financial pressures outweigh the those of health. Children are resilient and we may not be thinking about the long term effects of food as much as we do when we hit middle age and beyond and cancer looms.
Because I experienced the squeeze of wealth versus health, and still do, I am preoccupied with this question: How do we help working families, and particularly single working parents, eat well, eat sustainably, and conserve funds? For me, the answer came in buying über-local and cutting out the middle-man, growing my own, and making the most of the food grown or purchased.
I focus on buying organic foods that might otherwise have the most pesticide residues and hormones. We do eat meat and conventionally farmed meat is particularly unhealthy. My answer was to purchase a side of grass-fed beef from my farmer neighbor a mile away, paying about $8 per packaged pound, including free bones for stew and the dogs. I stored it in our downstairs freezer and we ate it throughout an entire year. A pound of ground beef can go a long way if you make bolognese sauce or chili instead of hamburgers. I bought organic, free-range chickens from my neighbor a mile in the other direction at $3 per pound. After eating the chickens, I roasted the bones and made soup. I planted a bigger organic garden than ever and harvested and froze as much food as I had time for. (This effort makes life exceptionally busy from May to October with a short hiatus in mid-July.) If I steamed or boiled the veggies, I kept the water filled with nutrients to add to a soup later.
Now, my kids are off at college and my decisions are much easier. But they’ll be back and I’ll be in the aisles buying something wrapped in plastic and argue with myself: “No, I can’t buy this plastic wrapped food!” “But, I don’t have time or money for the alternative!”
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End note: What about the impact of beef cattle on the environment? Don't I care about the health of the environment too? Yes.
The commonly cited assumption that makes equal the climate impact of CAFO to pasture-raised beef cattle may be wrong. It’s all about lifespan. And good grass. Vermont, pasture-raised beef cattle are slaughtered after two to two and a half years due to the nutrient dense grass we’ve got in the Northeast, which is only a little more than CAFO cattle and less than the lifespan cited for pasture-raised in some scholarly articles.
The shorter lifespan of Vermont pasture-raised beef cattle reduces its commonly assumed effect on climate. With the additions of other social, economic, and environmental pluses for pasture-raised beef, such as the increased carbon sink due to better pasture fertility, beef cattle don’t look so bad. We need to reconsider our assumptions about the climate impact of pasture-raised meat. And, we could grow this meat on the underutilized pastureland throughout New England where only 10% (for most states less) of pasture is in farmland. If you lived in Cambridge, you could buy pasture-raised beef at decent prices from your almost neighbor. Use all parts of the animal and make stock with the bones.
For more on the topic of the environmental impact of pasture-raised beef cattle, check out my article, Working With Vermont's Pastures http://www.vermontwoman.com/articles/2016/0416/06working-pastures/pastures.html
Zencey, E. (2012). The other road to serfdom & the path to sustainable democracy. Hanover: University Press of New England.