Food Glorious Food: Food, Foodies, Farmers Market and Handmade Food Renaissance

Food is defined as, “ any nourishing substance that is eaten, drunk, or otherwise taken into the body to sustain life, provide energy, promote growth, etc” by dictionary.com.  I am an avid lover of all different types of  meat, from beef, to chicken and fish.  The type of meat I eat most often however, is most certainly beef, whether it be a steak, a burger or in a stew I constantly find myself consuming it.  I would basically consider myself a carnivore, but I was shocked to see where beef actually came from. I had always know about the slaughter houses and the gruesome ways that the meat packing industry had slaughtered cattle, but I never actually knew the condition the cattle were in.  I guess I always figured they were well taken care of because this being America, there are strict regulations on just about everything.  I was completely and utterly wrong.  In the documentary “King Corn”, by Ian Cheney and Curtis Ellis, they visited a slaughter house/cattle farm where the owner basically said that cows are fed a diet consisting of 85%-90% corn and other grains.  The owner then stated that the cattle were non-stop fed for about 3-5 months and confined to a small area.  This ensures that the cattle to get as fat and bulky as possible in the shortest amount of time possible.  All of this translates to a lower quality of meat served to the consumers.  As Curtis and Ian said, “so basically what your saying is that Americas favorite food the hamburger, is just a serving of fat”.  I now believe that to be the truth behind the curtain of lies that we have been fed over the years.  In the past, around 40 years ago and earlier, cattle were all fed grass.  This was a healthy diet, and it took about 4 years to get a calf to grow to a full size.  The trade off was that the meat was very lean, fat-free, and healthy; not to mention that it also tasted much better.  By contrast I discovered that today’s conception of beef is no where near what it used to be.  It contains nearly no nutritional substances, which therefore, by definition, beg the question “is this really food?”.  In my opinion, no, it is not.  I now try to eat more organic food when given the option and I usually avoid the types of so called “mystery meat” because that is possibly the worst thing you can consume.  It is the unwanted part of an unwanted cut of meat most of the time;  and it is then processed even more to add artificial flavors to make it taste like meat.  That in itself is something that shouldn’t be allowed, and I now consider my self to be an educated consumer.