Category Archives: The Price of Real Food

Chinese Pork Is Better Than Ours

Me again… I like an interesting headline, don’t you? But what I really dislike is headlines that deliberately deceive you. Thankfully for this writer-wannabe, English is ambiguous enough that reading today’s headline really doesn’t tell you exactly what I mean. So you clicked, right? I would totally click. We all know China’s scary food safety history. It’s a pretty dismal record.

So how in the world can I say their pork is better?

Well. When I was writing my last article pertaining to some undisclosed amount of American chicken being transported to China for cooking and processing, and then being shipped back and funneled into the general market, WITH NO SPECIAL LABELING WHATSOEVER, I stumbled upon a new bit of info that even I didn’t know.

Chinese pork is better than ours.

Not “ours” as in Shady Grove Ranch’s, thankfully. “Ours” as in American pork in general. The general “we.”

As you know, China has TONS of people. And they love pork. Thus they import TONS of pork to feed those people. Interestingly, though, they are pickier than most Americans about what the pork is fed.

Commercially-raised pork from the USA is routinely fed a drug called ractopamine, which helps pigs burn fat and build muscle. I’m not a doctor/veterinarian, so I can’t explain the mechanism to you, but basically it messes with their endocrine systems and tricks their bodies into bulking up. Think The Hulk, only with a curly tail. Oh, wait, commercial piggeries cut off their tails. I digress…

If the fact that they’re feeding drugs to pigs doesn’t surprise you, maybe this will: There is no withdrawal period. Pigs (and cows and turkeys, by the way) can be fed this drug right up to the day they are slaughtered.

Why do they do it? Because muscle meat makes more money than fat. Plain and simple. You could have guessed that. We’ve all done it—when you’re shopping for bacon, what do you do? You look through the little window on the back of the package, and pick out the one with the least fat!

Well, I have a secret for you… pigs are fat factories. And that’s a good thing. Rightly-raised animal fat is full of wonderful nutrients, with pasture-raised pork fat being especially high in Vitamin D. Here’s another secret—bacon isn’t always just neat little rows of fat/lean/fat/lean. Sometimes it looks like this:

Fat bacon for farmers

Don’t worry—we farmers aren’t afraid of a little (or a lot of) fat, so we usually eat the stuff that turns out like this and you never even see it. But occasionally we’ll accumulate more than we can eat, so we run special discounts on “fat” meat, like our recent batches of “Chubby Breakfast Sausage,” or our “Fat Sirloin Chops.” (Sorry, they’re all sold out now, but I’m sure we’ll have more in the future! Our newsletter is a great way to stay informed of specials!)

How does it happen? Well, bigger pigs tend to slow down on muscle growth and speed up on fat production. But of course there’s an inherent “cost per head” associated with raising livestock for food. So it’s more advantageous from a cost-per-animal perspective to let pigs grow big before slaughter. But bigger pigs have fatter meat, so it’s a catch-22. Industry’s solution is to use drugs to manipulate the way a pig’s metabolism behaves. They can grow bigger pigs but force their bodies to do away with the excess fat. Call me old-fashioned, but the last thing you want to be messing with is your natural metabolic processes. Sounds pretty scary to me…

When did cheapness of food trump all other qualities? Just because science *can* do something (e.g. raise pigs bigger and leaner using drugs) doesn’t mean we *should.* We feel the benefits of drug-free pork are worth some extra cost.

Apparently China does, too.

Get this: The Chinese import authority does not allow their pigs to be fed any ractopamine ever. So it’s not even good enough for them if a drug withdrawal protocol is observed and the meat tests clean of ractopamine. Producers have to PROVE that the pigs were never even accidentally fed ractopamine. In that sense, Chinese families eat better pork than most Americans!

Maybe ractopamine use is a rare practice? It seems doubtful. If you head down to the local feed store, you can find in the Show Pig Feed section a feed additive called Paylean which contains this drug. Any 4-H or FFA kid can use it to make their piggy extra pretty at showtime. So if you though by buying “local” you’d be safe, guess again. I’m not criticizing them for wanting to do well at show. I’m criticizing the American thinking that has concluded that fat is bad, and pigs shouldn’t make fat and therefore need to be “fixed.” It’s like begrudging an ear of corn for having a cob!

Pigs make fat. It’s what they do best. The meat is really a bonus! Back when our society relied on animal fats for essentials like candles and soap, we were delighted that pigs were so efficient at producing fat! Momma rendered it and used every last bit for preserving food, greasing axles, and oiling leather, in addition to the more obvious uses like cooking oil, candles, and soap.

So how do we deal with the fat problem? Well, we certainly don’t give our pigs drugs! Our solution here at SGR, is to take pigs “to market” aka “freezer camp” before they get too big and fat. It’s part of the reason our pork is generally more expensive. It simply takes more pigs to make a given amount of pork. But once in a while, we have to “retire” one of our older, larger, breeder pigs, and more often than not, their meat is just plain fatter, and the fat can’t always just be trimmed away because it’s “built in.” That’s the case with all three of the above photos. It doesn’t cost any less to raise the extra-chubby ones. But people don’t place value on fat like they do on protein. So that’s just factored in to our natural farm management plan. That’s why you’ll occasionally see sales of fatter cuts. Once we’ve eaten our fill first, of course! 😉

And of course I’ve got my little soap factory going. If you haven’t tried our soap yet, we get great feedback on it (and love using it ourselves!!). And we use lard in place of all vegetable oil in cooking. It makes killer pastry! Toss the Crisco and switch to real lard!

I find it ironic that many Americans seem to be ok with these unnatural practices which China eschews, but are appalled when they find out that Chinese chicken factories are producing their chicken nuggets and popcorn chicken. The Chinese recognize the inferiority, and maybe even the danger, of pork fed drugs to keep it lean. Now you do, too, and you’ve got the advantage of knowing a farm that not only doesn’t feed ractopamine, but also really pasture-raises those piggies without any OTHER drugs (yes, there are others), or GMOs or other garbage (literally).

Chinese pork isn’t better than our pork. That’s SGR’s “our.”

Are you falling asleep at the kitchen stove?

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There is an interesting thing happening in our culture. Advertising. Advertising wins. If you can come up with the prettiest ad, the cleverest motto, the most touching video clip, you can sell anything. But what if you can’t…

Farmers aren’t usually very tech-savvy, at least not compared to the big-wig corporations out there nowadays. And we’re definitely not very up to speed on large-scale advertising trends. We are busy delivering calves, repairing water lines, baling hay, and changing giant tractor tires!

Even if we were able to keep up, it’s thousands and even millions of dollars just to get in the door and get in front of a larger audience. We tend to get pushed aside with our quaint paper flyers and our old-timey market cashboxes.

After all, there are more options available to consumers now. There are more convenient options.

Why would any sane person pay more for the lesser convenience of buying from a local farm out in the sticks, when they can just pop in to the local supermarket on the way home from work, and get their grass-fed beef, their pool toys, their toilet paper, a new toothbrush and a Happy Graduation card, all in one place? All on one plastic transaction. Using a shopping cart. And a scannable coupon on their phone. In the air conditioning. Talk about efficiency! Convenience abounds!

Did I mention the price is right, too? That supermarket can offer an everyday price that’s $2 lower per pound than the local farmer’s version. Sure, the local farmer’s product is probably better. But this product is good. The label says so. It has to be.

Right?

It has all the right words… But remember—that’s what advertising is about.

I know you don’t have time to read my ravings on the wiles of slick marketing majors working to gain the edge for one of the 10 major food companies in America.

But think about this: If you thought globalization and modernization was about diversity and choices… Guess again. Only 10 food companies own all the store brands you see on the supermarket shelf. What if you had only 10 shirts to choose from? That’s NOT much diversity. That’s hardly any CHOICE. It’s only the appearance of diversity. And yet we support and feed this ever-swelling, already-gigantic food industry controlled by less than a dozen entities, because of convenience. They have wooed us away from the real farms using convenience and marketing as the bait.

But it’s “free range!” It’s “organic!” It’s “hormone-free!” They know that consumers want better quality meat. Well, they know that many consumers will accept meat that SOUNDS like it’s better quality.

But not you. That’s why you’re here. You’ve seen behind the curtain and know that there is something better—something genuine. It can be a little hard to get to sometimes, but it’s worth the extra effort.

Still, it is easy to get sucked in and settle for “good enough,” especially with the fast-paced changes that are happening with the labeling laws today. Those giant food companies have money to throw at lobbying for dilution of marketing terms so they can reach even the better-informed and more conscious consumer.

Don’t believe me? Here are a few examples you may not have heard about:

They’re working hard to change “high fructose corn syrup” to “corn sugar.” Sounds better, doesn’t it? Another example: For years, there’s been major push-back against GMO-labeling, in spite of the fact that MOST consumers WANT GMOs to be labeled. Opponents cite “unreasonable fear” of consumers against this supposedly-safe technology. If it’s so safe, why don’t you just tell us you’re doing it?

Most of the terms in our industry are the same—the labels have become captivating marketing terms and really tell you nothing about the quality of the product you’re buying. “Free-range” chickens only have to be able to look outside, not actually go there. “Organic” beef can be standing in an organic feedlot eating organic corn and never eat one lick of actual grass. “Hormone-free” pork and chicken? It’s illegal across the board to administer hormones to pigs and chickens. EVERYONE’S chicken and pork are hormone-free. That’s like claiming that the package of meat you’re scrutinizing is “Sold in the USA!” OF COURSE IT IS! Tell me something I don’t know!

And my personal favorite… very quietly, about a year ago, THEY RENEGED ON COUNTRY-OF-ORIGIN LABELING REQUIREMENTS FOR MEAT.

Packs of burger used to be required to disclose where the cow was raised—You’d see something like “Product of Uruguay,” or Brazil, New Zealand, Argentina, U.S.A., etc. Now they say nothing. This change was great timing because recently, the USDA starting having talks with Chinese chicken processing companies about outsourcing the processing of chicken before shipping it back to the USA for sale. The rules have changed, and no one has to tell you that your chicken was fileted and marinated in the People’s Republic. Organic, or otherwise! The Chinese Chicken thing hasn’t quite gone through yet, as far as I know, but it will soon, and how we will know when it does? They are no longer required to tell us.

Why would they take away a law that no one was complaining about, that apparently was able to be complied with, and that aided shoppers in choosing to support American farm economies and domestic rural communities and their own peace of mind? So much for choice… Why would they nix our opportunity to know whether our meats are imported?

It’s because deep down, the big marketers knew that no matter what pretty words they put on the package…“Grass-fed,” “Humanely Raised,” “No Hormones…” people would still be wary of meat brought in from overseas, as they should be. So they killed the facts. The facts are still there. You just can’t know them if you’re meat-shopping at the store.

They did the same thing with “Grass-fed.” They killed the facts. The Powers that Be suddenly decided that it was “unfair” to be policing such a widely-used term and officially declared that the term “grass-fed” was now strictly a marketing term, internally defined, and the burden of proof now falls solely on consumers to seek out. Officials said that consumers would now have to visit each company’s website to research whether that specific company’s definition of grass-fed matched their own.

Yep, I’m going to stand there at the freezing-cold meat counter with 4 hungry, squirming, noisy children asking me every 14 seconds when we will be home and what’s for dinner, with icecream melting in my cart and my phone buzzing repeatedly, reminding me that I’m already late for my next stop. I’m going to take THAT busy moment to go online, weed through the marketing nonsense to try to track down what Barbecue Bob’s “Grass-fed” Beef actually ate, and whether it was actually raised in America or not. Yeah, right!

Most folks think, “Well if the label says ‘Grass-fed,’ even if it’s internally defined, it still must mean the cows ate mostly grass, right?”

No. It’s internally defined. It’s internally defined! The word “grass-fed” as it appears on pretty green stickers at the meat counter is now completely meaningless, and your meaning has nothing whatsoever to do with the reality of the company’s meaning!

They call this era the post-truth era. Think about that for a moment. We’re a generation no longer interested in truth as much as feeling good about what we do. Many areas of our lives are suffering. The area relevant in this article is the local, really-grass-fed farm. Our farm, and many other small farms of integrity, are struggling to compete with our real products against a multitude of fake, but oh-so-convenient products.

Don’t fall asleep at the kitchen stove. Keep your eyes open to the truth about your food. We at Shady Grove Ranch have tried to make it really simple through online ordering, email reminders, attending farmers market, selling through local retailers, and offering free routine drop points.

You have to do your part, too, and eat the best food in the world every month, every week, every day. I know we sometimes have seasonal shortages of things. (Beef is almost ready—hang in there! Just a couple more weeks!!) That’s what real, connected-with-the-farm eating is like sometimes. I am the Ingredient Substitution Queen, and I am happy to help you find meal ideas that will please the tummies in your house while your favorite out-of-stock item finishes fattening on real grass in a real pasture, right here in Jefferson, Texas.

Thank you for supporting our work so we can be around to feed your grandkids and ours in 20 years! Please make it part of your routine to visit us at Shreveport Farmers Market tomorrow and support REAL pasture-raised foods raised by a REAL family farm!

Why Pasture-Raised Meats? They fatten on the right stuff!

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Here’s the third installment–if you’re here, you’re a trooper! I appreciate you taking the time to educate yourself on these very important issues.

Why Pasture-Raised Meats… What have we learned so far?

My first article was some discussion of why we’re even bothering to make the case for meat. If there are all these problems in the food system, resulting in the best products being shockingly expensive to produce, wouldn’t organic plant-based foods be ideal? Explore that question here.

We decided that meat is worth eating, but we need to understand how it is produced. The take-away point from my arsenic in chicken article is that the governing authorities are simply not looking out for the health interests of consumers. It’s sad to me that first the arsenic was approved with no safety testing; then when testing was finally conducted 60+ years later, the first arsenic compound was quietly replaced by a different arsenic compound, and only later was supposedly ultimately removed from the food system (But where is the paper trail proving it? Things still seem pretty fishy to me…); and last, a consumer petition to ban any arsenic in the future was totally denied. Why would they deny a ban if they planned to remove it anyway? Many questions remain unanswered.

This trend is not characteristic of a safe food system, and this is not the only example of the trend.

Our modern food system does not emphasize consumer health. Instead it emphasizes profit first and foremost, and problem solving is always to do with patching up issues that arise when you put profits first, instead of finding the best way to produce food for the land, animals, and eaters. (Hint: We believe there really is a best way for everyone/everything!)

Why Pasture-Raised Meats? They fatten on the right stuff!

The conscientious eater should desire for their meat to contain adequate amounts of fat, flavor, and nutrients. The innovative farmer should desire for his animals and crops to grow efficiently. But where we go wrong in the American food system is when we start looking to unnatural means to accomplish these goals.

Arsenic was the first example which we explored of those unacceptable deviations from natural management. But it is one of the older and perhaps lesser grievances in conventional animal production. There are many more in practice now, and unless consumers really change the way they shop and eat, there will always be some new strategy to “make meat better” or to produce it for less, without much care for the long-term implications of the practices employed in food production.

My hope is that you get a sense of how things are done in conventional livestock production so that you, too, will become convinced that Knowing Your Farmer is the best solution. You see, there seems to be a sort of attitude of “innocent until proven guilty” when it comes to feed additives for livestock. That’s ok when it comes to accused citizens on trial… but not so good when it comes to synthetic substances in the food system!

This article will discuss four main feed additives that are used to quickly/cheaply put weight on conventional livestock.

Growth Enhancers: Cattle, Pigs, Turkeys

One of the most widely used synthetic growth enhancers is ractopamine, and it is used in beef cattle, pigs, and turkeys. The basic function of ractopamine is to produce more muscle and less fat and to improve feed efficiency by changing the animal’s metabolic processes. We have already touched on why leaner food is not a good idea, but even if lean meats were healthier than fatty ones, I would argue that *naturally* lean would be key–not starved, and certainly not enhanced with drugs. The converse is true as well–naturally fat is better than fat that comes from artificial enhancement. But even if you’re still not quite on board with the idea that fat is a good thing, you can take this point to the bank: If we have to dose an animal with drugs to make their products “healthier,” something is very wrong.

Now I realize that is terribly unscientific, and shame on me for poo-pooing cost-saving strategies in food production without basis. Surely they’ve done safety testing and established acceptable levels… right? Sure, they *sometimes* test for tissue levels of the drug along production checkpoints, and perhaps there are some withdrawal times and max dosage requirements, etc. But do we really feel comfortable relying on some worker somewhere checking a box that says the meat doesn’t have more than a certain amount of a chemical that was deliberately added to it in the first place? You’ve probably never even heard of this practice–if you don’t know about it, how can those who feed you be held accountable? And yet every local 4-H’er buys the Show Pig or Show Steer feed at the local feed store. Guess what’s in it. Yep. Ractopamine. Produces a nice, thick, lean carcass in less time on less feed. Do they all adhere to withdrawal guidelines? Think everyone in industry does, too? If so, you have more confidence than I do!

I suspect that ractopamine is our generation’s arsenic. Someday they’ll look back and say, “They were wrong about allowing those chemicals–look at all the harm they’ve done!” If our nation wasn’t dying of cancer and heart disease and actually losing life span years, I might be more inclined to be quiet about it. But look at my own life–my husband, a young, healthy athlete, struck nearly dead with a disease no one could explain or cure.

Oh wait. Now he’s cured. Symptom- and drug-free for almost 7 years now. Coincidentally, 7 years ago, we gave up trash food like conventional meats in favor of nutrient-dense pasture-raised meats that don’t have drugs fed to them. Is that scientific enough?

Antibiotics: All Livestock

Here’s an interesting fact for you: 80% of antibiotics sold in the US are fed to livestock intended for slaughter for the purpose of increasing their weight gains. Just think how staggering that is. It’s not for sick animals that got injured somehow and need doctoring. It is expressly for making them grow better in feedlot conditions.

Even if antibiotics were perfectly non-toxic and posed no risk to consumers, what is the environmental impact? When the animals defecate, the drugs end up in the soil and water. The effects are even farther-reaching than that. Studies have linked resistant bacteria in humans to antibiotic use in livestock, meaning that animals begin to harbor unnaturally strong and harmful bacteria such as E. Coli, Salmonella, and various strains of Staph, Strep, etc, and then pass those on to us. When you bring that food into your kitchen, you expose your family to risk, especially those with compromised immune systems.

Matt was diagnosed with having a C. Diff. infection while hospitalized for a flare-up of ulcerative colitis. Could this have been related to the food he was eating? The doctors told us C. Diff. is common among elderly and children, and asked if we had been around anyone like that. We were in college! We had no children yet, and we were far from family members. No one could explain how he had picked up such a nasty infection, which they named as the culprit for his flare-up that almost killed him. Maybe it was the food all along…

Trans Fats: Pigs and Cows

You remember the hype about trans fats, don’t you? Even the FDA admitted that no amount of trans fat is safe in the diet, so you know it is really bad. But most people have no idea that every day, thousands of pounds of expired bakery goods full of trans fats (from hydrogenated oils) are fed to dairy cows, pigs, and even beef cows, to put on weight as cheaply as possible. Potato chips, donuts, chewing gum, stale bread, candy bars–they even have a special machine called a tumbler that removes the wrappers from the candy before feeding, and we’ve had friends whose summer job was to operate these things! Again, if you are what you eat, and it is what it ate, you might as well sit yourself down to a plate full of junk food if you’re still buying conventional meats on a regular basis. Just like in humans, the trans fats come straight through into the fats of animals, where the nutrients are supposed to be.

Poultry Excrement: Beef and Dairy Cattle

I know you don’t want to read this. But it’s time for the truth to come out. Store-bought meat is cheap because it comes from animals fed cheap substances that are not fit for food. One of those things is chicken poop, politely entitled “poultry litter” by the industry. It’s considered to be high in protein and very palatable to the cows. And of course, it’s cheap.

Obviously you see the problem here. The only thing that should be eating chicken poop is the soil organisms. Not beef cows. Not dairy cows. But in the name of $2 per gallon milk and $2 per pound hamburger… this is what conventional producers have to do to compete.

The Answer is Not Cheap Meats

Once again, the solution is not to reject meats. You need them! Your children need them. Their children need them. Our land needs them (more on that later). We simply need to source wisely and support farms that are doing this right.

With many essentials, we shop for quality over price, accepting that the cheapest thing will logically be the least quality. But for some reason, most folks assume that all food is equal, and so finding the cheapest food is perfectly acceptable and even responsible and economical. I’ve actual seen frugal living blogs tout that their only goal is to eat as cheaply as possible–their local grocery store would end up paying them (via coupons) to eat cans of cream-of-chemical soups, toaster pastries with infinite shelf life, and breakfast cereals full of marshmallows and miniature cookies. But it was cheap! And nothing else mattered! Just listen to how preposterous that idea is. But I was in the same boat, once, before we experienced our health crisis.

Hopefully in reading this article and the previous ones, you now realize that the concept of baseline quality in food is false. Some foods are terribly low in quality and even harm your health. Especially in children. Cavities, crowded teeth, ear aches, skin issues, digestive problems… What if these all have do with the quality of our food?

When you buy a car, you don’t search for the cheapest car, considering nothing else. You want a car that works, that’s reliable, that runs well, doesn’t burn too much oil or fuel, and that has features that are valuable to you and add to your health and well-being (like air conditioning and seatbelts). It’s no good if you get a really cheap car that gets you nowhere, or maybe that gets you there but does so in absolute discomfort.

Food is analogous. What we put into our bodies matters. Animal products are essential to our health and to food production as a whole. But just as we need good nutrition, the animals we use for food need good nutrition.

If you’ve read this far, you probably agree. Please share this important information with people that you care about. And thank you for supporting local farms like ours!

Next time we’ll talk some more about conventional versus pasture-raised meats and how to be a savvy shopper. Stay tuned to our newsletter for the next article!

The Price of An Egg

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Lots of folks ask us about why our egg prices are so high. We get lots of different responses when we tell them. Sometimes they are offended. Sometimes they lament over how they cannot afford them. Sometimes they are utterly grateful that someone somewhere close by is raising hens truly on pasture, without using soy or genetically-engineered ingredients.

It doesn’t really hurt our feelings when people don’t want to pay $6 or $7 for a dozen eggs. But it does make us wish that there was a way to bring our price down. If that isn’t possible, we strive instead to make people see that compared to many other foods (particularly Frankenfoods) or the alternative of facing a life of poor nutrition, our eggs are really quite cheap. But we won’t go into that now. The purpose of this particular post is to explain what an egg really costs.

Being in farming, being young, and being fairly outspoken make for a very noticeable combination when Matt and I meet new people. It helps that we are excited about what we have learned about eating traditional foods and how good we feel compared to just a few years ago when we were eating the SAD (Standard American Diet).

One day, a fellow farmer came up to Matt and asked him, “How much do you get for your eggs?” Matt told him. (At that particular time, they were $7/dozen.) His eyes bugged out at Matt’s answer. He couldn’t believe it. He was ANGRY that we charged that much for such a low-value commodity. He asked if we sell them all. Most of the time, we do. (But we only have a small flock of chickens.)

He wanted to know why we charged so much. Matt explained our management and feeding principles: rotational “grazing,” non-genetically modified feed, non-soy feed.

Matt asked the man what he charged for his own eggs. “$3.50. And they’re almost organic! I let them out every night to forage!” Matt, loving a challenge about the definition of that term, asked him, “What do you feed them?” “I buy a layer ration from ___ Feed Supply [a popular local feed store].”

“Do you know what the ingredients are?”

“Yes!”

“What’s the first ingredient?”

“Well, I don’t remember right now…”

“Well, I’ll tell you. The first two ingredients are soy and corn, and they are both genetically-modified.”

The conversation continued, and it was clear that the man was frustrated because he wasn’t making money, but he didn’t know why people wouldn’t buy his eggs if he charged more.

About a week later, Matt visited his booth, and the same man offered to sell Matt his entire chicken operation—birds, equipment, everything. He wanted out of the business. He wasn’t making any money.

During both conversations with the man, Matt tried to convey the fact that the feed which he was buying—a VERY trusted and widely-used brand—a brand that boldly advertises its product in red, white, and blue letters–was in fact giving him a GMO product. But he would not even consider that this American-to-the-core company would do such a devious, underhanded thing.

You see, despite the fact that he was buying the conventional (aka cheap) feed, and despite the fact that he was marketing to a crowd that like the idea of buying from a farmer that raises hens that get outdoor access, he still couldn’t make a go of his products. It’s because he, like many farmers, doesn’t understand that the cost of something is not just the price of the feed. To make it as a farmer, not only do you have to factor in all the costs it takes to get your product to your customers (your fences, your property taxes, your water bill, your tractor wear-and-tear, your egg cartons, your banking fees, your gas to get to market, the feed for your livestock guardian dog, depreciation on every single piece of equipment used for the egg operation, and your pay for your labor), but you also have to educate your customer about why your product is special (if it is) and why it costs what it does.

We try to be transparent about this idea. A worker deserves his wages. And we can guarantee that charging $7/dozen for our top-quality eggs isn’t making us rich! But it can’t be breaking us, either. We know that in 15 years, we’ll need to rebuild our fences. In 5 years, we’ll need to buy a new livestock guardian dog. In two years, we’ll need to replace the shade cloth and the summer mister in the hen house. And every year, we have to buy new hoses and waterers and feeders and egg cartons. Part of our job is to find innovative ways to cut these costs. Trust us, the wheels are ALWAYS turning on this issue!

But, as Matt tried to explain to this other farmer who has a day job and is now having to give up “farming,” we have to charge what our products are worth. We only hope that you will find that when we do not compromise on the values that uphold the God-given laws of nature, that we have contributed to the health of our earth, our economy, and our customers.

Reflections from Matt:

On a side note, I recently read an article published in the “NOW” alumni magazine from my alma mater, LeTourneau University, which was celebrating “50 Years of Women on Campus.” (Being a technical and engineering school, getting females was a BIG deal…)

As a fun comparison in the article, they listed prices of many items in 1961, and then fifty years later, in 2011. In the last 50 years, the price of gold has gone up by a multiple of 39 times, a new house 18.5 times, a postage stamps and gasoline 11 times, bread 13.2 times, eggs and bacon only 5.5 times, and milk…a measly 2.5 times!!!

You may ask yourself, “Why have REAL food (milk, bacon, and eggs) only gone up by 2.5 to 5.5 times, while processed food (bread) and all other “necessities” have gone up 11-40 times?”

Matt Cadman’s answers are:

1. Because our government subsidizes certain commodity crops, most of which are genetically-modified.

2. Because our farmers in America have been convinced that their labor is worthless, that they shouldn’t make any money, and that they are not allowed to produce a quality product. They have succumbed to a form of modern-day slavery. Sadly, American citizens have demanded it by declaring that a dozen eggs (which can feed one person for days) should cost 99¢ and a 20 oz bottle of diet soda (which might give you cancer) costs $1.25!

3. Because the conventional farming industry feeds their animals junk and confine them at concentrated numbers in unnatural environments that cause disease and create the need for continual drug intervention.

4. Convenience is king! Why pay $6/dozen of eggs and build your health, when you can go to the Golden Arches, and have ObamaCare pay for your chemo and dialysis? You WILL pay…now or later. At least if you pay now, you’ll have a good chance of healthy children, enjoyable meals, and quality family time during dinner!