Buy Local!

This past week, we have had news of terrible conditions in the nation's slaughterhouses and of the government's inability to adequately monitor these conditions.  This situation is dangerous for our health and the health of the nation's children (most of the meat processed in these substandard slaughterhouses goes to school lunch programs, subsidized by the federal government for the benefit of the cattle industry).  It is also immoral.  Treating another of God's creations in such a horrible manner so that we can eat cheap meat in a land of plenty is despicable.

The best, and definitely the most fun, way of dealing with this dilemma is to buy locally. I have been an advocate of buying as much meat as possible locally for many years.  Five or six years ago, I organized a farm co-op in my neighborhood.  That co-op included produce from a farm in Goochland County that I had never heard of, Brookview Farm.  When I started the co-op, I had vegetables in mind.  But the folks at Brookview Farm started bringing the most delicious eggs I had ever tasted as part of their share each week.  These eggs had yolks that were bright orange, not the pale yellow I had seen up to that point.  When I made scrambled eggs with them in the morning, they tasted and smelled completely different from those I bought from the grocery store.  I and my family were hooked on these eggs!

When the growing season ended and our co-op went into hibernation for the winter, I still wanted those eggs.  So, one Saturday morning, I got in my car and drove out to the country, out to the farm.  I and my children walked out into the fields with our egg cartons and harvested eggs right out from under the chickens, who lived in clean, open-air coops in the fields.  They ate the seeds and grasses from the field, which was organic, and they left their poop behind, which in turn enriched the soil.  It was a wonderful, completely natural cycle.  Each day, the coops were dragged to a new area of the field so that the chickens had a nice clean patch of grass in which to spend their day.

While I was there that day, I learned that eggs and vegetables were only a sideshow for Brookview.  The main event was their beef business.  They raise free-range, grass-fed beef cattle on organic fields.  I bought some beef from them that day, and since then have been making regular trips to the farm to buy beef and eggs.  I also buy beef, pork, chicken and eggs from Faith Farm.  They are located near Farmville, Virginia, but they come to the Byrd House Market in Oregon Hill every week to deliver their products.

  I can tell you that, at Brookview Farm or Faith Farm, there are no downer cows.  These cows live a wonderful, healthy life. And Sandy Fisher, the owner of Brookview, and Brenda and Paul Lawler, the owners of Faith Farm, are a lot more knowledgeable and fun to talk to than the random guy behind the butcher counter at the grocery store, if there is anyone there!

Brookview Farm has a farm market every Saturday morning from 9 until 12, and Faith Farm delivers its goods to the Byrd House Market, even in winter, on Tuesdays from 3 - 6.  For more information on Brookview, including hours, directions, and what they will have available in the market this week, go to www.brookviewfarm.com.  For more information on Faith Farm and their products, email Brenda at faithfarmfoods@yahoo.com.