Polyface Farms

So I have placed my first order with a local Polyface Farms buying club, and my fresh meat and eggs will arrive next week! I learned about Polyface when reading The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan. In the book, Pollan surveys and experiences food in our culture. He investigates typical industrial, corn-based food production, looks into pros and cons of industrial organic food production, spends time as a hunter-gatherer, and even becomes a temporary vegetarian. He sought to have an objective view of the issues involved with our food choice dilemma. One of the primary things he came out in favor of, is buying from local farms. This reduces the fossil fuel consumption needed to get the food to our plates, and is usually a more nutritious option for our families.

Polyface Farms is near Staunton, Virginia, and is run by Joel Salantin. Salantin is the head of a homeschooling family, and comes from a long line of inventive "beyond organic" farmers. He describes himself as a "Christian-conservative-libertarian-environmentalist-lunatic farmer." He describes his farm, which produces chickens, eggs, cattle, pigs, turkeys, grapes, ETC. as a GRASS farm. The way he farms uses grass as the base (well almost) of the food chain, so his cows (and then chickens, etc.) eat what God designed them to eat, rather than living in cages and eating corn. The grass fed animals produce superior meat and eggs. The cost of buying their products is more pricey, but there are almost no hidden costs to the environment (no chemicals, the land is self-replenishing as he maximizes use of composting and other natural land restorative methods). The farm will only sell food locally (within a few hours drive), and that, just-barely includes us!

I'll let you know how the food tastes in a couple of weeks. Yum yum!