Beef up

10/24/09 Hamburgers, hot dogs, and buns, consumed; Travel mug, given away

You need to know where your beef comes from. Once you know, you can make any decision you want. Joanna and I sometimes make different decisions.

Joanna wants only local, grass-fed beef, like the meat we bought this afternoon at Little Alaska Farm. Quite a wonderful place, actually. Like most local farm markets, the prices are higher, but the cows are happy, and the beef is healthy.

In contrast, later this afternoon I downed a CAFO (Concentrated Animal Feed Operation) burger. What's CAFO beef? If you don't know, you should, since your tax dollars are at work paying for the corn that feeds them. The picture isn't pretty: huge feed lots where cows wander around in their own waste, feasting on antibiotics which keep the corn they are fed from killing them too quickly. Makes you want to head to McDonald's, huh? (To check out my previous rant against corn, click here.)

Still, even with more than a few horrid images running around in my mind, I do occasionally buy and eat a little CAFO beef. Sure, my personal health and the health of our planet is important to me, but they're sometimes not as important as saving a few bucks.

We went over to my folks' house today and brought along burgers, hot dogs, and buns that we'd had since our Autumnal Equinox Benefit Barbecue. I'd bought the food at Walmart (If there's one thing you can count on, it's that any meat bought at Walmart is pure, 100% CAFO!) and we'd frozen the uncooked leftovers right after the cookout. Since Joanna's standards are a bit higher than mine, the meat was likely to remain in our freezer forever.

Those burgers and dogs tasted pretty good, and we had a delightful lunch. Dad grills a mean burger, and any meal shared with my family is a great one. Plus, now when Joanna opens our freezer, she doesn't need to say to herself, "When is Reed going to eat those dang hamburgers?"

By the way, if any of you Dear Readers protest that this food does not count as a legitimate downsize, we also gave Mom a travel mug that I missed in a previous purge. That definitely counts.

Now I need to sign off... my stomach feels a bit upset...