Weight Weight Just Love Me – Sourcing – Day 21
Michelle LaBrosse, CCPM, PMP, PMI-ACP, RYT
Camas Davis started the Portland Meat Collective to help people get closer to their meats. In this class we learned how to enjoy older animals, and how to prepare all parts of it with great love.
Yesterday I went to another event by the Portland Meat Collective. This one was an informative lecture and demonstration by Adam Danforth – a former NYC Advertising Professional turned Artisinal Butcher. He has a couple books out on the humane slaughtering of livestock. Dan’s main message was traditionally, farm animals served multiple purposes throughout their lives before they were consumed. They were well loved and utilized, integral members of the scene. Older ruminants (animals that survive on grasses) who have consumed more of the natural grasses they need to sustain themselves throughout a productive life are actually better overall to sustain us. The trend to factory farming and grain finishing young ruminants is hard on every part of the overall system – including we the consumer as it’s more difficult to digest and fully use this type of meat.
Conventional wisdom says eat more fish and less meat. Supposedly fish is high in omega 3’s that are part of a “hearth healthy” diet. Yet, as Adam pointed out, farm raised fish is lower in omega 3’s than meat that is only raised on grass (never grain fed). So where are the truly “heart healthy” choices? As part of loving myself thoughout the past decade, I have become more aware of the origins of my food and its impact on my health and happiness. I raised my own beef cattle for a decade – exclusively grass fed. Never got the high cholesterol issue that many in my genetic line up experienced.
So I got to thinking more about this proselytizing by “experts” that goes on about what we consume. When I was younger, there was the FDA’s food pyramid with it’s push to low fat, high carb that would supposedly keep you healthy (all that did was make me fatter). Back then I had persistent digestive issues following that food pyramid and eating processed foods – mostly commercial wheat products. I tried an experiment and switched to milling organic grains and making my own breads and pastas. Belly ache’s gone. And now at least half the time I go the extra distance and sprout the wheat berries, dry them and mill them as and added boost of nutrition and digestability. This takes more planning than effort as it adds about three days onto the process to sprout the berries and dry them before milling, if I don’t already have a supply of sprouted wheat berries stored in the freezer. Current pop nutrition says stay away from grains of any type. Well I’m opting for my dietitian’s approach here – everything in moderation and adding in my own – pay attention to the source.
I sometimes find myself apologizing to others regarding my diligence with sourcing foods I know will improve my overall quality of life. I really don’t want to be on the other end of this being all hell fire and brimstone about any one specific dietary practice as we all get to choose how we want to move through the world. I don’t want to be on the other end of that either with having to defend myself for my choices either. So as part of loving myself more, I am owning just how discerning (not picky) I am in a very stand up way (rather than apologizing for it). Loving myself more does include the choices I’m making in the foods that sustain me. These are my choices that are right for me. No more apologizing for being discerning and educated about sourcing the foods I eat. It’s a topic near and dear to my belly.
Kate’s comment: WOW the classes you’re taking sound really interesting. A friend from Fairbanks invited me to go to a pig harvest last year, and I figured “if I can’t handle a pig harvest, I shouldn’t be eating bacon”. And I really appreciate a good piece of bacon – so I went. It wasn’t anywhere near as bad as I thought it would be. It was actually really interesting to see the team of 10-15 people working as a well-oiled machine to process these 8 pigs that they had all bought into as a co-op at the beginning of the year. Side note to anyone getting queasy at this blog post – the Fairbanks friend was a vegetarian for years until her husband got a moose one fall and she had to butcher it. That turned her into an omnivore.
ALSO – I love how you called it “pop nutrition”. I am definitely going to start using that term.
