LOCAL CHOICES

If you want to know more about sustainable food but aren’t sure where to begin start with these 3 Easy Steps. Simply educate yourself on the issues so you can ask the right questions in order to take action to eat healthier.

In other words – Educate, Ask, Act!

Read on….

What is Sustainability?
When a process is sustainable, it can be maintained indefinitely. Sustainable food production can be maintained indefinitely because sustainable farmers do not take more resources to produce food than they give back. A reliance on renewable resources – as well as on symbiotic relationships with nature and the surrounding community – means that these farms do not damage the environment, are humane for workers and animals, provide a fair wage to the farmer, and support and enhance rural life. Because sustainable farmers see nature as an ally rather an obstacle, they are able to produce more wholesome food while using less fossil fuels (thus lessening the impact on global warming), and without using any synthetic pesticides, artificial hormones, or antibiotics. To learn more about why sustainable agriculture works, visit Sustainable Table’s Introduction to Sustainability section.

What is Factory Farming?
Factory farming takes a mechanized approach to agriculture, based on the assumption that raising more animals in smaller spaces is more efficient than letting them live and graze naturally, and therefore more profitable. What this assumption ignores are the problems created when the realities of living creatures – what they eat, how they behave, how much waste they create – are at odds with the industrial systems created to maximize their production. But factory farms don’t just ignore the problems created by intensive animal confinement, they have found ways to foist those problems onto society. Rather than responsibly manage animal waste, take measures to prevent air pollution and soil contamination, or keep their animals clean and healthy, these large scale farms take short cuts and receive government subsidies, forcing taxpayers to pay for their problems. If factory farms were forced to pay for these costs rather than taxpayers, the system would no longer be seen as profitable. Consumers are already starting to notice this and are turning to organic and sustainable food instead.

What are the most important issues?
Both natural and synthetic hormones are regularly administered to factory farmed beef cattle to make them grow faster. rBGH is a genetically engineered hormone that increases dairy cows’ milk production, but also threatens their health. Studies have shown that hormones added to meat and dairy products may have negative effects on human health.

Antibiotics
The Union of Concerned Scientists estimates that 70% of all antimicrobials used in the United States are given to farm animals, to compensate for filthy conditions as well as to promote growth. Increasingly, traditional antibiotics (which are a type of antimicrobial) are losing their effectiveness in the battle against infectious diseases because of antibiotic overuse which creates resistant bacteria.

Mad cow disease
Mad cow disease is a brain-wasting disease that is spread among cows through factory farm feeding practices. Humans can contract the disease by eating infected meat. There is no cure and the disease is always fatal.

Genetic engineering
and Genetic engineering (GE) is the process of transferring specific traits, or genes, from one organism into a different plant or animal. Much concern has been raised over the inadequate testing of the effects of genetic engineering on humans and the environment. And once released into the environment, these genetically engineered organisms cannot be cleaned up or recalled. Learn more about the problems with factory farminggenetic engineering from Sustainable Table’s Issues section…

It is your right as a consumer to know how the food you eat was produced. Use Sustainable Table’s Questions to Ask section and come equipped to the farm, store or restaurant to really nd out about what you’re eating. You can print out “Questions to Ask” cards to carry with you, so that you’ll always be ready to know about your food. Another way of “asking” for sustainably-raised meat and dairy is to leave an “I Care” card behind. By telling your local stores and restaurants that you care where your food comes from, you are sending a message that you want these products and you’ll frequent establishments that carry them. Download and print “I Care” cards here.

Visit the Eat Well Guide
Finding farms, stores and restaurants in your area that serve sustainable meat and dairy is the first step to incorporating this food into your diet. The Eat Well Guide lists over 9,000 sustainable farms, stores, restaurants, bed & breakfasts, and online retailers by zip code, making it easy for someone new to sustainability to take the first step. If changing your whole diet sounds intimidating, take it one step at a time. Decide on a type of meat, dairy product, or even fruit or vegetable that you will start buying organically or sustainably. Once you get comfortable with that, pick another food.

Know your farmer
The only real way to know what’s in your food is to talk to the person who grew it. There are many ways, even for urban dwellers, to start buying directly from local farms, either through farmers markets or community supported agriculture groups. Learn more about these options at www.sustainabletable.org/shop/.

Use the rBGH-free list to find dairy products in your area that came from cows that were not injected with this artificial growth hormone.

Get Involved
This is an exciting movement that’s sweeping across the country – and planet! Invite your friends and neighbors over for sustainable dinners, start a sustainable book club or plant a garden. Visit our Get Involved section for more ideas.

Have Questions?
Want to find other sustainable-minded people? Visit The Parlour, our online discussion forum for sustainable food and The Meatrix.