The cost of food continues to rise. If you didn't realize it, you
either don't do the grocery shopping, or you haven't ask the person who
does!
You can do a search on the 'net
and find all kinds of numbers indicating how much food products have gone up and what others believe they will do in the future.
The viewpoint I liked was from Lynn Carpenter she believes "We have been enjoying a 60-year trend of low food prices that is crashing to an abrupt end this very year."
Lynn says (and I agree) the government numbers released, and what I see
at the grocery store never seem to match up. She recommends figuring
out how many hours you must work each week to pay for food.
She did some serious research and came up with some very interesting numbers! You can read it all here.
But all that aside if you go to the store a few times you get an idea
of what it costs to eat and you suddenly feel a bit of gnawing worry.
Now the mistake you might make is to leave the grocery store, get the
groceries put away, and dismiss the gnawing worry telling yourself
"it'll all work out somehow."
Don't fall into that mindset!
Nothing just "works itself out" and if it does, it is seldom in your favor.
Planting a garden is a proactive way to cut your food bill and improve your overall health.
Feeling overwhelmed when you think ofgardening?
Start Small
One
of the best ways to get started growing your own food is to start
small. Plant a few tomato plants and some bell peppers along the house.Make a garden four feet by eight feet. Make raised beds etc.
I love High Density Gardening
by Ric Wiley. Gardening is work no matter how you cut it but you can
reduce the workload and space needed by using Ric's methods.
He covers everything from A to Z in this ebook.
How to plan your High Density Garden in order that you can maximize the quantity of crops you can grow
How to build a High Density Gardening bed
How to propagate seeds
Home made compost. How to make it quickly.
Much more
I'm a lover of ebooks because you can be reading them five minutes
after you decide to purchase them! Which might be why I spend so much at
Amazon on my Kindle.
Take a look at High Density Gardening and download a copy and get started planning now. It takes some planning, money and effort to harvest a successful garden.
But it is worth it!
Imagine your very own lush, green, vibrant garden this spring. Can't
you taste the garden fresh tomato's, beans, onions, peppers, cucumbers,
water melons, peas, carrots, cauliflower, broccoli, sweet corn, cabbage,
you get the point……
I recently read an article in the Columbus Dispatch about the manure problem in Ohio.
The article starts out "Under the best conditions, raising livestock is a dirty, smelly business."
The truth is under the right conditions, raising livestock is not dirty or smelly.
Until
last year I let my hogs spread their own manure 24 hrs a day throughout
the pastures. Then I decided I needed to keep some for specific
applications. So I have been bringing hogs into the barn for winter to
collect the manure.
As long as the carbon ratio is right there is no smell or mess. In my case, wheat or oat straw. Lots of it.
By keeping a good bed of straw in the barn I tie up the manure right along with the smell and mess. Anytime you're smelling manure you know right away your carbon is low.
If
you don't tie it up with a carbonaceous material you are losing
valuable nutrients that you can use on your soil to fertilize it.
The
nutrients either evaporate, which you smell, or leach away which wastes
the nutrients by fertilizing the lawn around the barn. Or worse yet,
running of into a waterway somewhere and polluting the water.
The
whole idea of a huge amount of animals in one place (for long periods
of time) is so unnatural it's no wonder big Ag had to come up with all
these nifty, yet environmentally unfriendly ways, to store it or get rid
of it.
Big Agriculture spreads manure that is
usually 100 percent raw manure. Nothing added like straw or sawdust.
Heck just put those critters on concrete or slatted floors and let the
pure manure pile up and then we can overload the soil with it.
Bad idea all the way around in my opinion.
If
you read any old books they tout the benefits of manure as a
fertilizer. But that manure was loaded with straw or other material
which added to the organic material in the soil.
The
combination of the manure with the organic material in my opinion is
far superior to just raw manure you get from a factory farm.
As
sustainable farmers we have to make sure we are doing things right. No
manure running off into waterways or overloading the soil.
The
American public is getting tired of factory type farms ruining the
environment with all these unsustainable ways. I don't blame them I'm
tired of it too.
The best way to send the message
is to stop giving the factory farms your money. Give to a farmer who is
acting responsibly towards the environment and the animals or crops they raise.
The USDA recently announced they are going to lose 150 Million dollars in a budget cut. Listen to what Tom Vilisack mentions in his announcement.
I'm always amazed at the waste found when somebody actually looks for it. He mentions office buildings and equipment that are vacant, 700 hundred different cell phone contracts, 70 crop reporting days cut back.
The things we find necessary when the money is flowing!
The consumption of High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) has been on the rise for several years now.
If you get in the habit of reading labels you see it in everything from bread to ketchup. Why? Because it's the cheapest way to replace sugar or other sweeteners in a recipe.
I ask myself all the time why we need sugar in so many things but the truth is American's consume so much sugar on a daily basis that they are desensitized to the taste. They think things don't taste right without sweeteners of some kind.
Add to that, the increasing evidence that these sweeteners can be addicting and we see why the industrial food system relies so heavily on High Fructose Corn Syrup.
It actually tricks your body into creating and storing excess fat.
Check out this article and see a good strategy to eliminate it and lose the weight you've been trying to lose.
Reducing off the farm inputs can be accomplished in many different
ways. One of the ways we are expanding on this is by growing open
pollinated corn. I blogged here about the small pasture we were running
pigs on to take off the grass, root up the soil and then we would plant
corn. You can read that blog here.
Once
the hogs grazed the grass down and then began to root it up and eat the
roots off the grass we got ready to move them. In this case we moved
them the trailer for a short trip to see the butcher.
I then tilled the fieldand waited about a weekfor
any seeds to germinate. I then cleaned out one of our buildings we had
kept hogs in all winter. We kept them in a building all winter so we
could collect the manure for this project.
I kept them deeply bedded with straw. Two reasons for this; one was
to keep the nutrients in the manure locked up with carbon, and two, I
think hogs laying around in mud and manure is a recipe for sickness not
to mention poor farming.
So we
ending up with a bunch of manure with lots of decomposing straw mixed
in. I then spread this on the previously tilled soil and worked it in.
This
gave the soil a big nutrient boost and a good amount of organic matter
or humus. We then planted an old variety of open pollinated corn.
“Open Pollinated” is a horticultural term meaning that the plant
will produce seeds naturally. When these seeds are planted they will
reliably reproduce the same plant as the parent. On the other hand,
hybrid corn is the result of controlled pollination of inbred plants.
These seeds are often sterile, and if they do germinate, will not
reliably produce the same plant as the parent. This means the farmer has
a perpetual reliance on the seed companies.
Being able to save seed is a big plus in my book however the good
news doesn't stop there, open pollinated corn is typically 11 to 14
percent crude protein whereas hybrid corn comes in at around 6 to 7
percent.
I have read claims that
open pollinated corn picks up substantially more minerals than
conventional corn. I've not seen any scientific evidence to support this
claim but perhaps it exists. I have had several farmers tell me it can
deplete your soil of nutrients as it is a "heavy feeder" which tells me
it's taking nutrients from the soil andI think that's a good thing.
The crop is almost ready and doing a quick and dirty yield test
tells me the yield is around 193 bushels per acre. Now keep in mind this
test pot is about a 1/4 of an acre.
I would be pleased with 100 plus bushels per acre on a larger scale.
Along with the manure, I also placed the equivalent of 3 gallons per acre ofGrowers Mineral Solution in the seed band when planted and then foliar sprayed it twice before it tassled.
Over all, I am very pleased with the Growers Mineral Solution and
open pollinated corn. We plan to plant enough corn to eliminate
purchasing corn from off farm sources.
A Wisconsin judge has ruled that owners of cows do not have the right to consume milk from their own cow.
The Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund reported on this in detail and you can find the link at the end of this blog.
Among other things, Dane county Judge Circuit Court Judge Patrick J. Fiedler clarified his rulings by stating Plaintiffs do not have a fundamental right to produce and consume the foods of their choice.
I want to use this crazy ruling in Wisconsin to once again say if you are a farmer that values the right to produce and direct market your goods, you need to join the Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund.
If you are a consumer who believes you have the right to consume foods of your choosing, you need to support the Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund.
The FTCLDF is on the forefront of helping small farms keep, and take back, our rights to produce and consume foods of our choosing.
A
blockbuster new scientific study shows that a transition to organic
animal production methods that don’t use antibiotics can reduce levels
of antibiotic-resistant bacteria on farms.
This is the first
U.S. study to provide on-farm data on the impacts of removing
antibiotics from large-scale poultry CAFOs (confined animal feeding
operations).
Researchers from the University of Maryland and the
Food and Drug Administration measured levels of antibiotic-resistant
bacteria in poultry litter, water, and feed samples from 10
conventional poultry operations and 10 newly-organic operations of
similar size. (Under organic certification rules, producers are not
allowed to use antibiotics.) The newly antibiotic-free organic farms
had much lower rates of resistant bacteria compared to the conventional
farms, demonstrating that the reduction in antibiotic use can
immediately lower the levels of antibiotic-resistant bacteria found on
the farm.
The study was released in the midst of a massive food
safety recall of ground turkey contaminated with antibiotic-resistant
salmonella. That incident, involving 36 million pounds of ground turkey
produced by agribusiness giant Cargill, sickened some 111 consumers.
Read the full study here, and learn more about the turkey recall here.
One
of the many reasons I oppose the use of genetically modified corn is
one of the modified traits is to make it resistant to pesticides.
To
me it only stands to reason that if you know the poison won't kill your
corn you would be more apt to use plenty enough to kill the weeds.
If
you end up with some weed pressure when the corn is up high but still
able to drag a boom sprayer through it, why not spray poison again?
After all it can't kill the corn plants they are genetically resistant. And if you're the seed modifier why not make the seed resistant to the poison you sell?
Great ideas from strictly a marketing standpoint.
But common sense tells me I don't want to eat food that has been hosed down with pesticides maybe more than once.
The
latest: Monsanto’s new GMO corn, intended for the frozen and/or canned
corn market. This experimental corn will not be labeled, so consumers
cannot know when they may be eating a GMO food that contains a toxic
pesticide in every bite
Let the food giants know you don't want to eat pesticide laden corn. Go to The Center For Food Safety and click the "Take Action" button.
In
my never ending quest to reduce inputs from outside sources (like the
local feed mill) I have been widening my research on ways to increase
the amount of green foodstuffs I can carry through the winter for the
animals. [Read More]
I have long been a proponent of eggs from pastured hens.
Eggs get a bad rap many times but the truth is they are a great source of:
Nine essential amino acids
One
of the highest quality proteins you can find. Proteins are nutrients
that are essential to the building, maintenance and repair of your body
tissues such as your skin, internal organs and muscles. They are also
the major components of your immune system and hormones
Lutein and zeaxanthin (for your eyes)
Choline for your brain, nervous- and cardiovascular systems
Naturally occurring B12
I
routinely eat my eggs raw but for many that is not something they are
ready to do unless they are really a committed health fanatic!
It's
very handy though, I can have two or three raw eggs and some fresh
vegetable juice for lunch and be back to work in ten minutes.
If
I'm in a hurry in the morning I can crack a couple of eggs into a mug
and two swallows later my breakfast is over and I'm out the door!
I would not recommend doing this with store bought eggs regardless of pastured, free range or otherwise. The risk of salmonella is very real.
Here's a list of the top 10 super foods for your health. How many are you consuming?
I promised I would update you on the Little Tamworth Gilt who thinks she is a chicken.
A
few weeks ago I noticed a pig running through the yard. I watched as
she zipped down past the house and disappeared. I was sure she belonged
to our oldest sow Droopy. But how did she get out?
Over
the next few days I noticed as soon as we were all in the house she
would sneak out and head for the laying hens which were being fed
outside. She would charge right up and take her place at the trough!
Since
the troughs have a bar that runs through the middle it was hard for her
to get feed so she began upsetting it and eating the feed off the
ground.
This became her daily ritual. Watch us feed
the chickens and then run over and start eating. As with any bad habit
(or so I'm told) it kept getting worse. Pretty soon she was waiting with
the chickens when we went to feed them.
The boys would chase her back to the pasture and she would squeal as loud as she could to let them know she was not happy.
A few days of that and I caught her sneaking out of the hen house! Turns out she wasn't laying eggs she was climbing into the bottom box and eating eggs.
I
resolved to fix the fence the next day and put a stop to her antics. I
got up the next morning and went to the garden to check things out to
find little pig had beat me to it and rooted out a bunch of sweet
potatoes for her breakfast.
My next stop was the
barn for some fence wire and thus ended the pig who only wanted to be a
chicken because they roam around and get all kinds of goodies.
Love him or hate him, Joel Salatin is leading the charge when it comes to small farms.
I can't wait to read his new book coming out in October. I love the fact that Joel has got the ear of a portion of America that is big enough to help bring about change.
Watch the video to get a glimpse into what he'll be covering. While you're at it if you don't know about the Farm to Consumer Legal defense Fund check them out!
I have several breakfast selections I rotate through depending on what I feel like eating, how much time I have, etc.
This morning I elected to fry my eggs. The bulk of the pastured eggs
I consume are raw. You hear all kinds of things about eating eggs raw
and in another article I'll discuss why I eat raw eggs, but for today
let's look at using pig lard as a ingredient in your everyday cooking.
Like frying eggs.
I dropped about a
half a tablespoon or more lard from our pastured pork into the skillet
and in a couple minutes I was eating two eggs with real cheese and no
bread. I have practically eliminated bread from my diet. Not completely,
as I love whole wheat bread, but it happens to be one of the things
that adds inches to my waistline so I keep my urge to eat a loaf at a
time subdued.
Lard, like most
animal fats, have gotten a bad wrap for many years now. I still marvel
at the effectiveness of the "low fat" advertising mantra. Today there is
so much confusion about fats and oils that many people are sabotaging
their health while believing they are doing the right thing.
In 1956, an American Heart Association (AHA) fund-raiser aired on
all three major networks. The MC interviewed, among others, Irving Page
and Jeremiah Stamler of the AHA, and researcher Ancel Keys. Panelists
presented the lipid hypothesis as the cause of the heart disease
epidemic and launched the Prudent Diet, one in which corn oil,
margarine, chicken and cold cereal replaced butter, lard, beef and eggs.
But the television campaign was not an unqualified success because one
of the panelists, Dr. Dudley White, disputed his colleagues at the AHA.
Dr. White noted that heart disease in the form of myocardial infarction
was nonexistent in 1900 when egg consumption was three times what it was
in 1956 and when corn oil was unavailable. When pressed to support the
Prudent Diet, Dr. White replied: "See here, I began my practice as a
cardiologist in 1921 and I never saw an MI patent until 1928. Back in
the MI free days before 1920, the fats were butter and lard and I think
that we would all benefit from the kind of diet that we had at a time
when no one had ever heard the word corn oil."
So what type of fat is lard?
According to Mary Enig, author of Know Your Fats,
lard is about 40 percent saturated, 50 percent monounsaturated, and
contains 10 percent polyunsaturated fatty acids. It is also one of our
richest dietary sources of vitamin D.
(Research is showing vitamin D to be one of the foundational vitamins to good health.)
Foods containing trans fat sell because the American public is
afraid of the alternative—saturated fats found in tallow, lard, butter,
palm and coconut oil, fats traditionally used for frying and baking. Yet
the scientific literature delineates a number of vital roles for
dietary saturated fats—they enhance the immune system,are necessary for healthy bones,provide
energy and structural integrity to the cells, protect the liverand
enhance the body's use of essential fatty acids. Stearic acid, found in
beef tallow and butter, has cholesterol lowering properties and is a
preferred food for the heart. As saturated fats are stable, they do not
become rancid easily, do not call upon the body's reserves of
antioxidants, do not initiate cancer, do not irritate the artery walls.
We have always used lard here at Spring Hill Farms.
A growing number of customers are requesting it. At this point the best
we can do is give them the actual fat so they can make lard for
themselves.
It's a simple process and can be done on the stove in smaller amounts.
If
you would be interested in purchasing lard from us let me know. If the
demand is large enough perhaps we will add it to our products.
You can buy lard at some grocery stores, but it can have hydrogenated lard it, BHT, Propyl Gallate, and Citric Acid.
You can bet the pig it was made from wasn't on pasture and worse yet
probably fed all kinds of things to practically negate the benefits of
the lard.
Keep your eye out we may have a lard rendering here at the house this fall so you can try some for yourself.
If you're thinking there is no way you are eating animal fats
because they aren't healthy for you. I urge to do some research and see
for yourself. A good place to start is The Oiling of America.
The demand for grass fed beef is on the rise. Research is proving out that it is healthier for you and even helps fight cancer.
It took a long time to convince me that grass fed beef was better for you than grain fed.
The research that is coming mainstream these days though will convince the most skeptical person.
It's
hard to describe the feeling you have sitting down to dinner with those
you love and knowing they are eating foods that help keep them healthy
rather than making them sick. That is one of our main priorities here at Spring Hill Farms.
Diet
and lifestyle are two of the foundational keys to health. Read Dr
Mercola's latest blog about the benefits of grass fed beef. [More]
Eating fresh, local foods is the foundation to health and longevity but is it enough?
If
you have enough discipline to never eat processed foods and have done
so for most of your life maybe it would be, but most people I know don't
fall into that category!
I'm not a big proponent of nutritional supplements but I do think there is a place for them.
The key word is supplement. They should supplement an already good diet to help maintain good health.
Another
good use of nutritional supplements is to help you overcome a health
issue you may be facing and diet alone isn't getting the results you
need to feel better.
Enter - Astaxanthin, the one supplement I believe no one should be without.
The list of benefits from taking Astaxanthin is growing by the day.
There
may be no other single natural substance that performs so many
beneficial biochemical functions as this little-known carotenoid. Its
scope is truly amazing. Here are just some of the ways astaxanthin can
positively impact your health, according to the latest research:
Improving cardiovascular health by reducing C-Reactive Proteins (CRP), reducing triglycerides, and increasing beneficial HDL
GREATLY protecting your eyes from cataracts, macular degeneration, and blindness (which I will discuss at length below)
Protecting your brain from dementia and Alzheimer's
Reducing
your risk for many types of cancer (including cancers of the breast,
colon, bladder and mouth) by stimulating apoptosis (cancer cell death)
and inhibiting lipid peroxidation
Improving recovery from spinal cord and other central nervous system injuries
Reducing inflammation from all causes, including arthritis and asthma
Improving endurance, workout performance and recovery
Helping to stabilize blood sugar, thereby protecting your kidneys
Relieving indigestion and reflux
Improving fertility by increasing sperm strength and sperm count
Actually
helping to prevent sunburn, and protecting you from the damaging
effects of radiation (i.e., flying in airplanes, x-rays, CT scans, etc.)
Reducing oxidative damage to your DNA
Reducing
symptoms from pancreatitis, multiple sclerosis, carpal tunnel syndrome,
rheumatoid arthritis, Parkinson's disease, and Lou Gehrig's disease, and
neurodegenerative diseases.
I started taking Astaxanthin
because I was suffering from severe lower back pain for almost 3 years.
I tried everything chiropractors, stretching, exercise, other
supplements, nothing got me complete relief.
After just 3 weeks of taking Astaxanthin
my back pain was totally gone! It has changed my life. No more asking
my wife to help me get my shoes on, no more sleepless nights, no more
constant pain...I was a new man!
Another benefit I
noticed is it is a great natural sunscreen! Contrary to what most
dermatologists say, I believe sunshine is good for you.
You
don't want to get sunburned but we need sunshine to optimize our
vitamin D levels. The research is proving this and most all suncreens
you buy in store actaully contain carcinegenics.
I take 8
mg a day and it seems to be enough. If you're going to be in the sun
continuously for a long period I would think you may need to take more
through the day. Dr. Mercola sells a great natural sunscreen on his site
if you are prone to burning.
Dr Mercola has blogged extensively on Astaxanthin. I would urge you to see for yourself if you want all the technical information.
I
have had so many friends and family ask me about Astaxanthin that I
promised them I would blog about it so they know where to get it.
You can purchase here
and receive $5 off your first order! I signed up for their rewards
program and receive credits toward my purchases when you purchase
products.
Over the next few blogs I'll delve deeper into exactly what I do everyday to maintain optimal health.
My breakfast every morning, foods I refuse to eat, the best dirt for health, all kinds of fun stuff!
Until next time....
PS -Let me know how Astaxanthin improves your life!
I started raising Oberhasli dairy goats last year as a way to supply my family with fresh, grass fed, raw milk.
We have many customers who asked about milk and we have to tell them that the ODA and FDA consider it a crime to sell raw milk.
Many times people are shocked that a farmer is seriously restricted as to what and how they can sell off the farm and it keeps getting worse.
I believe the raw milk controversy is the fore runner to defining our food rights as American consumers. Even if you have no interest in raw milk (which is a wonderful health food), ask yourself if you want to be told you can no longer buy eggs off the farm that are ungraded. Or, produce has to be inspected to insure it is safe so no on farm sales of produce either.
A large percentage of these laws and regulations are sponsored and pushed by big business to eliminate the competition and maintain the illusion that only food from the "established system" is safe to eat.
Check out Dr Mercola's latest post about Ron Paul standing up and saying enough! [more]
After several years of contemplating and researching old heritage breed pigs I have purchased a Large Black boar piglet to cross breed with some of our Tamworth pigs.
I
first became interested in these pigs after hearing several farmers
experiences with the meat quality of this particular cross.
The Tamworth is a very good heritage breed for meat taste and quality. The Large Black is also known for its delicious pork.
Several
producers are crossing Large Black boars with Tamworth sows and they
all say the meat is better than either the Tamworth or Large Black as a
pure breed.
Large Black can get a bit fat and Tamworth pigs lack marbling in the meat.
By crossing the two you get a leaner hog than the Large Black with the excellent marbling qualities lacking in the Tamworth.
The Large Black is listed as "critical" on the ALBC list. This means there are fewer
than 200 annual registrations in the United States and
estimated global population less than 2,000. registered each year.
We will have piglets in the Spring of 2012.
I'll keep you updated on how things are going with this great addition to Spring Hill Farms.
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The consumption of High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) has been on the rise for several years now. 
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