The fight for good food...

Hello friends,
It has been way too long since I last blogged. I'm trying to do better. This post isn't going to be a catch-up post. This is going to be more of a vent/rant. As all of you know, we moved to the country in search of the good life. We found it in spades. We decided we wanted to share some of the good life and help pay some of the bills. We want to sell our pork which is raised on pasture naturally as opposed to crammed into metal buildings, never seeing the sun, getting shots of minerals because they can't root them out naturally, and crammed full of antibiotics to prevent disease in these unnatural conditions. We had our hogs butchered at a USDA inspected facility which allows us to re-sell it.

I called the county health department. We have to have a freezer to transport the pork to and from the market. We've transported the pork for hours before in a cooler with ice and it was still frozen rock hard when we got home. The best part is that the freezer doesn't have to be running, it just needs to be able to run. How is that different than a cooler. The permit is $167. The county guy told me that I also have to have a permit from the state to store frozen food.

So I call the Ohio Department of Agriculture. Their permit is $50. They have to come out and inspect the storage area. The freezer has to be dedicated to the meat you're selling (can't be used for the rest of your food). We have that. There's one thing wrong with our freezer situation. It's in our house. You're not allowed to have the freezer in the house. It has to be in an outbuilding. We have an automatic, natural gas generator for our house. It doesn't power any of the outbuildings. The guy goes on to say that there are other common sense rules like no toxic substances stored on top of the freezer or dogs running around doing their business in the freezer room. I say, "That's not common sense. Common sense would tell you to put it in the nice clean temperature controlled house with a generator instead of the dusty outbuilding that who knows what can get into." I get the "I don't make the rules speech.".

All I want to do is share my pork with the world and make a little money in the process to keep the farm going. I will jump through all of these hoops against my better judgment. I'll probably end up running power from the house to the milk house. I hope that having a freezer in the milk room (processing, not where I milk the girls) won't cause me not to be able to do milk.

I get that we need to keep our food supply safe. If I thought for a millisecond that these rules are working, I wouldn't complain. I know that they are not. You just have to watch the local news to find the latest food-borne illness that these rules didn't protect you from. It's time for a food revolution in this country, and I hope to be part of the vanguard.

Do you want to get your pork from someplace like this:

Or someplace like this:

 Which side are you on in the food revolution?

The pigs have landed...

They're here. They're here. Saturday, I made the two hour drive to H and H Farm in Norton, OH to pick up my registered gilt (young female) and two feeder (bacon) pigs. The Hoffman's have a beautiful farm where they raise heritage hogs, turkeys, chickens, and Limousin cattle on pasture. I also picked up some of their pork to get a taste of what I was raising...more on that later.

I loaded the pigs into a dog crate. I had originally planned on only getting one feeder but decided if we do get into a farm market, it would be nice to have some to sell, so ended up getting two feeders.

Now, I'm here to tell you that a two hour drive with three pigs cuddling in a crate is not a pleasant experience. the pigs didn't seem to mind. They like to snuggle together when they sleep. After about an hour, the heat went off, as it was only enhancing the smell. That's when I remembered that Chad had bought me a Carhart hat with a pulldown facemask and it was in my pocket! I drove the rest of the way home looking like a bank robber but was in olfactory bliss.

Let me introduce the pigs:

Martha

Nigel

Mr. Humphries

Since these pigs originate from England, we tried to give them British sounding names. We love the 70's British sitcom, Are You Being Served, so named one after Mr. Humphries. Martha is named after Martha Stewart. Nigel just was the most British sounding name we could think of.

Martha and Mr. Humphries are both pure Old Spots. Nigel is 1/2 Old Spot and 1/2 Large Black. The Large Black is another heritage breed that is also listed in critical status by the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy. I really like the looks of Nigel. He's only a week older, but considerably larger than the other two.

We have the little porkers in the barn until we get the pasture all squared away for them. I never realized what a vicious world it is for pigs. They do not like to share at all. They take turns standing in the middle of their feed dish and biting the ears of the others that try to eat( just like in Mr. Humphries picture). I'm finding that pigs can be a bit picky too. They don't like raw carrots but scarf down cooked ones. I've taken to throwing all the cooking scraps into a pan and boiling them. Yes, I'm cooking for pigs. Trust me, it will all pay off in the end. Yesterday, I fixed them a nice, big bowl of oats for breakfast.

Now to the important part, BACON. I bought some bacon, sausage, and a roast with the pigs to see what I was in store for. All I have to say is, if that was bacon, what the hell have I been eating the rest of my life. It was nothing like Oscar Mayer. It was thick and meaty and substantial. It was delicious. It also didn't have any ingredients in it that weren't completely naturual. I can't wait to try the rest.

We're really hoping we can make a difference with this breed. We can't let them just fade off the planet like so many other species. I think we're in the middle of a food revolution where people actually care what they're putting into their bodies. I'd be very proud to be part of that revolution. Pigs weren't meant to live in closed up buildings never seeing the sun except maybe when they're loaded on the truck to take them to the slaughterhouse. They are meant to root around in pastures and forests. The stuff that you buy on slabs of styrofoam wrapped in plastic is not what pork is. It's some engineered product that we are told is pork. If you don't already know, you'll see when these pigs become pork.

Are you going to be part of the revolution?