We make dozens of choices each and every day regarding the health of our environment, the vitality of our bodies, and the wellness of our communities.
These choices are reflected in the cars we drive, the clothing we wear, and the foods we consume.
We choose with our dollars by shopping at local markets that support honest food producers, organic farmers, and ethical food purveyors.
We choose with our hearts when we decide to buy our food from agrarians who are working to buck a conventional farming system based on on principles of convenience and cost cutting, as opposed to what is right, ethical, wholesome and delicious. These agrarians are our unsung food heroes, our advocates against the use of synthetic fertilizers, guardians of this country’s irrigated and depleted soils, and protectors of humanely raised animals, not ones inhumanely grown fat on antibiotic-rich feed.
Just one example of the thousands of choices we’re faced with is where to get our eggs. Eggs are something most households have on-hand at all times. It is a staple in the American diet and by purchasing your eggs from local, compassionately raised, pasture-ranged chickens you are purchasing eggs with three to six times more vitamin D, 66% more vitamin A, three times more vitamin E, seven times more beta carotene, twice the Omega-3 fats, 33% less cholesterol and 25% less saturated fat (OCA,2009).
By choosing eggs from humanely raised chickens you are simultaneously choosing NOT to support conventional monster-producers whose industry standard is to raise chickens in unhygienic confinement cages and on an unnatural diet supplemented with antibiotics and arsenic for growth promotion and parasite prevention.
In contrast, you’re choosing to support a system in which chickens are raised in their natural habitat, allowing them to roam in pastures and graze on a natural diet rich in grasses, seeds and bugs. You are choosing a system that supports sustainable farming practices for the earth and your show of support just may be the one that allows this farmer to continue to prosper, in-turn encouraging other farmers to pick up the same practices, and helping to change the overall market demand.
Again, each day we make choices that effect the world in which we live. These choices are felt in our own bodies and environment but the effects do not stop there. By choosing ethical products and practices you are making a choice that supports all of us. You’re supporting everyone in this country who is not educated on the systemic ills of the current food industry, everyone who may not have access to quality food, and those who may not be able to afford that food. You are supporting a world free of environmental toxins, a world with rich abundant soils, a world higher in nutrients, and a world more drenched in flavor.
We can no longer turn a blind eye of ignorance and disregard but must become educated conscious consumers.
Your choices does not go unnoticed. Thank you. Thank you for making the right choices and for your thoughtful and conscious care. Together we can move mountains.
Image from http://www.cdfa.ca.gov/ahfss/mpes/esqm.html