But my real question/concern to those of you who might be farmers, is that these dairy cows have no pasture, they are confined in a very small barn, open on one end facing the road. Some things I’ve observed aside from the stench is that the cows look dirty, that while the barn has straw on its floor it often looks wet and “muddy” (I don’t think that’s mud they are walking around in), and the cows act odd IMO; I’ve seen some chewing on the wooden fence, trying to bite each other and the other day I saw a few eating straw embedded in a huge pile of manure shoveled off to one side of the pen. There is another much bigger and commercial modern dairy operation just up the road a bit with a huge pasture and the cows look healthier and happier, if cow happiness matters in terms of milk quality and safety. But unlike this small family farmer, they don’t spread cow manure on their fields; they use commercial fertilizer and commercial seeds evident from the seed signs posted along their fields.
I can’t see nor have I observed the milking operation and so I don’t know how this small farmer with his cows cramped in a small barn sanitizes the udders when milking. I don’t know if he gives his cow’s antibiotics but I certainly hope he does BTW, given the toxic stew of crap these cows live in. Personally I wouldn’t want to drink the milk that came from these cows on this farm even if it is “natural” farming.
So my question to you regarding “traditional ways” of farming is; would you buy milk from this farmer even if he is farming in an “old fashioned” and “natural” way – just because he doesn’t use “artificial” fertilizers and or doesn’t give his cows antibiotics assuming he doesn’t?
Yes people used to die from food borne illness. Many thousands also thrived on foods they produced and prepared in clean healthy kitchens…. People also die from cancers, allergies and diseases which are triggered by their foods
Yes, many thousand thrived back in the “good ole days”. Yet walk through and old graveyard sometime. Take a look at the headstones and observe how many kids didn’t live past infancy (people tended to have big families because on average, half of their kids wouldn’t live to adulthood), how many people died at an early age, how many young women died in child birth. Many people simply didn’t live long enough to die from cancer and if they had allergies, they died from them and the cause of death was often not even known; they instead died at an early age from what are now are preventable diseases thanks to antibiotics, modern medicine and improvements in nutrition and thanks much to modern farming techniques that = bigger yields at a less cost = a wider variety of more affordable and nutritious foods.
The truth is that back in the “good ole days” unless you were very wealthy, most people ate a diet of meat and potatoes and cheap grains. The meat they ate was often “salt cured” or canned, canned vegetables being loaded with salt and canned fruits being loaded with sugar BTW, and before the days of modern refrigeration and freezers and preservatives, while people who were farmers or those who had small gardens could eat fresh vegetables and fruits, they only did so only a few months out of the year, most of what the average person ate during the year was not all that fresh or even “healthy”. Were as today, I can go to my local grocery store and buy all sorts of and a wide variety of healthy fresh vegetables and fruits.
People who constantly eat at places like McDonalds and get fat and sickly off of that lousy diet, do so, not because it’s cheaper, because it isn’t, or that healthy and affordable foods aren’t available, because they are at any grocery store, but they do so because they are just plain lazy.
All that being said; I love going to the local farmers markets in my area and go often during the summer months, buying and supporting locally grown and farm fresh fruits and vegetables, and I’ve even bought meats and cheeses and baked goods from the Amish farmers markets – great stuff BTW. But I also like that I can go to my local grocery store at any time of the year and buy nutritious bananas¸ oranges, fresh greens and fresh meats 24-7. And if I want to buy “organic” and spend the extra money to do so, I can but, personally don’t think it’s worth the extra money.
Sorry for the long rambling rant but I find the whole, “we lived better back before the modern age” pretty much a fallacy and an ignorance of historical facts in many cases.
“Sorry for the long rambling rant but I find the whole, “we lived better back before the modern age” pretty much a fallacy and an ignorance of historical facts in many cases.”
Yet you use an example of modern factory farming to present your case.
The food corporations are seeking to control all means of production and they are making great progress. They are using safety and ‘for the chilldrunn’ as their primary lever but also economic controls. Where they can’t force out small farmers economically they use the government to pass laws and regulations which only the big companies can meet.
Yes there have been advances in food safety which have saved many lives. This has largely been co-opted into a means of control, which is a progressive idea.
Proper diet is essential to meeting the bodies needs. This in turn is critical for avoiding and even curing many diseases. To think you can reduce it to 4 elements is simply ignorant. Keep your body strong and you can reduce the need for antibiotics and other medicines which will not be available after TSHTF.
The farm you describe is not a ‘traditional farm’ and you know it. Check your email, if you would.
You’d be surprised at the number of ranchers and farmers who grow organic for themselves while raising standard for the business. This has been going on for over fifty years that I know of. When Mom decides that those cows are no longer welcome in her kitchen, it does cause an uproar. All it takes is for the fish to die in the pasture ponds after one application of the latest and greatest fertilizers being pushed in the trade magazines.
I don’t know any country folks that don’t use Heritage seeds in the family garden. Monsanto is not a welcome name in their kitchens.
Back in the good old days, we used root cellars and canning to save our soft vegetables and fruits throughout the winter months. The meat was killed after the deep freeze began and hung in the coolers to keep the freeze burn off of it.
The cattle were fed corn silage and hay during the winter months. The chickens were mostly in the cooler wrapped in cotton sacks.
>>The truth is that back in the “good ole days” unless you were very wealthy, most people ate a diet of meat and potatoes and cheap grains. The meat they ate was often “salt cured” or canned, canned vegetables being loaded with salt and canned fruits being loaded with sugar BTW, and before the days of modern refrigeration and freezers and preservatives, while people who were farmers or those who had small gardens could eat fresh vegetables and fruits, they only did so only a few months out of the year, most of what the average person ate during the year was not all that fresh or even “healthy”.<<
The salt was sea salt and the sugar was natural not processed.