Overcoming the Fear of Food Processing: The Local Pastured Chicken Solution
I often hear, 'I can't buy from you because I can't get over the idea of killing a chicken!' But here's a news flash: every chicken you eat has undergone processing. In the age of mass production and convenience, it's easy to become disconnected from the source of our food. However, we aim to empower local buyers with the knowledge that transparency and ethically raised food are crucial for our community's survival. We understand that for some, purchasing local pastured chicken directly from a farmer can be intimidating, primarily due to the apprehension surrounding meat processing. It's essential that we shift our perspective and focus on the numerous benefits of supporting local farmers and enjoying sustainable, ethically grown, and healthier poultry.
1. A Return to Ethical Farming Practices:
Buying local pastured chicken from us means supporting ethical farming practices. Unlike industrial farming, where animals are often raised in confined, overcrowded conditions, our pastured chickens are given space to roam freely, forage, and express their natural behaviors. The average chicken house has over 10,000 birds. With our pastured poultry, freedom, sunshine, and sanitary living conditions are the bare minimum. We allow full expression of the “Chickenness of the chicken.” Our birds are not subjected to the same stressful situations as their factory-farmed counterparts, which translates to better living conditions for the animals. Do you expect an animal never exposed to sunlight and breathes in ammonia stench from excessive fecal debris to live it’s healthiest life?
2. Know Where Your Food Comes From:
One of the most significant advantages of purchasing local pastured chicken is the opportunity to meet and develop a relationship with your farmer. We have full transparency, which allows any of our customers to gain insights into the farming methods, animal welfare, and food production processes. Have you ever driven by a chicken house? Usually, they are surrounded by 24-hour surveillance, barbed wire, and “keep out” signs. By knowing the people who grow your food, our customers have increased confidence in the quality and ethics behind their meals.
3. Healthier Chicken, Healthier You:
Pastured chicken is ethically raised and nutritionally superior to conventionally produced chicken. These birds feed on a natural diet of insects, grass, and grains, resulting in meat higher in essential nutrients like Omega-3 fatty acids, vitamins, and minerals. By allowing our birds to eat a variety of grasses, bugs, vegetation, and non-GMO feed, we are expressing the animal's optimal health. Pastured chicken tends to be leaner and contains less saturated fat than its factory-farmed counterparts, making it a healthier choice for your diet.
4. Supporting the Local Economy:
Purchasing local pastured chicken isn't just about eating better; it's also about supporting your local community. By buying directly from farmers, you are improving the sustainability of small-scale agriculture and reducing the carbon footprint associated with transporting food long distances. Buying from mass stores means you support the four conglomerates of the food industry: Tyson, Sanderson, Purdue, and Pilgrim’s Pride. If you remember from COVID, bare shelves hopefully made people realize that their lack of connection to their farmers could result in a lack of accessibility to food.
5. Environmental Sustainability:
Factory farming significantly negatively impacts the environment through its use of resources, waste production, and greenhouse gas emissions. Have you ever driven past chicken farms where the stench is so horrible you don’t even want to breathe? Farming should not have a noxious smell if done right. Sanitary conditions should never smell if the appropriate mix of carbon is added. Our pastured chickens always live in hygienic conditions because we rotate daily to fresh grass. These sustainable practices also improve soil health, sequester carbon, and enhance the local ecosystems.
We raise Cornish cross meat chickens. They are bred specifically for meat due to their quick growth and delicious flavor. Each day of their lives, they are exposed to fresh air, fresh grass, and rotated areas.
6. Redefining Food Processing:
It's important to clarify that the processing of local pastured chicken is typically done with great care and attention to detail. Many small-scale farms adhere to humane and respectful processing practices, prioritizing animal welfare. While the idea of processing may still seem intimidating, choosing locally-sourced poultry ensures that these processes are more transparent and humane compared to mass-produced alternatives.
It’s time to shift our focus from the apprehension of processing to the numerous benefits of supporting locally sustainable food. This change not only aligns with ethical, sustainable, and healthier food choices but also rekindles a sense of community and a deeper connection to the source of our food.
By purchasing local pastured chicken, you are improving your well-being and contributing to the betterment of your community and the planet. So, let's embrace the opportunity to make a difference one meal at a time and savor the flavors of ethically grown, locally sourced poultry.
We will have fresh chicken available for pre-purchase here. The chicken will be bagged and ready to eat by October 23rd, or it can be stored in your freezer for later enjoyment.
The processing date is October 20th. The birds will be available for farm pickup October 20th-October 23rd. We can deliver to Greenville on the 23th at a Central pickup location and Anderson on October 24th.
We hope you choose to #supportlocal today.
Buyer Beware: Beef Trickery is lying to the customer and destroying the Regenerative Movement
At Eremos Farm, we decided from the beginning to only raise animals as nature intended. Herbivores (Cows) would eat grasses that the land provided instead of being force-fed grain. Our cows are not forced into feedlots where conditions are unsanitary and humane practices are thrown out the window. Our cows are always on sanitary pastures and are offered a polyculture of grasses, legumes, and forbs to meet their nutritional requirements. Our cows are never fed antibiotics, hormones, or steroids to increase weight gain. They are only offered ethically harvested Organic Icelandic Kelp and salt to meet their mineral and electrolyte requirements.
We are transparent with our customers and encourage them to come and visit the farm to see for themselves. We want to ensure that customers are aware of being tricked into buying regenerative products that may be misleading to the consumer.
Product Greenwashing Is Destroying The Regenerative, Humane Farm Movement.
Product Greenwashing, also called “green sheen,” is deceitful marketing that exaggerates a business’s current or past practices in order for them to appear more environmentally friendly. It can range from misleading labels claiming the use of sustainable materials to exorbitant media campaigns touting the eco-friendliness of oil companies
Large multinational companies have seen the marketing advantage of making untrue claims on their products. Because of weak USDA labeling rules, these companies can charge more for their commodity products without producing them in a better way. They can add to their price, without changing their production practices.
Consider this:
International meat companies can shop for the cheapest grass-fed beef in the world, usually found in impoverished countries.
The cattle, hogs, poultry can be born, raised, and slaughtered in these foreign countries, and the meat be shipped on containers to the United States.
Then, it can be sold in your local grocery store with a USDA label that proudly proclaims "Product of the USA".
This is perfectly legal. It is hard to fathom, but it is undisputedly true.
This legal, but corrupt, practice will halt the transition of farms that would like to follow the path toward regenerative, compassionate, and fair farming. See below-
Add your voice to those of us who are trying to end this trickery by supporting the US Beef Integrity Act.
More information from the Organic Consumers Association:
The USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Services Agency allows the use of the “Product of U.S.A.” label on any beef as long as the meat passed through a U.S.-based inspection plant, and/or was blended with meat from animals that were born and raised in the U.S.
Sales of grass-fed meat are nearly doubling annually. But about 80 percent of the grass-fed beef market is supplied by imports, compared with the total beef market where imports make up only 9 percent.
Because those imports often carry a “Product of U.S.A.” label just because they passed through a U.S. processing plant, U.S. grass-fed and grass-finished beef producers are hit hardest by this policy.U.S. producers can’t differentiate their product in the grocery store from imported beef.
The U.S. Beef Integrity Act aims to give consumers what they want—honest labels. It would also level the playing field for U.S. grass-fed and grass-finished beef producers, whose practices are better for consumer health, and better for the environment.
At Eremos Farm, we are 100% transparent with our practices and have an open-door policy for anyone who wants to come and tour our farm. We want you to see for yourself the regenerative practices we follow daily. Click the button below to schedule a visit with a group and see for yourself, or pop by anytime for a self-guided tour.