#150 Have You Ever Heard a Cow Moo?

Adventures in Sustainable Living Podcast

Episode 150

Have You Ever Heard a Cow Moo?

Self sufficiency and sustainability are hot topics these days. But when I was growing up in Tennessee and Georgia there were two working farms in my family. We never really spoke about self sufficiency or sustainability because it was simply how we lived day to day. In fact, I have no memory of eating store bought meat until I moved away from home at the age of eighteen. 

Yet in our modern culture, a surprising number of people have no idea where their food actually comes from and how it is produced. Yet this basic knowledge is vital if you want to live a healthy sustainable lifestyle. So in this episode, I am going to explore the reasons why it is important to know the origin of your food. So stayed tuned for E150 which is called Have You Ever Heard a Cow Moo? 

Welcome back everyone to the Adventures in Sustainable Living podcast. This is your host Patrick and this is E150 which is called Have You Ever Heard a Cow Moo?

As promised folks, I am going to adhere to my idea of bringing you a bit of goods news at the beginning of each podcast episode. This bit of good news, which is called Join the Goodness, is brought to you by the Good News Network, which can be found at goodnewsnetwork.org. And it focuses on the top 20 things that make people happy. 

As you can likely guess with all that is going on in the world these days more and more people are finding it difficult to be happy. In response to that the cheese company in London called Babybel sponsored a survey that focused on the top 20 things that make people happy. 

In the survey they found that nearly half of Londoners said they could use a pick me up. In fact, 83% of their respondents said they actively avoided negative news because it made them feel emotionally drained. 

The survey polled 2,000 adults. That survey found that 45% said a nice compliment is guaranteed to boost their mood. Additionally, laughing so hard that you cry also rated high. 

So, some of the top rated things that make people happy are: a good night’s sleep, a sunny blue sky, receiving a compliment, getting a moment to yourself, eating your favorite snack, helping an elderly person with something, and pets being happy to see you. 

In response to the survey, this company created the Goodness Bench inside King’s Cross train station in London as part of their “Join the Goodness Campaign.” It is designed to spread positive news stories and every time someone sits on the bench they donate to their longstanding charity partner, Comic Relief. 

If want to see the whole list I have included a link in the transcript to the original article published on The Good News Network. And the best part is that all the 20 things on this list do not cost any money. So, keep in mind that if you want to spread a little good cheer this week, giving someone a compliment is high on the list. 

The Top 20 Things That Make People Feel Good

Well that is your good news story for this week. Now, let’s dive into this weeks episode. 

If you have been following me for sometime it is no secret that I grew up with two working farms in the family. I was learning the basics of animal husbandry before the age of seven and I was driving the farm truck by the age of twelve. We always kept a large garden. What we could not grow ourselves we purchased from the local farmer’s market. And it seemed as if home canning was a never ending project. 

Needless to say, we were closely connected with where our food came from and how it was processed. We essentially live off of natural basic ingredients that were either produced on the family farm or another local farm. I have no memory of eating meat from the supermarket until I move away from home at the age of eighteen. 

I am happy to say that I retain many of those same habits in my life even today. We have a 400 square foot greenhouse. We raise turkeys and chickens. Home canning is a regular thing. We get 90% of our meat from a local ranch, which is elk meat. We get a whole animal at a time and do all of the processing at home. The other 10% of our meat is from the supermarket. So once again, I am closely connected with the source of a great deal of our food. 

But this is simply not the case for the majority of people in modern society. Presently in the United States only 2% of our population lives on a farm or ranch. What that means is 98% of our population depends on food that comes from a place that most people have never seen. 

In a survey conducted by an organization called Parked in Paradise, 54% of people surveyed have never seen a cow in person. Furthermore many American adults have the wrong idea about chocolate milk. The Innovation Center of U.S. Dairy, which is a group that supports dairy farmers and companies that sell milk and dairy products, conducted an online survey of people all over the country. The survey revealed that 7 out of 100 Americans adults believe that chocolate milk comes from brown cows. They do no even know that chocolate milk is simply milk, cocoa powder and sugar. That means that 16.4 million people have the wrong idea about chocolate milk. And this is only one example of just how disconnected we are from the origin of our food. 

In another survey conducted by a team of researchers involving 4th, 5th, and 6th graders in a California school, more than half the students did not know that pickles were cucumbers. They did not know that onions and lettuce were plants. Forty percent of them did not know that hamburgers were made from cows. Thirty percent of them did not know that cheese was made from milk. And many of them did not know that French fries come from potatoes. Most of them knew that food was grown in gardens and on farms but they had no concept of how food gets packaged into the end product. 

In a separate study conducted by the United States Department of Agriculture in the early 1990’s, 1 in 5 American adults did not know that hamburgers were made from beef and most of them were not even familiar with some basic facts about farming. So what this means is that most people simply do not know where their food comes from. 

But, this is not something that is unique to the United States. Approximately 85% of the UK’s population lives in urban areas. And 22% of the Brits say they have never visited a farm. Only 5% of the Brits described farmers as being “tech savvy” despite the fact that most modern UK farms use robotic milking machines and even drones. The most common image of the UK farmer is that of a tweed-wearing, pipe smoking relic from a long lost era. 

The British organization called Linking Environment and Farming, aka as LEAF, conducted a poll of 1,000 school-aged children and asked questions about basic farming knowledge. One in three children did not know that pork came from pigs. Some even believed that pigs provided us with potatoes. One in 20 believed pigs produce cheese, and 5% believed that strawberries grew in the refrigerator.  

To me this is just almost unreal. But maybe I feel that way because of where and how I grew up. Even now we raise chickens and turkeys as part of our food source. I do remember when Annette’s son Erik was about 8 or 9 years old he saw us butcher and process some of our chickens for the first time. That was when I explained to him the source of the meat that we consume. 

Someone has to raise these animals, take care of them, and give them the best life possible. In the end they are slaughtered, butchered and packaged into a product that you see in the supermarket. But in our case we are doing all of that ourselves. He also experiences what we do when we go to a ranch to get an elk. He is involved in the whole process right up until the food ends up in the freezer. But all of this was a great lesson for him because now he knows where his food comes from. 

But once again that is just not the case for most of the people in today’s culture. People simply do not know where food is grown or how it even gets to the supermarket. They just know that it is there. All of this begs the question of where and when did this total disconnect happen. 

Our total disconnect from the source of our food started in the mid 1800’s as more people transitioned to an urban lifestyle. Over time fewer and fewer people were involved in food production and even fewer people worked to make food due to improvements in factories and transportation. These improvements made it easier to preserve, package, and ship foods over long distances. The end result is that many of us see our food only as a product that looks nothing like the original animal or plant. Furthermore, with our 24 hour supermarkets, our prepackaged foods, our microwaves, and many restaurants serving only canned food items we are disconnected more than ever from the origin of our food. 

Modern farming practices harm the environment 

It has long been known that modern agriculture is a major source of environmental pollutants. Fertilizers wash into the water supply and end up the the oceans causing algae blooms and dead zones where there is no oxygen. This years dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico covered, 8,776 square miles of ocean.  Large livestock operations also produce a significant source of pollution. 

While 51% of us are willing to pay higher prices for food that has less environmental impact we first need to know how food is produced before we can take action. 

Knowing the source of your food allow you to support sustainable farming practices. 

Believe it or not our global food production is going to have to increase by 50% over the next 30 years if we are going to be able to feed our growing population. The amount of land needed to produce that much food was essentially destroy many of the forests and wild area we have left on the planet. Our industrialized high-intensity agriculture requires enormous amounts of fertilizers herbicides, pesticides and water year after year. This is simply not sustainable. This overexploitation of land and natural resources results in poor soil quality and reduced nutritional value of the food we consume. Knowing where your food comes from enables you to support farmers that engage in sustainable practices. 

Improved Nutrition

Knowing the source of your food is also a great way to improve your nutrition and eat healthier meals. While agriculture is the science of farming, nutrition is the science of how to eat the right kinds of foods in order to stay healthy. This lack of knowledge about where your food comes from or how it gets to the supermarket means that we are not eating as healthy as we could. And in the case of chocolate milk, many people don’t even know what is in it. 

Furthermore, the explosion of the snack foods and fast foods that are loaded with sugars, fats, and carbs it should be no surprise that a high percentage of us are obese and metabolically unhealthy. When you take the time to learn where you food comes from you can exercise your buying power, take control of your health, and make environmentally responsible decisions. 

According to a study published by the American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine eating excess fats and processed foods shortens our lifespan. But moderate caloric restriction actually slows the aging process and protects our bodies and brains. 

Humanity and Sustainability

When you take the time to know where your food comes from and how it is produced, you make that connection of farm-to-table. This give you a much better appreciation of what goes into raising livestock, growing vegetables, and producing the food that you eat. This connection is too often lost in our households, restaurants, and supermarkets. 

When you buy meat, fish, or dairy products, you should know that how they are raised directly affect that quality of that product that you consume. From a humanity and sustainability prospective, it is important to know how animals are raised and how they are treated. Factory farming often involves animal cruelty and if you care where your food comes from then don’t support cruel practices by purchasing their products. Support only the producers that guarantee their animals were provided with a healthy diet, a good quality of life and were humanely slaughtered. 

Reducing Your Carbon Footprint

Knowing where your food comes from, how it is produced, and the environmental impact of the production gives you the ability of reduce your carbon footprint. Beef production by far has the greatest environmental impact. Lamb is next on the list. Pork and chicken have the least impact. 

Supports Your Local Farmer

Another reason to know where your food comes from is that you can support your local farmer and your local economy. Additionally, knowing that your food only comes from 20 miles away as opposed to being imported from another country is another way to reduce your carbon footprint. 

You are in control of what you eat

One of the best reasons to know where your food comes from is that it puts you in control of what you are eating. It is truly the only way to know what you are putting in your body. 

Processed foods are treated with a variety of chemicals. In fact, there are over 5,000 different chemicals that are added to our food. The vast majority of those have never been studied to determine their safety for human consumption. Either growing your own food and buying locally grown, unprocessed, fresh food, and preparing it from scratch is the best way to know exactly what you are putting in your body. 

For example, the other day I was at work in a clinic that always has a variety of snack food for the staff. One of the things they had was some fruit snack bars that were labeled as being healthy. When I read the label I discovered it had 63 ingredients most of which I had no idea what they were. I opted for eating a small handful of nuts. 

Big Corporations Do Not Have Your Best Interest in Mind. 

The last reason you need to know where your food comes from is that where you know it or not, big corporations do not have your best interest in mind. Their top priority is making a profit. Consumers may be at the center of their business but they are more focused on using every possible tactic to manufacture their products as inexpensively as possible and sell as much as possible. Even the very ingredients are designed to stimulate an addictive response so that you buy even more and then eat more. Once again, eating basic ingredients cooked from scratch is the best way to go. 

Summary

At the end of the day, knowledge is power. And that knowledge gives us the power to make informed choices. Yet much of the public remains completely disengaged and misinformed about food. Furthermore, we are bombarded with online content with conflicting messages making it difficult to separate fact from fiction and glean some sort of valid nutritional information. 

While I think we can all agree that we can cut some slack to those that are young enough to still believe in the tooth-fairy, as adults most of us know surprisingly little about where our food comes from. The results of one survey revealed that 48% of Americans say they rarely or never seek information about where their food comes from or how it was produced.  

But taking the time to educated yourself about the source of your food is the first step toward sustainability and improved health and fitness. By simply questioning your food sources and making some changes to what is on your plate, we can eventually eliminate harmful farming practices in transition to some more sustainable, we can reduce our carbon footprint, improve our nutrition, support our local farmers, control what we eat and make certain that the food we do eat is produced in a humane manner. And even more importantly, we can look at the big corporations and just say no. The bottom line is that the food we eat not only shapes our lives on a personal level but it also shapes our collective future depending on how it is produced. So take the time to learn where your food comes from because that knowledge does make a difference. 

In closing I just want to say that producing this episode really made me think about narrowly focused our modern lives tend to be and how we are truly disconnected from life in general. Only 9% of Americans surveyed stated that they were fully satisfied with their current level of life experience. But there are numerous reasons for this which I find truly incredible. 

-42% of Americans say they have never visited another country

-15% of younger Americans have never even left the state where they were born. 

-27% of us have never seen a sunrise

-43% of us have never had an outdoor experience such as hiking or camping

-19% of us have never cooked a meal from scratch

-58% of us have never done any sort of DIY project 

-54% of us have never seen a cow in person much less heard a real moo

-And 80% of us say we don’t have the money to do such things and 77% of us say we don’t have time. 

Certainly many of you have heard me discuss in previous episodes that living a simple sustainable life is by far healthier and less expensive. Besides it doesn’t cost anything to see a sunrise, go for a hike,  and it costs a lot less to cook a meal from scratch. But doing these things also tends to bring us a bit closer to nature and reconnect us with many aspects of the natural world. And you never know, it might relieve a little stress, make you happier and you just might get the chance to hear a cow moo.  

Until next week folks, this is your host Patrick signing off. Always remember to live sustainably and be thankful for the 2% of us that still lives on a farm.