angelique chao

True Confessions: Forbidden Fair-Food Fetishes

Have you noticed a theme at Simple, Good and Tasty (SGT) this week? Nope, it’s not about the salmonella outbreak in factory-raised eggs; Michael Pollan, Bill Marler and John Robbins are doing a good job covering that subject for us. And, no, it’s not about the growing controversy about whether or not to sell flavored milk in school cafeterias; thank you, Renegade Lunch Lady Ann Cooper, for taking care of that one.

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Thousand Hills Cattle Co. Provides Realistic Tour of Livestock Farming

Opportunities to escape the concrete jungle and get a taste of small-farm life abound in the Minnesota summertime. Whether you’d like to do a basic farm tour, enjoy dinner served up right on the pastures where the food was raised, or even help out with farm chores for a day as part of a “crop mob,” you can find an option that gets your city-slicker self out in the fields for at least a few hours.

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Living with Livestock, Part Three: Sheep and Goats

I thought I would begin my third of a series of four livestock workshops at the University of Minnesota petting cute, cuddly lambs and kids (as in baby goats), but instead we started out sifting through a box of what looked like medieval torture instruments. The all-in-one castrator and tail docker, a clever little gizmo, was designed to cut off the relevant body part and simultaneously crimp the ends of the wound shut to prevent excessive bleeding. The hand shears, for clipping sheep destined for competitive shows, were more or less giant, extremely sharp scissors. My personal favorite was the hot-iron tail docker, most notable perhaps for its very low-tech-ness.

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Living with Livestock, Part Two: The Maternal Instincts of Chickens and Pigs

Ever heard of a guard goose? If you’re one of those aspiring farmers who wants to keep a few chickens in the backyard, you might want to investigate. As I learned at my second of a series of four livestock workshops at the University of Minnesota’s St. Paul campus, geese make great chicken protectors. They’ll fend off overly inquisitive opossums and raccoons and even attack coyotes that get too close to the coop! So if you can persuade your neighbors to overlook the inevitable honking, a goose might be a good investment. Plus, geese are apparently gaining popularity as Christmas dinner main courses.

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Minnesota's Pastureland Butter Is on the Verge of a Comeback

Fans of the deep-yellow, grass-fed butter from Pastureland dairy co-op have had a tough spring. At several of the Twin Cities dairy cases where it’s usually found – from Seward Co-op to Whole Foods – a big gaping hole has replaced its one-pound packages for the past month. Who knows how many plans for fettuccine alfredo and pound cake and rent-a-movie-night popcorn have had to be shelved for lack of their star ingredient.

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Why Animal Lovers Should Eat Meat

Alright, I’ll admit that the title of this article is a shameless attempt to capture your attention. There really isn’t a reason, as far as I can tell, why animal lovers should eat meat – that is, no reason why eating meat is ethically superior or preferable to abstaining and going vegetarian.

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Organic Farmers at MOSES Conference Plant Seeds for a Sustainable Future

A couple of weeks ago, I spent a day at the largest annual organic farming conference in the US, held just two hours away from the Twin Cities, in LaCrosse, Wisconsin. The Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Service (MOSES) conference provided a glimpse into the zeitgeist of today’s organic movement. Although organic food is fully integrated into the marketplace and can be found everywhere from Cub Foods to The Wedge, the small farmers who make up the backbone of the movement don’t lack for revolutionary fervor. They’re still driven by a passion to change the world.

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Organic Milk Actually Becomes Organic

Lots of buzz at last week’s Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Service (MOSES) conference surrounded a rather astonishing development in the organic world: the U.S. Department of Agriculture had finally done something, well, good.

After five years of debate, on February 17, the USDA had amended the standards for organic milk to reflect what most consumers thought “organic” meant in the first place. So now (or at least by June 2011, when the amended standards take effect for all suppliers) when people buy milk labeled “organic,” they’ll be getting what they paid for.

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Grass-Fed: Something to Chew On

Conscientious omnivores of the Michael Pollan variety champion grass-fed beef. It is claimed to be better for the cattle themselves than grain-finishing, since they eat what their rumens are evolved to digest (grass and legumes) instead of what fattens them quickest. Plus, they get to graze open pasture instead of being confined to a feedlot for the final four to six months of their lives. Grass-fed enthusiasts also claim it’s better for people because grass-fed meat is leaner and has a higher proportion of omega-3 fats than grain-finished meat. Some even argue that it’s better for the environment, since you don’t have huge piles of feedlot manure to manage; the cattle deposit their manure on grass, as they naturally would, and it ultimately nourishes the soil.

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