From Farm to Table: The Sacrifice of Eating Meat

Reader Contribution by Lyndsay Dawson Mynatt
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I recently saw a sticker posted on a stop sign with the words “eating meat.” I wanted to add, “factory farmed,” to it. That would at least make it more truthful to me. The past few years have been a journey on making the transition to eating farm to table, of attempting to comprehend the ins and outs of our food system. I have reached the conclusion that eating meat isn’t necessarily bad. It is the unethical practices and quantity consumed that should be drastically changed. Often as it goes, theory to application is not instantaneous, but a process. When I reached the point of declarative change, I needed a place to begin that wasn’t cold turkey.

Raising Your Own Meat: Where to Begin

My starting point was purchasing organic meat from the grocery store even though the cost wasn’t affordable. Sometimes less is more, and in this case, the sacrifice for less meat was worth the cost. Shortly after, I discovered a cheaper alternative with Zaycon Foods. Zaycon is a privately owned meat distributing company based out of Spokane, Washington, which is 4 hours from where I live. Their focus is to provide meat without added hormones, additives, or artificial ingredients directly to consumers, fresh from the farm or processor. Zaycon hosts events in different locations throughout the state, highlighting certain products, such as chicken, pork, beef, or fish in 40-lb cases. Customers buy in advance, and then meet a delivery truck at a specific time, date, and location. This seemed to be a sustainable model, and was a good solution for a while. The price was a bargain, the direct delivery and freshness ensured quality, but I started wondering where the meat was actually coming from—more specifically, which local farms were being used. Looking into it, I found that Zaycon uses the best of the larger farms, and takes precaution with ethical practices, but is unable to support smaller or organic farms due to growing demands. Warning—the rabbit hole gets deep on these issues. Be careful what you look for. Although Zaycon had become a better solution, it still didn’t seem to be the best.

A Better Solution

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