Freeing Our Meat

From Unplanned Cooking

Today we walked around the Mill City Farmers’ Market shopping for fresh meat. Often meat bought in a grocery store comes from concentrated-animal feeding operations (CAFO). Time Magazine reports, “Pound for pound, a pig produces approximately four times the amount of waste a human does, and what factory farms do with that mess gets comparatively little oversight.” And thus their waste flows into streams and rivers.

What worries me is 70% of antimicrobial drugs used in America are given not to people but animals so they remain healthy while packed close together under these conditions, some unable to turn in their pens. And this overuse has caused drugs like penicillin and tetracycline to become much less effective for treating people. What will happen to the new generation of antibiotics, and the people they’re designed to protect?

We bought some lamb chops from Braucher’s Sunshine Harvest Farm. They feed their lambs a natural diet and use no antibiotics or hormones. Their lamb chops were expensive, but I think all meat comes at a price. We pay for it somehow, either with our health or that of our animals, or through our environment by eroding our farmland.

I’ve never cooked lamb chops before, but tomorrow night Catharine is watching our children (our Sunday night swap) while Matt and I uncork a bottle of wine and prepare a romantic meal.

Anybody have a good lamb chop recipe?

And for dessert, we picked up some of Edna’s Caramels.

They’re sweet and creamy, and I need to stop eating them now.

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