I have long been in the curious position of understanding the horrors faced by animals in the meat factories which feed our country, yet not quite understanding the existence of alternatives. (Any documentary is inevitably dire, brooding, and full of fearmongering. What worse way to convince a population to change than through fear?) If I shop at a supermarket, the only difference to me between the regular chicken and the organic chicken is the price and packaging. I may know the organic chicken is better, has been treated better; yet I don’t see it, I don’t feel the weight of this knowledge.
In an effort to resolve this dilemma my old friend Kevin Watt and his wife Shae Lynn have started a local sustainable farm called The Early Bird Ranch in peaceful and beautiful Pescadero, and invited Dariya and I to visit and learn about how our chickens are raised and slaughtered. There are multitudes of such ranches in the Bay that espouse local, sustainable, etical, and other such buzzword policies, and make the end customer pay a heavy premium for the end product. Kevin’s farm stands out by smart land management and taking advantage of symbiosis between different species of livestock. He is able to offer birds of healthier quality at lower prices simply by avoiding the myopic tendencies of farmers. The power of his and Shae’s education is brought to full force in the disciplined management of the farm. Writing this so long after the fact limits my ability to relate the harmony of his techniques and how they reject so well the idea of conquering our environment, so I invite you to read about their methods on their website.
Here I would rather speak about my experience visiting his farm. Simply visiting his farm awakened something primal within me – the experience of meeting my food. Standing amongst the birds I realized that for the many many years I shopped at supermarkets, or even farmer’s markets, I never once saw the true source of my food. I could buy the local and the organic with the knowledge of where and how these food items came to be, but never the feeling, the satisfaction of that knowledge. I never saw anyone pick vegetables and fruits, I never saw anyone milk the cattle or slaughter the birds. What could possibly be more important than knowing and feeling, being fully and truly aware of where your meal is coming from? I have not yet found a satisfactory response to that question.
Visiting a farm affirms food as the primal element that connects us to our environment. Hiking and camping allows me to live in our ancient environment, yet unless I am hunting and gathering my food (which I have not so far) there is still a barrier, a non-physical separation between myself and nature. As apex predators, food is the product of nature which we most directly interact with. With food we can thrive. Without food we die. Without an awareness of where our food comes from, and how it has been taken care of, how different are we from the livestock we feed? I would like to repurpose the word ‘feeding’ to describe humans unaware of the source and care of their food. All of my life I have been feeding!
With food, results matter above all else. I am happy to say that his chickens are by far the most nutritious and the most delicious I have ever tasted. I am convinced that the deliciousness is directly caused by the nutritiousness. No longer does chicken taste like nothing! I do not claim a scientific explanation, only that it makes sense that foods rich in nutrition appeal to our taste buds; since our taste buds can distinguish poison, why not nutrition? What more primal experience could they possibly have been designed for, whether by evolution or by God?
[...] much meat we would waste if we met our animals at a farm instead of cut up in a supermarket. I have written earlier about such a powerful experience, but this is the next level. It is easy to purchase a whole [...]