There’s no shortage of issues surrounding the labeling of chicken. As more consumers become aware of the issues surrounding the industrial production of chicken, we’ve seen terminology and meaning drop left and right. Cage-free, free-range, free-roaming, free-running, naturally raised; each term comes and then gets swallowed whole by an industry that eagerly promotes the age old imagery of chickens wandering freely on farms in the place of what they really offer: cage-free barns with minimal access to over-run “pasture.”
The wording gets tricky and the reason is simple: chicken is a commodity. The market dictates a cheap price, huge breasts, and wording that looks good enough to pass off as legitimate.
And the competition is fierce. Conventional CAFO operations are massive. They are federally subsidized and can produce a butcher weight chicken in 5 weeks by just cramming them full of junk. And when that massive bird inevitably no longer tastes like chicken, they inject them with “chicken flavor”.
The jump to “free range” chickens cost those corporations money, but they can cut every corner and still charge more when the customer thinks the chicken they bought was humanely raised. But if you’re buying chicken in the $1 per lb range, humanely raised is out of the question.
Despite what the market dictates, it’s not cheap to raise chickens, and it’s definitely not cheap if you want to raise them as chickens instead of products.
It’s unfortunately the case that what a chicken wants needs clarification, but that’s where we’re at. Chickens are like people, in confinement they will flock and act mindlessly and often viciously. In CAFO’s they’re debeaked because they’ll attack each other. This has less to do with the nature of a chicken, but with the circumstance of confinement. They need space and they need to move. They’re natural foragers and they’re inclined to spend their mornings wandering around eating grass and the insects that crawl throughout it.
Contrary to what the chicken industry loudly proclaims, chickens are also not vegetarians. It’s become increasingly common to see chickens and eggs marketed as being given “vegetarian feed.” That’s good in the sense that CAFO operations will typically dump agricultural byproducts into their chicken’s diets as a cheap feed. That often includes other ground up, confined chicken remains.
Obviously that’s not healthy. But the flip side isn’t ideal either: to drop animal proteins from their diets and pour soy into their feed instead. What chickens need non-coincidentally is what chickens want: bugs!
The chickens raised by LFFC farmers get just that: they typically follow bio-dynamic principles and are free to roam on farms following organic, grazing dairy herds. The cows eat the grass and leave behind the perfect residue for an insect feast. The chickens follow, spending their time chasing the insects, getting their proper nutrients, and contributing to the cycle of turning dung into a naturally nitrogen rich fertilizer: chicken crap.
The result is a chicken that takes longer to grow, is not reliant upon hormones and antibiotics to survive an overcrowded, unnatural barn, can forage for as much of it’s diet as possible, and can act like a chicken.
In the end, you get the inevitably less-than-surprising result: they taste like the real chicken that the industry has to spend so much money trying to emulate.
But there’s more to it. Beyond the way that the chicken is raised, you have the chicken itself. The standard chicken that winds up battered and fried in buckets or on your plate at fine restaurants is actually the same bird: the Cornish Cross. This white feathered bird looks like it was meant to: over-stuffed. They’re fast growing, breast heavy feed converters.
It’s a scientific wonder that a bird can reach a butcher weight in 5 weeks, but that doesn’t mean it’s healthy. But the Cornish Cross wasn’t bred for health, it was bred to be churned out in a factory-like setting, quickly, efficiently and cheaply. All of which weren’t done with the Cornish Cross’s interests in mind.
The problem is that, as consumers, that plump breast is what we know. And that’s hard to compete with. The problem is that, if those chickens weren’t butchered at that early age, the breast is unsupportable and it will ultimately be the demise of the bird. If left on their own, the rapidly expanding double breast will become to heavy for the less-than-rugged legs of a bird that was bred without foraging in mind and they will simply sit and eat.
And that’s only in the time it takes for a heritage breed chicken to just barely get to a butcher weight.
That’s not to say that a Cornish Cross can’t be raised well. There are plenty of farmers out there (including LFFC members) that raise Cornish Cross successfully on pasture. They aren’t as hardy of a bird, but they can still get around and forage, it just becomes harder as they get larger. Our farmers never let them get so large that they can no longer walk or move, but it’s in the breed that their massive size becomes more laborious.
That is why we promote heritage breed chickens, because they’re healthier, tastier, hardier chickens.
The problem is that they have the disadvantage of having to compete with their confined, industrialized cousins. It’s not a matter of taste, but of economics: that large, cheap breast dominates our idea of what a chicken is. An irony that is often sadly unnoticed.
When the local foodies, the concerned parents, the activists, and interested eaters start asking questions, the industry responds. They don’t mean it and they’ll certainly cut corners, but it means that more questions need to be asked.
It’s not just a matter of how the chickens are raised, but what kind of chicken we want to eat. Do you want a large breast of a chicken that tastes like chicken because it was cheaply produced commodity with additives? Do you want the Cornish Cross raised on pasture? Or do you want a heritage breed chicken raised on pasture?
LFFC currently offers the latter two, but we have a lot of interest in being open and honest about what we’re doing. In terms of health and hardiness, you can’t beat the heritage birds. But until everyone is ready, our farmers will continue doing our best to let Cornish Cross chickens live their lives as chickens and let the heritage breeds show them the way.
“I couldn’t keep my hands out of the fields,” David declared. Four years ago, David was working at a nearby organic fertilizer company and was compelled to keep a small garden, focusing on garlic cultivation. Now, David is operating Eagle View Organics and needs not to make an excuse to be in the fields. The garlic he raises is enough proof that his itch for gardening was worthwhile.
Eagle View Organics is located in Leola, just a mile or so from the LFFC warehouse and office location. It’s also near member farmers Aaron and Sylvan who operate Riverview Organics and Shady Brook Organics, respectively. Together, they work land that is along the banks of the Conestoga River. This is a benefit to all three because they can be handy when there’s much work to do.
Among the vegetables being harvested on the four acres of fields are Kale, Yellow Swiss Chard, Red Leaf Lettuce, and Bok Choy. In addition, he just planted Green Peppers and Okra, and is set to plant tomatoes in the near future. There are also vibrant, red strawberries coming on – tasting sweet and juicy – and raspberries that are just blossoming. Each crop has roughly a quarter-acre to grow on. However, more space and consideration is given to the garlic.
There are about 13 kinds of garlic being grown at Eagle View. They range from German Extra-Hardy to Chestnut Red and Purple Glazer to Persian Star. As David mentioned, “garlic has types, and each type has many varieties.” Overall, garlic is split between two types: hard necked and soft necked. He is growing mostly hard-necked types, which produce a single scape from the top. The scape is a thin, curly shoot that will be harvested separately and, when prepared, has a mild taste.
Now that David has some years of farming under his belt, he has begun to take notice of his personal preferences. In addition to the garlic, he likes to grow plants that produce fruit – things like strawberries, peppers, and tomatoes. He also has taken to raising a specialty breed of chicken – the Americauna. These birds are slightly smaller than the Red Sex-Link kind being raised at other member-farms and they lay eggs that vary in color – from white to tan to brown.
Even though David is only entering his second year with the Co-op, he is in good company with Aaron and Sylvan nearby. And, by the looks of it, his passion for agriculture will keep him plenty motivated.
From The Com Post, News from Lancaster Farm Fresh Cooperative
You probably know that Sandy Spring CSA partners with the farmers of Lancaster Farm Fresh Cooperative (LFFC). We help them find CSA sites in Maryland and Northern Virginia. In doing this work for ten years, we have worked with many different farms and we believe LFFC’s Certified Organic produce is the best in the region. And their group is the most reliable, responsible and customer-oriented of all the farms we’ve experienced.
In this one minute video Casey Spacht, LFFC’s general manager and a farmer himself, talks about Lancaster Farm Fresh Cooperative and then goes on to promote the Philly Farm and Food Fest. We hope you can make it to one of the Farm picnics this year and meet Casey in person.
Check out The Plant, Chicago’s first entirely self-sustaining “vertical farm.”
The Plant occupies a former meatpacking plant and slaughterhouse in the Union Stock Yards, transforming a huge brick building that once specialized in bringing red meat to the masses into a green space all about urban farming without waste. The interior that looks like something straight out of a scientific-environmental fantasy.
Tenants include aquaponic farms (think vegetables on water beds flourishing under colored UV lights), a tilapia fish farm, beer and Kombucha tea breweries, a mushroom garden, and a host of independent bakers and caterers that will work together in a communal kitchen space. Future plans include living walls and rooftop gardens.
But the most ambitious part of the building is its focus on producing “net-zero waste” in its 93,500-square-foot space. Spent grains from the beer brewery will feed the tilapia. The waste produced by the fish will feed the mushroom garden or be converted nitrates to feed the hydroponic plants. Those plants will clean the water through natural processes and be cycled back into the fish tanks. Taken together, the system will make the building completely self-sustainable. With the help of a few machines, including an anaerobic digester (similar to a waste-eating mechanical “stomach” that produces biogas) and a combined heat and power system, the building hopes to go off the grid within the next four years.
“Industrial ecology—the concept of using other people’s waste as input—is fascinating. In nature, there’s no waste, but there is so much waste in human consumption and development,” says Melanie Hoekstra, The Plant’s director of operations. “This is an obvious problem that we can resolve with a building that can do so many things. It’s not a perfect system, but it’s really close.” Read the entire article at The Good.
Now pick up cheese at the same time and place you already pick up veggies, fruit, eggs, etc. New for 2012, in our cheese share we offer 3 varieties of locally made artisan cheeses. Once per month you’ll receive an assortment of cheeses all crafted expertly by sustainable family farmers. Each share will contain 1.5 – 2 lbs. of cheese and may contain sheep, goat or cow milk cheeses. $159 for 6 deliveries.
When fuel prices rise, CSA becomes even more attractive, because with CSA more of your food dollar goes to growing food, not transporting it. The CSA model is to pay the farmer in advance, so sign up now and regardless of how high gas prices go, you will not be affected through the end of October.
Some of our sites are nearing capacity. So if you intend to do this, now is the time. April 15 is the need-to-know deadline for the farmers.
Breaking news … we now offer egg shares. You can receive a dozen organic, pastured brown eggs each week with your veggie share. $106 for 25 weeks.
For those of you pursuing a high quality protein and vegetable diet, LFFC’s (our partner farmers) practices ensure the highest caliber of nutrition as well as responsibility towards the animals and the earth.
We will find you a partner if a full share is too much food for you.
Any questions? Contact Erin at erin@sandyspringcsa.com
We just added a new offering: egg shares. In addition to freshly harvested, Certified-Organic veggies, you can also get a dozen Certified-Organic brown eggs every week for 25 weeks. The cost is $106. for the season, which comes to $4.24/dozen.
Join us at Green Living Expo. Sandy Spring CSA will have a booth and we’ll be giving a demonstration on CSA, specifically, ways to cook CSA veggies.
The third annual Green Living Expo features green suppliers, products from local and national businesses, exhibits and seminars from government agencies and nonprofits, and more! Help us educate residents about practical ways they can green their lifestyles, focusing on energy conservation, solid waste reduction, eco-friendly transportation, green home remodeling, sustainable landscaping, and healthy homes.
The Expo will also include seminars, a raffle, and activities for children. It will provide an important venue to showcase new technology and products available that can help soften our carbon footprints in Arlington.
10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Washington Lee High School
1301 N. Stafford Street, Arlington, VA
Howard County Conservancy, a host site for our CSA in Woodstock, Maryland, invites you to attend Healthy Food in Our Schools with Anthony Geraci on Wed, March 15 at 7pm. Tony Geraci is a national leader working with Michelle Obama to support healthy food choices for kids in their school lunches.
Formerly the Director of Food and Nutrition for the Baltimore City School system, he now heads up the same for Memphis City Schools. Tony is at the heart of the Farm-to-School movement, which is gaining momentum. For more info, please contact denise.bowman@hcconservancy.org
