When we moved from New Mexico to Maine a few years back we brought thousands of pounds of meat with us that we had raised. For the next year we slowly ate the meat imbibed with our previous home's energy. As the next growing season came to a close and we harvested meat from our new home, we slowly weaned off the meat we had brought as we wittled away at our stores. It was such a beautiful experience. I chose to move but still missed my old home dearly. I got to bring a part of her with me and she helped me grieve and transition in my new surroundings until one day I only had nourishment infused with the qualities of my new farm. I too eat mostly from my own land and I too feel the dissonance eating something from afar fills me with. Especially with meat. It feels exponentially wrong to me to eat an animal I don't know. Its such an intimate thing to take in another's flesh and make it your own. Eating is more intimate than sex in some ways and eating faceless meat feels similar to one a night stand at best or prostitution at its worst. To lovingly prepare a meal with the body of a beloved beast I helped usher into the world, then tended to with such devotion and then helped lead to the afterlife is nothing short of holy. Spending hours, or sometimes days, sorting through its flesh, reading its hidden stories with every knife stroke. Smelling the scent of cherished forage on its fat and then carefully tucking it all away in a subzero bed to wait until the time comes to nourish my little one's bellies. That experienece isnt something you can buy. I have never felt closer to whatever God might be since I started homesteading almost a decade ago. Hoemsteading is the closest thing I have found to religion and truly being apart of the natural cycle of things has nourished apart of my DNA I didn't knoe exhisted, let alone needed love and healing.
Thank you for your beautiful comment, Lizzy. How wonderful that you have found your place and understanding through reconnecting to nature and spirit through your efforts and food. I agree, eating is a very intimate act - a communion with our Creator. It's beautiful when done right.
So beautifully written, Lizzy. We also produce most of what we eat on our homestead. You explained so well the feeling of eating meat or produce not raised on our farm - it feels like a trashy one night stand. I've tried to explain this to others, but I don't know that anyone can truly understand unless they are 'in' it the way that we are, living those intimate connections with that which nourishes us. Thank you.
"regeneratively farmed" has now been greenwashed and captured by the corporations. Predictable. I think it's better to just not use any labels to describe your farming practices, because if they become popular and sought after, corporations will capture it for profit. Permaculture will be next ... toss in a comfrey plant near the CAFO and the label will read "raised on a Permaculture farm".
Labels have to exist because of our separation from the food. I agree, it's one after the other, with the good farmers always trying to stay one step ahead by creating ever-more new labels. When I buy something that I am unfamiliar with I always choose certified organic knowing it's not perfect, but it's as good as it gets when we can't communicate or see our farmers.
This piece really lit a fire in my belly. I’ve been sounding the alarm about the encapsulated liver pills to anyone that would listen. I mean for Pete’s sake each cow/steer has ONE Liver. It’s not normal to eat liver pills every day. It’s normal to butcher your cow and get one liver and then divide it up.
I love heart. Guess what? We get about 3 a year depending on how many cattle are butchered for us.
The visual of the hides and your explanation of subsequent, downstream, odor free powders should make every person stand at attention and stop buying that crap.
On a happier note - LOVE LOVE LOVE the art you included today.
Esther, maybe you and I should start a club! I'm glad you're out there speaking about this as well. I recently got sent a little clip of an internet guy talking about how he eats heart everyday and I thought, "That is so bizarre." There's so much arguing of details when if people would just step back and apply common sense, there's really no need to get mired in the muck. So much is obvious, but obvious doesn't seem to cut it there days.
From the beginning man ate what he harvested. It's seems as time goes on our own genius has brought dissonance. Aren't we so smart making nutrients available in a tiny form we swallow. What if part of the harmony of cell nourishment is the communion with food? Not only cooking and chewing but working the land, growing and eating from it. Nourishing soul as well as body..... Thinking on these things as I plant my garden today. I've never been so excited about learning!! The connectedness of it all!!
I used to consume the organ pills and powdered collagen daily, but over the last 2 years have moved away from both. It's been a natural process that started when I skipped supplements for a few weeks during a time of moving/upheaval and realizing that I felt no different (and the smell/taste after taking a break was repulsive). I knew the process had to be questionable at best, but seeing it laid out makes my stomach turn. I have a partial cow from a local farm coming next month (including ALL the bones, fat, organs, tongue, etc) and couldn't be more excited. Someday I hope to raise my own meat animals...one day!
I LOVE the old oil paintings that accompany your essays, by the way. The colors are so rich and the people's faces so dynamic and so much is happening in each one. Love it.
I love the way that you used your senses to guide you there, Molly. It really speaks to how we can all attune ourselves to our body's feedback. I really enjoy these old paintings, too. It's like a window into a time long gone. It makes me feel more human somehow. I'm glad you like them, too.
YES! What you share resonates so deeply within my soul. I am passionate about inspiring others to dive into a ‘radical’ relationship with their food and farmers and community. Encouraging folks to know where their food comes from, join the protest, participate in this revolution – this human birthright that is being stolen from us. I love the timing of this essay, as I just wrote about the importance of this connection. Thanks Tara, for so often speaking the words in my heart!
Thank you, Rosie. It fills me with hope and gratitude to hear from people like you, out there doing the good work and speaking the words that need to be heart. And of course that Jersey in your pictures is the cherry on top! :)
We feel very lucky to know a few great beef farmers, one of whom is raising us a cow this year to split with a brother in law. This is my first time truly having access to more of the bits, beyond heart and liver, and I'm excited.
We're in a place of hoping to find a little chunk of a farm to live on that we can contribute to with work while we pinch pennies to hopefully buy ourselves a few acres in the coming years. We want our babies to know food well, which right now, is just getting to know and buying from farmers that let our toddler check out their spaces. It's a tiny step along the way to something bigger, and I'm always happy to clean barns and haul water with tiny people strapped to my body so that they will get the lessons here.
I love reading your posts, and find them inspiring, as a woman, but especially as a Wife in charge of the kitchen and Mom in charge of tiny lives(and big ones). I often find myself contemplating your words in my tiny moments of brain space. Right now, I'm a week postpartum, nursing a newborn and a 2 year old and have been hard into my deodorized, tasteless collagen, as if I don't trust all of the special soups and stews I put away for myself to nourish me. As if I truly think a factory or industry cares for my body like I do.
Time to pull out thedeer liver and gift myself postpartum pate.
Wondering if you might share your favourite ways to eat pate, as I get stuck incracker and sourdough toast land.
I just love this beautiful comment of yours, Liz. It feel reminiscent to me - a time with young ones, meeting farmers, beginning our journey with our sites set on a little farm of our own one day. Thank you for sharing this and congratulations and much fortitude to you, good woman!
We all fall into that place of using something that then starts to use us somehow. We're such creatures of routine. I'm glad my words were a little prompt for you to return to the superior nutrition that you've already prepared for yourself.
My favourite way to eat paté is one of the following (seeing I don't eat grains): dehydrated, sliced king oyster mushrooms (this can be done in a freeze dryer or just in your oven on the lowest setting until cruncy), dehydrated prosciutto (pop in over at 300 for... I don't know, 15 minutes? Until crispy), green apple with salt (so good), and radishes. I also just really like it straight up.
Hope there's a good idea for you in there somewhere. My little baby gift given that I can't bring you a jar or two of paté, I send you much love and joy.
I needed to read this, to be reminded. I take desiccated liver and powdered collagen daily because I need those nutrients, but while I once had a solid goal or replacement with REAL good sources asap, I have gotten lazy. And I felt the lack of resonance in that so clearly again reading this. We are about to process a cow again, and I am definitely going to do it differently to make sure and take a few steps forward to this goal.
Thank you Tara for reminding us always of the beauty of engaging in the art of every aspect of REAL life as creations of a Loving, Intelligent Creator.
Thank you for your beautiful, generous open heart, CJr. We all get lazy. We all have more important things to deal with and ease just has to come into play sometimes. Me, too. I'm glad you're reevaluating. There's no substitute for that wholeness (in anything).
Listened to the podcast yesterday, and it’s definitely making me question my daily kidney pills. I tried eating ground kidney and couldn’t handle the taste, even mixed with beef. Not sure what to do.
Tara, these were prescribed by an herbalist to help me deal with Mast Cell Activation Syndrome. I can substitute pea shoots when I have them, but that's only early spring and fall. I'd love to ditch them if I could, as they ain't cheap.
Lisa, I assume this is for the DAO inhibitor? Did you know you can sprout your own peas for the same? That's what I did back in the day. I had them all year long.
Tara, did you have them inside on a trellis? Our cat digs up all in the indoor plants - I have to put heavy rocks on top of the soil, or screens over the lips of the pots. Oh, and yes, you are correct that it is for the DAO inhibitor.
Looking forward to doing a deep dive using those resources at the end! I’m curious--where does the organic GoBio gelatin fit into this from your perspective?
My thoughts go to “surely if I’m eating my whole cow along with something like collagen powder (which I don’t do currently) then that would help assimilate all the nutrients from the powder better than if someone were solely taking the powder and not much else by way of beef.” This doesn’t take into account resonance of course.
Gelatin is a different process and not isolated. Like you said, I think it's important to get these nutrients first and foremost from the animals we eat. I make my own gelatin that I will use in soups and stews, but it's in liquid form so I'm limited to how I can use it. Now that I have a freeze dryer, I plan on experimenting with that to see what comes of the powder. That said, the gelatin benefits are also that it's tested organic so much of the issues with processing, and the raising of the animals, means the toxic load is being dramatically reduced.
Thank you for bringing this to the light ❤️. I bought into the organ meat capsule idea during pregnancy. I even bought into the claim that it was all the prenatal I needed. My baby had a sacral dimple which my doctor said indicated a folate deficiency. These organ capsules failed in their claims. I’m beginning to realize more and more the value of buying whole animals. So much more nutrition and way cheaper than any supplements or convenience food
I'm glad you're coming to the place of buying whole animals, Erica. There's so much we don't understand about how nutrition works synergistically and how important all of the accompanying bits matter when we eat. We're such a reductionist society.
Thank you, Tara. I think a lot about the supplements and the real food and how to invite people back into the kitchen and to explore these unfamiliar cuts - especially for those of us not raising our own animals. I always want to stick to the positive benefits and shy from the problems that you share, but I appreciate your willingness to call it out front and center. Your experience and the fact that you invest so much of your time now sharing continues to be a gift. Each of your references to respect and reverence for Mother Nature in this article had me thinking of WAP "life is all its fullness is Mother Nature obeyed." I like the way you say it, too. Thank you for all you do.
Thank you, Janine. It's a bit of a dance to try and be positive and encouraging, but also to be real and fill in the blanks that are oft not told. I think so many people are just trying to do the right thing, but we are so separated from farming practices that labels are as close as many can get to ensuring their food quality. It upsets me when I see people, like a good friend of mine I had a visit with last week, spending so much money on bottles when the 'even better' is available right down the road from the farmer.
You continue to inspire with the work and dedication you show in introducing and encouraging people to eat these beautiful animal foods in all their glory.
So true. I see it too - everywhere. The supps are so easy. Even when we were traveling across the country during covid, we served offal every week, whatever we could get. And it wasn't the high quality that we were used to, but it's still real food. When my kids were little and they were offered applesauce in squeeze tubes after swim practice (and the like in all manner of places) I would always ask - is that a plant, animal or a mineral (ie salt) - if they couldn't answer (what is inside that package?!) then I'd suggest we just skip it. If offered an actual apple, the answer was very easy, and my response. Unfortunately, actual apples or the orange slices I grew up with are increasingly hard to find. Even the schools didn't like them when I brought them for our snack contributions or birthday celebrations bc they don't come with a nutrition label and can't be 'sterile' in the same way as a package. How to make real food compelling enough to compete?! an the ever present battle in modern life haha
The schools were just switching to that inane practice when my youngest was in kindergarten. Somehow the packaged fake foods with "free from peanuts and all common allergens" (also free from nutrition) were making their way into the school system. It's like they're grooming children to think plastic is food. Your kids are so lucky to have you Janine - and food is just a tiny part of that equation.
Love this. Is so important to know where our food comes from, here in Bali I have to go to so many different places to get what I want, chickens and duck come from one farm, our vegetables another one, beef another one.. my kids still small 7,5 and 3 and it’s a lot to have to source everything from different places and from far away, totally worth it I know, but sometimes, when I am tired and didn’t organized the food in our house, I wish I could just go to the supermarket and get good quality food🤣 Anyway, there is a local brand that sells organs capsules and collagen capsules, and it’s funny because I asked if they tested their soil.. but of course there is so much more to consider, thank you for this post Tara🙏🏽
Here their answer: “Hi Mariana, great question. In 2022 we are working on becoming Regenerative Organic and Certified Humane. We will have much more data to share once the process starts. For now we source all our cows in the highlands in North Bali away from densely populated areas. We also third party test our products for heavy metals, pathogens and glyphosate” thought might be interesting to share, by te way this was in 2021😅
Tara as always I appreciate your insight, perspective and passion.
Perhaps I’m in the minority on this thread, while I’ve always considered myself health conscious it feels recent for me in terms of my awareness of coming around to both noticing the food system in general and the type of lifestyle you and many here have been cultivating for long periods of time - which currently is not my reality or one that I feel very called to walk fully down. It feels like many generations of conditioning unwinding constantly.
My current season and goal is to be as connected to the earth as I can be based on where I am and to make the best possible choices eating wise for my family that I am able to.
This essay certainly broadens my perspective and I can at times feel overwhelmed on how to keep moving forward from things I’ve done or known for a long time but that have also made a positive impact on my health and vitality.
Then balanced with the demands of raising and feeding a family in the current location and environment my family and I live in. Does this make sense? I’m neither condemning or condoning, I would say I’m falling more under contemplating
I think contemplating is where everyone should be always. I just wanted to present facts here to fill in holes in industry marketing. How people use that is entirely up to them and their specific circumstances - as with everything. If I look at how far I still have to go, I can even feel overwhelmed and many think I've probably already "arrived" (whatever the heck that means). Take what you need and use your good judgment to let go of what doesn't fit with you for now. I trust in fellow human more than I do in any corporation or marketing board. I just think we all need honest information.
When we moved from New Mexico to Maine a few years back we brought thousands of pounds of meat with us that we had raised. For the next year we slowly ate the meat imbibed with our previous home's energy. As the next growing season came to a close and we harvested meat from our new home, we slowly weaned off the meat we had brought as we wittled away at our stores. It was such a beautiful experience. I chose to move but still missed my old home dearly. I got to bring a part of her with me and she helped me grieve and transition in my new surroundings until one day I only had nourishment infused with the qualities of my new farm. I too eat mostly from my own land and I too feel the dissonance eating something from afar fills me with. Especially with meat. It feels exponentially wrong to me to eat an animal I don't know. Its such an intimate thing to take in another's flesh and make it your own. Eating is more intimate than sex in some ways and eating faceless meat feels similar to one a night stand at best or prostitution at its worst. To lovingly prepare a meal with the body of a beloved beast I helped usher into the world, then tended to with such devotion and then helped lead to the afterlife is nothing short of holy. Spending hours, or sometimes days, sorting through its flesh, reading its hidden stories with every knife stroke. Smelling the scent of cherished forage on its fat and then carefully tucking it all away in a subzero bed to wait until the time comes to nourish my little one's bellies. That experienece isnt something you can buy. I have never felt closer to whatever God might be since I started homesteading almost a decade ago. Hoemsteading is the closest thing I have found to religion and truly being apart of the natural cycle of things has nourished apart of my DNA I didn't knoe exhisted, let alone needed love and healing.
Thank you for your beautiful comment, Lizzy. How wonderful that you have found your place and understanding through reconnecting to nature and spirit through your efforts and food. I agree, eating is a very intimate act - a communion with our Creator. It's beautiful when done right.
So beautifully written, Lizzy. We also produce most of what we eat on our homestead. You explained so well the feeling of eating meat or produce not raised on our farm - it feels like a trashy one night stand. I've tried to explain this to others, but I don't know that anyone can truly understand unless they are 'in' it the way that we are, living those intimate connections with that which nourishes us. Thank you.
"regeneratively farmed" has now been greenwashed and captured by the corporations. Predictable. I think it's better to just not use any labels to describe your farming practices, because if they become popular and sought after, corporations will capture it for profit. Permaculture will be next ... toss in a comfrey plant near the CAFO and the label will read "raised on a Permaculture farm".
Labels have to exist because of our separation from the food. I agree, it's one after the other, with the good farmers always trying to stay one step ahead by creating ever-more new labels. When I buy something that I am unfamiliar with I always choose certified organic knowing it's not perfect, but it's as good as it gets when we can't communicate or see our farmers.
This piece really lit a fire in my belly. I’ve been sounding the alarm about the encapsulated liver pills to anyone that would listen. I mean for Pete’s sake each cow/steer has ONE Liver. It’s not normal to eat liver pills every day. It’s normal to butcher your cow and get one liver and then divide it up.
I love heart. Guess what? We get about 3 a year depending on how many cattle are butchered for us.
The visual of the hides and your explanation of subsequent, downstream, odor free powders should make every person stand at attention and stop buying that crap.
On a happier note - LOVE LOVE LOVE the art you included today.
Hope everyone is having a nice weekend!
Esther, maybe you and I should start a club! I'm glad you're out there speaking about this as well. I recently got sent a little clip of an internet guy talking about how he eats heart everyday and I thought, "That is so bizarre." There's so much arguing of details when if people would just step back and apply common sense, there's really no need to get mired in the muck. So much is obvious, but obvious doesn't seem to cut it there days.
Glad you liked the art. I really liked it, too.
♥️♥️♥️
From the beginning man ate what he harvested. It's seems as time goes on our own genius has brought dissonance. Aren't we so smart making nutrients available in a tiny form we swallow. What if part of the harmony of cell nourishment is the communion with food? Not only cooking and chewing but working the land, growing and eating from it. Nourishing soul as well as body..... Thinking on these things as I plant my garden today. I've never been so excited about learning!! The connectedness of it all!!
Yes, the connectedness is our salvation while on this earth. It's beautiful.
I used to consume the organ pills and powdered collagen daily, but over the last 2 years have moved away from both. It's been a natural process that started when I skipped supplements for a few weeks during a time of moving/upheaval and realizing that I felt no different (and the smell/taste after taking a break was repulsive). I knew the process had to be questionable at best, but seeing it laid out makes my stomach turn. I have a partial cow from a local farm coming next month (including ALL the bones, fat, organs, tongue, etc) and couldn't be more excited. Someday I hope to raise my own meat animals...one day!
I LOVE the old oil paintings that accompany your essays, by the way. The colors are so rich and the people's faces so dynamic and so much is happening in each one. Love it.
I love the way that you used your senses to guide you there, Molly. It really speaks to how we can all attune ourselves to our body's feedback. I really enjoy these old paintings, too. It's like a window into a time long gone. It makes me feel more human somehow. I'm glad you like them, too.
YES! What you share resonates so deeply within my soul. I am passionate about inspiring others to dive into a ‘radical’ relationship with their food and farmers and community. Encouraging folks to know where their food comes from, join the protest, participate in this revolution – this human birthright that is being stolen from us. I love the timing of this essay, as I just wrote about the importance of this connection. Thanks Tara, for so often speaking the words in my heart!
Thank you, Rosie. It fills me with hope and gratitude to hear from people like you, out there doing the good work and speaking the words that need to be heart. And of course that Jersey in your pictures is the cherry on top! :)
This is brilliant, per usual, and much appreciated! Thank you 🧡
Thank you so much, Alyssa.
We feel very lucky to know a few great beef farmers, one of whom is raising us a cow this year to split with a brother in law. This is my first time truly having access to more of the bits, beyond heart and liver, and I'm excited.
We're in a place of hoping to find a little chunk of a farm to live on that we can contribute to with work while we pinch pennies to hopefully buy ourselves a few acres in the coming years. We want our babies to know food well, which right now, is just getting to know and buying from farmers that let our toddler check out their spaces. It's a tiny step along the way to something bigger, and I'm always happy to clean barns and haul water with tiny people strapped to my body so that they will get the lessons here.
I love reading your posts, and find them inspiring, as a woman, but especially as a Wife in charge of the kitchen and Mom in charge of tiny lives(and big ones). I often find myself contemplating your words in my tiny moments of brain space. Right now, I'm a week postpartum, nursing a newborn and a 2 year old and have been hard into my deodorized, tasteless collagen, as if I don't trust all of the special soups and stews I put away for myself to nourish me. As if I truly think a factory or industry cares for my body like I do.
Time to pull out thedeer liver and gift myself postpartum pate.
Wondering if you might share your favourite ways to eat pate, as I get stuck incracker and sourdough toast land.
I just love this beautiful comment of yours, Liz. It feel reminiscent to me - a time with young ones, meeting farmers, beginning our journey with our sites set on a little farm of our own one day. Thank you for sharing this and congratulations and much fortitude to you, good woman!
We all fall into that place of using something that then starts to use us somehow. We're such creatures of routine. I'm glad my words were a little prompt for you to return to the superior nutrition that you've already prepared for yourself.
My favourite way to eat paté is one of the following (seeing I don't eat grains): dehydrated, sliced king oyster mushrooms (this can be done in a freeze dryer or just in your oven on the lowest setting until cruncy), dehydrated prosciutto (pop in over at 300 for... I don't know, 15 minutes? Until crispy), green apple with salt (so good), and radishes. I also just really like it straight up.
Hope there's a good idea for you in there somewhere. My little baby gift given that I can't bring you a jar or two of paté, I send you much love and joy.
I needed to read this, to be reminded. I take desiccated liver and powdered collagen daily because I need those nutrients, but while I once had a solid goal or replacement with REAL good sources asap, I have gotten lazy. And I felt the lack of resonance in that so clearly again reading this. We are about to process a cow again, and I am definitely going to do it differently to make sure and take a few steps forward to this goal.
Thank you Tara for reminding us always of the beauty of engaging in the art of every aspect of REAL life as creations of a Loving, Intelligent Creator.
Thank you for your beautiful, generous open heart, CJr. We all get lazy. We all have more important things to deal with and ease just has to come into play sometimes. Me, too. I'm glad you're reevaluating. There's no substitute for that wholeness (in anything).
Mind blown. Thank you 🙏🏻
You're very welcome, Amanda.
Listened to the podcast yesterday, and it’s definitely making me question my daily kidney pills. I tried eating ground kidney and couldn’t handle the taste, even mixed with beef. Not sure what to do.
Lisa, why do you need to take daily kidney pills? If it's none of my business tell me to buzz off. :)
Tara, these were prescribed by an herbalist to help me deal with Mast Cell Activation Syndrome. I can substitute pea shoots when I have them, but that's only early spring and fall. I'd love to ditch them if I could, as they ain't cheap.
Lisa, I assume this is for the DAO inhibitor? Did you know you can sprout your own peas for the same? That's what I did back in the day. I had them all year long.
Tara, did you have them inside on a trellis? Our cat digs up all in the indoor plants - I have to put heavy rocks on top of the soil, or screens over the lips of the pots. Oh, and yes, you are correct that it is for the DAO inhibitor.
No I just grew them in sprout trays, just to sprout. They need to be grown in the dark to have the proper amounts of DAO.
Thank you - I'll look into this!
Looking forward to doing a deep dive using those resources at the end! I’m curious--where does the organic GoBio gelatin fit into this from your perspective?
My thoughts go to “surely if I’m eating my whole cow along with something like collagen powder (which I don’t do currently) then that would help assimilate all the nutrients from the powder better than if someone were solely taking the powder and not much else by way of beef.” This doesn’t take into account resonance of course.
I think your rationale is sound.
Gelatin is a different process and not isolated. Like you said, I think it's important to get these nutrients first and foremost from the animals we eat. I make my own gelatin that I will use in soups and stews, but it's in liquid form so I'm limited to how I can use it. Now that I have a freeze dryer, I plan on experimenting with that to see what comes of the powder. That said, the gelatin benefits are also that it's tested organic so much of the issues with processing, and the raising of the animals, means the toxic load is being dramatically reduced.
Thank you for bringing this to the light ❤️. I bought into the organ meat capsule idea during pregnancy. I even bought into the claim that it was all the prenatal I needed. My baby had a sacral dimple which my doctor said indicated a folate deficiency. These organ capsules failed in their claims. I’m beginning to realize more and more the value of buying whole animals. So much more nutrition and way cheaper than any supplements or convenience food
I'm glad you're coming to the place of buying whole animals, Erica. There's so much we don't understand about how nutrition works synergistically and how important all of the accompanying bits matter when we eat. We're such a reductionist society.
Thank you, Tara. I think a lot about the supplements and the real food and how to invite people back into the kitchen and to explore these unfamiliar cuts - especially for those of us not raising our own animals. I always want to stick to the positive benefits and shy from the problems that you share, but I appreciate your willingness to call it out front and center. Your experience and the fact that you invest so much of your time now sharing continues to be a gift. Each of your references to respect and reverence for Mother Nature in this article had me thinking of WAP "life is all its fullness is Mother Nature obeyed." I like the way you say it, too. Thank you for all you do.
Thank you, Janine. It's a bit of a dance to try and be positive and encouraging, but also to be real and fill in the blanks that are oft not told. I think so many people are just trying to do the right thing, but we are so separated from farming practices that labels are as close as many can get to ensuring their food quality. It upsets me when I see people, like a good friend of mine I had a visit with last week, spending so much money on bottles when the 'even better' is available right down the road from the farmer.
You continue to inspire with the work and dedication you show in introducing and encouraging people to eat these beautiful animal foods in all their glory.
So true. I see it too - everywhere. The supps are so easy. Even when we were traveling across the country during covid, we served offal every week, whatever we could get. And it wasn't the high quality that we were used to, but it's still real food. When my kids were little and they were offered applesauce in squeeze tubes after swim practice (and the like in all manner of places) I would always ask - is that a plant, animal or a mineral (ie salt) - if they couldn't answer (what is inside that package?!) then I'd suggest we just skip it. If offered an actual apple, the answer was very easy, and my response. Unfortunately, actual apples or the orange slices I grew up with are increasingly hard to find. Even the schools didn't like them when I brought them for our snack contributions or birthday celebrations bc they don't come with a nutrition label and can't be 'sterile' in the same way as a package. How to make real food compelling enough to compete?! an the ever present battle in modern life haha
The schools were just switching to that inane practice when my youngest was in kindergarten. Somehow the packaged fake foods with "free from peanuts and all common allergens" (also free from nutrition) were making their way into the school system. It's like they're grooming children to think plastic is food. Your kids are so lucky to have you Janine - and food is just a tiny part of that equation.
Love this. Is so important to know where our food comes from, here in Bali I have to go to so many different places to get what I want, chickens and duck come from one farm, our vegetables another one, beef another one.. my kids still small 7,5 and 3 and it’s a lot to have to source everything from different places and from far away, totally worth it I know, but sometimes, when I am tired and didn’t organized the food in our house, I wish I could just go to the supermarket and get good quality food🤣 Anyway, there is a local brand that sells organs capsules and collagen capsules, and it’s funny because I asked if they tested their soil.. but of course there is so much more to consider, thank you for this post Tara🙏🏽
Here their answer: “Hi Mariana, great question. In 2022 we are working on becoming Regenerative Organic and Certified Humane. We will have much more data to share once the process starts. For now we source all our cows in the highlands in North Bali away from densely populated areas. We also third party test our products for heavy metals, pathogens and glyphosate” thought might be interesting to share, by te way this was in 2021😅
Tara as always I appreciate your insight, perspective and passion.
Perhaps I’m in the minority on this thread, while I’ve always considered myself health conscious it feels recent for me in terms of my awareness of coming around to both noticing the food system in general and the type of lifestyle you and many here have been cultivating for long periods of time - which currently is not my reality or one that I feel very called to walk fully down. It feels like many generations of conditioning unwinding constantly.
My current season and goal is to be as connected to the earth as I can be based on where I am and to make the best possible choices eating wise for my family that I am able to.
This essay certainly broadens my perspective and I can at times feel overwhelmed on how to keep moving forward from things I’ve done or known for a long time but that have also made a positive impact on my health and vitality.
Then balanced with the demands of raising and feeding a family in the current location and environment my family and I live in. Does this make sense? I’m neither condemning or condoning, I would say I’m falling more under contemplating
I think contemplating is where everyone should be always. I just wanted to present facts here to fill in holes in industry marketing. How people use that is entirely up to them and their specific circumstances - as with everything. If I look at how far I still have to go, I can even feel overwhelmed and many think I've probably already "arrived" (whatever the heck that means). Take what you need and use your good judgment to let go of what doesn't fit with you for now. I trust in fellow human more than I do in any corporation or marketing board. I just think we all need honest information.