Friday, January 21, 2011

Knowing Where Your Food Comes From

Vegetarians... Look away, this post is about a lot of pork meat! On the family farm, they raise pigs for family consumption. The main reason they raise pigs is because they were concerned with where their food comes from. When they raise their own pork, they can ensure the animals are raised ethically and organically. The pigs have a good life, they have an indoor and outdoor pen where they can roam as they please, and they eat organic feed and organic farm raised vegetables such as pumpkin, squash, corn, fruit and greens.  This makes a large difference in the taste of the meat.  The meat has lots of nutrients because of what the pigs eat, and it has less fat content.    The fat that the pig does have, the lard, is also used to cook with since it's full of nutrients.  My husband and I recently saw the movie Food Inc. and it really was an eye opener.  We've been thinking a lot about where our food comes from, how it's raised, and how safe it is to eat.  It's the main reason why we've started our vegetable garden and is the reason we bought a pig to be raised on the family farm.  My husband teasingly named him "Yummy" and it was!  Yummy was brought to the butcher in December, and we split the pork meat with the farm.  My mother-in-law cooked a smoked ham for our first dinner.  It was cooked in the woodstove.  Oh, my, the taste was YUMMY.
As we were eating dinner, my husband exclaimed, "everything on this plate was grown or raised on the farm!"  On the plate next to the smoked ham were sides of dilly beans, pickled beets, and roasted root vegetables of potatoes, sweet potatoes, and turnips.  The hubs and I thought this was so fantastic, to have everything on our plate come from the farm.  My in-laws were amused by our excitement because this is an everyday occurrence for them.  Most of their meals come from the farm!
We brought back two large boxes of pork meat.  The farmer (hub's dad) said Yummy was about 275 pounds when he was brought to the butcher.  "A good size" he said, although "250 pounds" is preferred, because that is the perfect meat to fat ratio for a pig.  Can you believe these two boxes only contain half of the pig?  So much meat, totally amazing!  One box contained smoke ham, ham hocks, ribs and pork chops.
The other box was filled with smoked bacon and italian and hot sausage.  Totally drooling!
We bought this freezer chest on sale at Lowe's to store all the meat.  This was a good investment for us, since we plan to store veggies and fruit that we grow in the garden in here too!
The freezer chest has these nice hanging baskets in it so it's easy to organize.  The two sausages and bacon got their own basket!
I'm already dreaming about what dishes I can make with these beauties!
Lots of thick cut smoked bacon!  Just heaven!
Bottom of the freezer is holding all the smoked hams, pork chops and ribs!  I'm not sure how long this meat will last us, but I am so looking forward to cooking with it!  We figured out the cost for the pork meat was about $3.00 per pound.  The price was factored by the cost of the pig, the cost of the feed and veggies, and the cost of the butchering.  $3.00 / per pound for us is a good price, because we've seen organic pork in our supermarket for $5.98 a pound!  To be honest though, knowing how this pork was raised makes it priceless!

10 comments:

  1. Isn't it amazing how much better the meat tastes? It's the same with home grown veggies. I had never had much store boughten food until I was in my late-twenties/early thirties when my Mom sold the farm...and boy I could taste difference in everything! I was so happy when I started growing my own food a bit later...it's so so good and you know where it comes from!!

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  2. Nice ham, and a beautiful plate of farm food! The boxes of meat looked good, but they look great in your new freezer! It's so special to have gone to the farm where it was raised. Most people can't do that.

    I was excited to see that you watched Food, Inc. I bought two copies of that when I was working, and passed them around for as many people as possible to watch. Trying to spread the word. May I be so forward as to suggest some additional viewing? These were important enough for me to buy for my home video library:

    King Corn (Given to me by my sister Terri. This started it all and contains amazing information about our DNA!)

    How To Save the World: One Man, One Cow, One Planet

    The GMO Trilogy

    The Future of Food

    The World According To Monsanto (AWESOME INFO!)

    and

    Bad Seed: The Truth About Our Food

    After watching these, you will probably go out and expand your garden!

    Now some of the info may be redundant because it's about relative subjects, but excellent information all the same. The Monsanto one even has President Bush injecting the roundup genes into seed in the lab. Listen to what he tells Monsanto Scientists!!! Corporations are running this country, and some of these films show how it is being done in relation to food supply. I'm not a radical, but I like the truth, and most of the time it's hidden from us.

    I hope this doesn't come across as an intrusion on your blog. I'm just sharing info on our food.

    Thanks,
    Veggie PAK

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  3. My husband has said something about raising a cow and pig for butcher. But, I told him he'd have to put them where I couldn't see them.

    The meat does look good.

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  4. AMAZING & YUM!!! Now I have to go back and actually read the captions LOL!

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  5. Fantastic post meems! Good for you on getting a larger freezer, I have so much trouble organizing our pork and beef share in our little one. I totally want to see that same photo come September when you get all your harvests in there, LOL!

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  6. Yum yum yum!! I love how you know where everything on your plate came from!!

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  7. oooohh mmyyyy god. I'd be in hog heaven!

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  8. hi,
    my name is jenny and i'm from romania. somehow i've got to your blog and i've read it all. it is wonderfull. hahahaha, when i saw your freezer i said to my husband: look at this, it is just like mine. last year we lived into somebody's house and we had no room to plant vegetables. i've only grown chicken, turkeys and ducks (too many!!!!). i hope we will buy a house in the spring, we already agreed with the owners and we wait for some papers to be ready so we can sign the contract (it may take a few months, but we will move in at the beggining of april). so, i'm so eager to plant vegetables, to have my own garden!!!! we have a well in there, so the water it's for free, i see this is your major problem in the garden and i hope you'll find a solution. i hope your garden will have a nice future, because you putt your soul in it. but i'm concerned about the news from usa regarding gardening, after i read this article https://www.articleproductions.com/US_Senate_S510_Bill_to_Ban_Your_Homegrown_Food-2274.
    i wish you the best,
    jenny


    ps. sorry for my poor english, i never learned it with a teacher, but a dictionary

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  9. Great post. I'm glad that we're in touch.

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  10. Great thoughts you got there, believe I may possibly try just some of it throughout my daily life such kind of freezer........
    Freezers

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