For some time it has been our practice to buy food that is made as close to our home as possible. Living in a rural area it is easier than most urban areas but even in urban areas you can find butchers and farm markets that may include small local farmers.

Organic is a catchall term that may or may not be the best vegetable or meat available. If you think about it, the tomato that you grew in your backyard is 100 times better than any organic tomato you can buy. The closer the farm is, the fresher the food is.

I am not into the grain vs. grass debate. Mainly because depending on what you are doing and raising makes grass or grain a better choice. You want a pig raised on freshly ground corn, trust me. Our cows are grass raised, yet the calves are shipped off to a place where they will eat grass during the day and grain in the evening.  Grass alone will not give you the tender meat you want. Our goats are grass and tree grazers, but they also eat pellets of food otherwise they would starve. Our chickens are raised on show feed, which is nutritionally sound created for chickens. We have eaten chickens that the last few weeks were fed on corn. It would take months to raise a chicken on grass, and trust me they eat as many bugs as they can when they eat grass. So don’t think the chickens are vegetarians, they will seek protein wherever they can find it.

I do love Local Food, it just tastes better. There is a place near us called Cedar Springs in Falls County, they have the best tomatoes you can find anywhere other than your backyard. My FIL says that the soil in Cedar Springs is sandy and has the perfect PH balance to grow a perfect tomato. Organic or not, you want those tomatoes.

There is a trend with cleaning products, the green trend. Which I have no problem with but when you are taking small great green companies vs corporate giants the consumer is losing out. That is the reality with organic as well. Organic farmers used to be small independent guys eeking out an alternative choice for vegetables and meat. Now there are large corporation organic farming operations that are no better than a large corporation vegetable grower. Here is a story that supports this. You want to know the food you are eating is raised well, buying local is a great choice.

When you cannot find a local meat or vegetable provider go to a local grocery store talk to the butcher. Ask about where he buys his meat.  Trust me butchers love to talk meat.

We buy our meat from a store that is picky about great meat. We are willing to pay more for quality meat, they are the ones that bought Sconicle’s goat! We buy our ham and bacon from a local processor. It is wonderful quaint place, that we can buy quality ham. Yes we know the owners but they are sons of the original owner, it is because they have kept quality that there is a line to get fresh meat. My personal favorite summer sausage is a recipe from Slavocek’s sausage, but the recipe is only available at Sam’s Clubs. The owner again is a friend of mine, but he would be the first to tell you if we didn’t love it we would not buy it! It is award winning, and a great balance of flavor. Summer time we eat summer sausage, mainly because it is hot and hot food during the summer is hard to eat when you have been outside for a long time.

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