Do these cows have it good?

Today The Oshkosh Norwestern ran a piece on a 4,300 dairy cow operation trying to open in Coloma, WI.

The article states that a group opposing the CAFO is doing so because the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, "fails to enforce the laws of the state that would protect the environment."

But as you know, CAFOs do much more harm than ruin our environment (although they do that too).

The CAFO would also subject the cows to inhumane treatment such as tail docking, confined quarters and over-milking.

In fact, the article features a video from another Wisconsin operation Rosendale Dairy, and I am not sure why they posted this video, but there could be only two reasons:

1) To show how good these cows have got it. This is not a beef CAFO. They are not standing in feedlots. It is a dairy operation, which means that it is relatively cleaner (ie: they cannot be standing in shit). They even play this light, jazzy music as it shows the cows being milked.

2) To show how bad these cows have got it. There are images of cows being milked with docked tails, enormous utters (clearly someone's been taking their hormones), and sores on the back.


I will look more into this proposed-factory farm, but in the meantime, let me know if you think these cows have it good or bad. Unfortunately, their video won't embed, so check out it out here.

Questions for Blue Ridge Dairy

UPDATE (1pm ET, FRIDAY JUNE 24th): I spoke with Ann at FRESHFARM and she told me the name of the farm. After doing some reading online, they appear to be a small, diversified farm raising dairy cows, chickens, and livestock. I emailed them to ask about tail docking, number of cattle on the farm and housing conditions. Will let you know what I hear back, but this is good news so far!
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When I first started this humane food adventure, I was meticulous about asking all of the dairy and egg farmers at farmers markets a series of questions. In fact, it was roughly a year ago that I wrote about my first encounter with Blue Ridge Dairy, a cheese vendor whom I have grown to depend on for mozzarella cheese and honey yogurt at the Dupont Circle Farmers Market.

However, today I stumbled upon some unsettling information, or lack thereof. I was trying to tweet that we are serving their mozzarella at our rehearsal dinner. I went to their website, and noticed that it looked different than a year ago. So I checked it out, and read this under Our Process:

We produce fresh mozzarella the traditional Italian way. We start with the freshest jersey cows milk from a family farm in Carroll County, Maryland.

And that is it. No mention of the size of the farm, number of head of cattle, or the treatment of the cows. This is not what I remembered the vendor telling me at the farmers market a little over a year ago, so I called the farm.

The owner picked-up, and told me that the name of the farm was confidential. He did reassure me that it was owned by a nice family with four kids (heh... clearly he did not know that I could not be wooed by over-populution). When I pressed nicely for an answer to my questions, he became evasive and defensive.

So, I sent the following email to FRESHFARM Markets, the organization that manages Dupont Circle Farmers Market.

Hi Ann, Bernie and Laura:

I am writing due to a concern I have about Blue Ridge Dairy. The owner will not disclose the name of the farm he purchases his milk from for his dairy products. After reading the FreshFarm Markets rules and regulations (http://www.freshfarmmarkets.org/pdfs/2011_rules_and_regulations.pdf), it is clear that Blue Ridge Dairy is in violation of the Cheese and Butter Regulations (pasted below):

Cheese and Butter: FRESHFARM Markets accepts both farmstead (made from dairy from the producer’s own herd) and artisanal (made from dairy purchased by the producer from a local farm) cheese and butters. For artisanal cheese or butter, all milk purchased must be from regional farmers. The cheese/butter maker must provide contact information (owner, farm name, address, telephone number and directions) for the farms from which the cheese maker is buying the milk.

I am a vegetarian and try to only eat animal products that come from humane farms where I know exactly how the animals are treated. This is very important to me and the reason that I shop at the Dupont Circle Farmers Market.

One of the great things about the market is the transparency. Patrons are able to find out information about the farms or sources directly from the vendors. For example, Mel from Keswick is very open to questions and invites customers to come to the farm. Additionally,other vendors I have spoken to have not been defensive about questions concerning humane animal care, but are actually happy to see customers who share their values.

However, when I called and spoke to Mr. Stephan (the owner of Blue Ridge Dairy) he refused to tell me the name of the farm, which not only violates your rules and regulations, but is also not the standards we are used to at the Dupont Circle Farmers Market.

I would very much like to know the name of the farm so I can continue to fully source my food.

In advance thanks and I look forward to hearing from you,
Emily

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Yes, I am concerned. But I also don't want to write-off a good vendor because he might have been having a bad day, or is not as excited about humane farm animal treatment as I am.

So I will be sure to keep you updated. I am certainly hoping that the only negative thing on this farm is the four kids, and not a farm full of cows whose tails are docked and packed into milking stalls standing in their own manure.

Humane Tzatziki

Last Friday night, I made delicious tzatziki as part of Shabbat dinner.

Tzatziki is one of my favorite dips, and it is the only item I cannot get at Amsterdam Falafel (although it is very hard to resist...).

Here is how I make it... humanely:

- I buy Greek yogurt from Blue Ridge Dairy
- Mix it with seeded, peeled, chopped, salted and drained cucumber
- Chop up a bunch of fresh dill to taste
- Salt, pepper and garlic to taste
- Dash of lemon juice

Mix it all together and serve with any kind of bread or veggies!

We eat too much

Today, one of my co-workers put a link on Facebook to an article on Visual Economics: "What are we eating?" What I found did not surprise me at all:

In a year, the average American consumes 62.4 lbs of beef, 46.5 lbs of pork, 60.4 lbs of chicken, 32.7 lbs of eggs, 31.4 lbs of cheese, 600.5 lbs of dairy (not cheese).

So, this is no wonder that Americans have an obesity problem. This includes me. I am not fat... not compared to most Americans. But if I went to Japan, China, or even most countries, people would probably categorize me as another American who overeats.

But we are not overeating everything. We are not overeating cereals, fruits or vegetables. What we are overeating is animal products.

Our entire agricultural sector is centered -- not around feeding the people who work in the fields, or even the people who pay the people who work in the fields. Nope. It is centered around feeding the animals that feed the people who work in the fields and the people who pay them to work in the fields.

And what do we get? We get really cheap, caloric, high-cholesterol animal products that we clearly eat waaaaay too much of.

Which means that our food choices are directly related to the way we treat the animals we get our cholesterol from. Our dollars are paying for our fat. We are also condoning the way in which we treat animals which we depend on for our high cholesterol diets.

We are condoning and paying for factory farms and battery cages.

The best way to better ourselves and the animals is to (to completely plagiarize from Jonathan Safran-Foer's book, Eating Animals) simply eat fewer animal products. And try to get our meat, eggs and dairy from a humane farmer.

Many of you may think that this is just another one of my extreme anti-meat rants. But think about what we all ate today, and think about just how much of what we ate came from an animal. Me? I had dairy for lunch, and dinner. And that is not typical... I usually have it for all three meals.

What if you DON'T have a farmers market near you?

My grandfather who reads my blog -- he also has a blackberry, a laptop with which he skypes and looks at the latest pictures of my niece (his great-grand daughter) on Snapfish -- asked me after reading The Chicken and the Egg Part I and II where he could get humane eggs if he doesn't go to a farmers' market.

Well, it just so happens that certain brands are certified humane. This is an amazing resource if you want to see where you can get humane animal products. They don't just rate dairy and eggs, but also meat.

The organization that certifies humane is called Humane Farm Animal Care. They are a non-profit that was

"created to improve the lives of farm animals by setting rigorous standards, conducting annual inspections, and certifying their humane treatment."

I have met farmers who have gone through or are going through the process to become certified humane. They define certified humane as food that:

*Meets the Humane Farm Animal Care program standards, which includes nutritious diet without antibiotics or hormones, animals raised with shelter, resting areas, sufficient space and the ability to engage in natural behaviors.

In my first blog, I wrote about deciding to go humane. Certifying an animal product as humane means much more than what the USDA defines as "free-range" or "cage-free." It is a standard, that in my opinion, you could apply to how you treat your best friend: ^..^

So the BEST part about this is that you can search for products at stores that are certified humane!!! So, in response to my grandfather's question as to where he can buy certified humane eggs in Chicago (near his home), here is the answer, Papa:

The Whole Foods on 30 W. Huron St. sells Phils Cage-Free Eggs, Born Free Eggs.

Happy humane hunting, everybody!

Deciding to Eat Humane

My eating habits have been as varied and fickle as my life choices... From childhood to adulthood (if that is what you can call the time when someone is 29 and sang 8 songs at karaoke last night), I went from being an omnivore to a pescetarian to a vegetarian to a humane-omnivore to a vegetarian. And now, as more undercover videos are released that detail the rampant abuse at dairy farms (thanks to the courageous work of leaders at The Humane Society, PETA, and especially Mercy for Animals), I have found it harder and harder to eat factory-farmed dairy.

Except that I love dairy products. I am a foodie at heart, and my friends (some who have meat daily) often marvel at the fact that a vegetarian can cook really good food.

So, how do I make my mom's neighborhood-favorite spanakopita or my brother's gourmet eggplant parm? Easy: I go the farmer's market and get mozz, parmesan and eggs from farmers who don't allow their animals to live a tortured existence, as Jonathan Safran Foer eloquently detailed in his book Eating Animals.

But how do you know if the farmers are actually humane? The USDA criteria for "humane" does not meet the standards of how we would classify "humane." And by humane, I mean if we saw a video of how the animals spend their day, we would not turn our eyes away in shame and agony. (That is an entire blog post for an entirely different time, but it is something that I consider every time I eat or buy an animal product.)

This blog is going to chronicle my journey from being a vegetarian to being a humane vegetarian. While I have already found some amazing farmers (like Keswick Creamery) and delicious restaurants (like Java Green) in DC, I want to find many more. This blog will include farmers who are humane, restaurants that have humane dairy and eggs (and those that don't), and how one goes about eating humane without wasting food or being rude to beloved hosts who don't buy humane dairy and eggs.

Many thanks to my friends who asked me to share the ongoing humane vendors and restaurants I have found, and to the animals rights groups who have inspired this exciting choice. And thanks in advance to those who won't judge me when I fail on both accounts and grab a jumbo-slice on a late Saturday night/Sunday morning.