Have you ever purchased an item that was sold as “one size
fits all”? There are some items, like a rain
poncho, that worked for me to buy that way.
That wasn’t the case when I went to buy a pair of rubber gloves. I found it very difficult to stuff my hands
into a glove that was made for much smaller hands than mine. Has this ever happened to you?
Imagine
shopping for clothes if your choices were limited to the one size fits all
label. Would we be limited to buying stretch
pants and pull-over tops? The one time
in my life that I actually liked elastic pants was when I was pregnant. Even
the labels small, medium and large can be frustrating if you don’t know how
much they will shrink. Fortunately, we
have clothing made for all shapes and sizes including specialty stores for
those needing even more choices.
What
about food choices? Besides a plethora of diets to
choose from we also have plenty of choices when it comes to how the food was
raised. When I was a child, my mom didn’t have the
labels of organic, grass-fed, hormone free, etc. to look at. Mom often bought the items that were on sale
that week to feed our family of eight.
Now when a mom goes to the store, there are labels and whole grocery
aisles of specialty foods that can be quite confusing. Learning what labels mean and understanding
more about production practices can help.
You can learn more about labels here.
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| Steve and I enjoying one of our favorite meals on our deck-steak with veggies and hash browns. |
When Steve
and I were raising our children we could choose to eat food from our farm and
from the grocery store. I took pride in having
a big garden with items to freeze or can for winter meals. Perhaps many of you
also enjoy gardening and eating the fruits, or veggies in my case, of your
labor. We sometimes butcher a steer from our farm but also buy meat at the
grocery store. I never doubted the
safety or quality of the food from the grocery store or from our farm. How the food was raised was not a concern of
mine and our children were healthy and active with doctor visits due mostly
from sports injuries.
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| My garden June 2014. Some of the sweet corn is starting to tassle. We enjoyed radishes and broccoli with snap peas nearly ready. Plenty of weeds to pull! |
In
our culture today we have many people concerned about how food is raised. Part of that is due to the change in the size
of farms as well as fewer people doing the farming. Farms have changed over the centuries to meet
the needs of the people needing to be fed.
The food choices we have today are very important so that those with
food sensitivities can find what they need as well as the family on a tight
budget.
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| This is a picture from the 1950's. Four farmers are combining oats. From left to right you can see Farmall, Oliver, John Deere and Ford tractors. |
Our farm
practices are designed to feed more people using less resources. We utilize the science and research done by
our universities and yes, companies that sell us seed, weed control and
veterinary medicine. We utilize a
hormone implant in cattle, antibiotics for disease and seed
corn that can defend itself against a pest through DNA procedures. It is very important to us to use methods
that will leave us a better farm tomorrow.
Putting research into practice is akin to saying the proof is in the
pudding. Continually finding better
ways to improve our soil, provide better care for the cattle and produce a
healthy food choice is what we work for.
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| Getting there from 3500 B.C. to 2010 |
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| This is Steve with our granddaughter, Ella, fishing in our pond near our house and feedlot. She is the next generation we are striving to provide healthy and abundant food for. |
