Omnivore's Dilemma

This book is convincing me to do things I would not have considered or easily dismissed previously. Last night I dreamt of the grass fed egg the author so aptly described. Today, I'm looking up farms near us that support pasture feeding vs corn feeding. Here are my list of choices:
http://www.eatwild.com/products/massachusetts.html

The idea is that you join the 'buyer's club' and you get your meat from a local farm that raises their animals on grass without the use of any antibiotics or pesticides on the grass. You go to the farm on allotted days to pick up your share of the meat. The farm in the book had meat according to seasons, beef in fall and winter and chickens in spring and summer because of grazing patterns and pasture quality. Some of these farms are the same...some have only meat, others have cheese, vegetables, and honey sold in farm stores.

I'm totally getting hooked on this, the book describes such a perfect wholesome ecosystem and things happen when they happen and are not forced to happen because of consumer demand (growing things out of season using questionable means to do so). The cows feed on the grass for several days, the chickens act as the 'sanitation crew' and get their protein from eating the larvae from the cow patties, their waste is made into compost which is turned into fertilizer to assist in the natural growth of the grass. Obviously, people that farm this way can't produce enough to satisfy demand of supermarkets who now buy from feedlots who can keep up with the demand, but I'm learning from the book that you get what you pay for. If you want cheap, you're getting meat from cow's that have been corn fed and hence need antibiotics because their stomachs can not digest this so it introduces a host of problems for the cow. In addition, the author points out that perhaps many of the issues we have (obesity, heart disease, diabetes) comes from the fact that our meat was raised on corn and doesn't have much to do with the meat itself.

It's a lot to think about....