In the last couple of years, I’ve been on a quest to be more conscious of the food I eat. To me, this meant adopting the paleo lifestyle, and eating local, organic food as much as budget and availability allows. I have also tried as best I can to sort fact from fiction when it comes to nutrition. It hasn’t always been easy, but in the process, I’ve lost a lot of weight, gained lots of energy, and leveled out my moods. I also feel healthier and look much younger than I did before I started this.
My latest adjustment was to investigate grass-fed beef. From what I can gather from the Internet, grass-fed beef is healthier and more humanely-raised than the traditional grain-fed stuff.
My hunt for locally-raised grass-fed beef led me to Ivan McIlroy and his Wallace Springs Cattle Company. A while ago, I arranged with Ivan to buy a quarter cow of his grass-fed beef. Today, the day finally came when I could pick up my order. I hopped in the car and headed to the farm in North Perth, Ontario to meet the meat, so to speak.
Ivan was great. He gave me a tour of the farm, introducing me to his animals and showing me how they live and what they eat. It clearly takes a lot of work and costs lot of money to raise cattle this way. The price I paid for my quarter cow was extremely reasonable. In fact, as Ivan explained to me, it’s not a sustainable price when compared to what it costs to raise the animals. I believe that many people would pay more, especially if they’re given the opportunity to see the farm and learn about how their food is grown.
After spending about an hour with Ivan and his cows, I headed to the meat packer’s to pick up my order. There was an astounding amount of beef. The order included about 70 lbs. of ground beef, four short rib roasts, two shoulder roasts, nine blade steaks, fifteen rib steaks, and a brisket. There was also a big box of beef bones to be used in soup. I’ll be sharing this order with my dad, but still, it’s a lot!
I really enjoyed my trip out to the country today. I’m naturally a city boy, so it always seems a bit exotic to visit a farm. Have a look at my gallery of snapshots with captions below.
Thanks for including the video with your blog post. I am fascinated by the nutrition and diet and am always looking to understand where food comes from and the care involved in growing what we consume.
Having known you for many years now, it has been amazing to witness the transformation you have personally gone through as you have changed your diet.
Cheers to thriving health for all!
Thanks for joining me on today’s journey! That was a fun road trip.
holy crap that’s a lot of meat.
and very interesting story. I always hear about the whole antibiotics issue but never understood where it comes from, now I do. You were able to make it much clearer in this short entry than Food Inc. did in an hour and a half of edited footage. heh
It’s probably because I spent an hour and a half editing this blog entry 😛
very cool that you went out to a farm like that 🙂 And just think if that’s a quarter cow, and in western civilization we only consume about 60% of the cow, how much is left over!! (this is why there’s rendering plants…)
I’m starting to get back into paying more attention to what I eat – I do do better if there’s less gluten in my diet, but I got really busy/lazy with vet school 🙁 Unfortunately Newfoundland is probably one of the hardest places in Canada to do this… especially on the fresh fruits and vegetables side of things :S And I’m fairly certain I won’t be finding any beef farms to get large orders from… at least not on this side of the province! (very minimal agriculture)
I was surprised how quickly I felt better after I cut out the starches (which handily eliminated gluten too). I hope you are able to source some fresh fruits and veggies in Newfoundland. I’m sure you can get root veggies like beets, carrots, turnips, etc. though. They’re quite inexpensive and good for you too!
Thanks for this post. its nice to finally see people writing about these issues. Its great to get the word out!