Sustainable meat production

Living more sustainably doesn’t necessarily have to mean going meatless.

I just finished reading the beautifully written Gaining Ground by market farmer Forrest Pritchard.  It is a lovely story about rebuilding local foodsheds and knowing the people who produce your food.

Inspired by Joel Saletin, Pritchard’s focus is on rebuilding soil, reversing the effects of chem agriculture, and cleaning up waterways.

Pritchard’s methods sound similar to those being explored by groups like the Marin Carbon Project which sequester (capture) the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, by locking it into the soil.

Pritchard is quite candid about the mistakes and scrapes along the way, but (spoiler) it has a happy ending.  After many trials, he ends up selling beef, chicken, and other meats at his local farmers markets.

Of course, part of transforming meat toward sustainability is reducing our consumption levels so that they approach more appropriate levels.  Eat meat occasionally, as a “special occasion” dish rather than at every single meal. “Use meat like a condiment” is the some of the best advice I have heard – understand how traditional cultures did it: lots of veggies with a bit of meat Ior meat bones) to give the dish flavor or body. And certainly, chose meat which is produced with consciousness like Pritchard’s.

sharing economy: Gaining Ground is available through the L.A. Public Library system

local suppliers: in our local-to-90045 farmers markets, there are meat vendors at the Friday Venice market and the Sunday Mar Vista market.