Friendly Talking Points

 Most of us who embrace Robert Frost's famous "road less taken" find a bit of loneliness along the way.  

After nearly 65 years of farming here in Swoope, our family is still not invited to conventional farmer gatherings, considered weirdos and nonplayers.  We're not depressed about that; we cultivate friends where and when we can, whether they're far or nearby.

Being Cinderella in the ashes is not a conspiracy; it's just the way life happens for mavericks.  As pastured livestock producers, we don't do things other livestock producers do.  

We don't herbicide our weeds.  

We move animals daily--how crazy is that?  

We don't build factory buildings the size of football fields to house thousands chickens.  

We don't vaccinate, medicate, eradicate, or adulterate.  

We just don't fit in.

This ostracism gives us a deep appreciation for how many of our customers feel among friends who wonder at our whacko provenance.  

One of the most poignant memories for me was when my wife Teresa and I took our daughter, Rachel, to the Art Institute of Charlotte for a two-year interior design degree.  

The college didn't have dorms; they rented apartments nearby, housing four students per suite.

Teresa spent a month stockpiling food for her and when we delivered her to her suite, the other girls looked on in wonder as I toted boxes of canned chicken soup and homemade goodies up the stairs.  "What is all that stuff?" they queried, half interested and half concerned.  

I'm confident I was the only dad whose daughter took more pounds of food to college than clothes and stuff.

The raised eyebrows and veiled judgments over being different afflict all of us who dare to live and buy differently.  

As the MAHA (Make America Healthy Again) movement takes root, for every person weeping in gratitude at this cultural elevation, another person feels threatened and defensive.  

Eating routines are one of the most ingrained aspects of our lives.  

With that in mind, let me offer some talking points on how to present your food weirdness to friends, co-workers, and family.

I'm a big believer in the Socratic method, where you ask questions that lead the other person to their own answers.  That's the framework I'll use here.

1.  Is your food creating health?  Would you put junky gas in your car?  (Most people would say they want pure fuel for their car engine.)  How about your body's engine?  Pure fuel is what you want.  

And what would that look like?

Does it look like ultra-processed food?  Does it look like food you can't make in your kitchen?  Unpronounceable ingredients?

The idea here is to simply start a conversation that gets people to intentionally examine what they're eating.  

Some 77 percent of what Americans eat is ultra-processed.  None of that should be eaten.  We are what we eat.

2.  Is your food safe?  (This is not about a government stamp of approval.)  Every year we have recalls for food borne bacteria, pathogens, and adulterants in the millions of pounds--most of it already consumed prior to the recall.

Several years ago the Government Accounting Office (GAO) sought an answer to why American food is vulnerable to safety problems.  It's one of the few government reports that really nailed it.  They found four risk factors:

       1.  Long distance transportation--including centralized warehousing.

       2.  Centralized production--industrial factory farms.

       3.  Centralized processing--industrial mega-processing facilities.

       4.  Routine antibiotic use--80 percent of all antibiotics used in America go through domestic livestock,                    creating super bugs like Cdif and MRSA.

A farm that uses no medications or vaccines and builds natural immune systems with hygienic habitat and pasture happiness has inherently safer options.  How are the animals raised that you've been eating?

3.  How secure is your food?  In 2020, we saw the American food system break because efficiency is often fragile.  

When Putin invaded Ukraine and fertilizer costs shot up 400 percent, American farmers bemoaned increased costs, and the system compensated with skyrocketing food prices.

At Polyface, we don't use any chemical fertilizers so we were immune to this global shock.  Our small-scale, in-house processing protected us from the covid calamities striking thousand-person processing and packaging centers.  Our 'inefficiency' created forgiveness.  How vulnerable is your food system to shock?

Half the cost on the average American farm is petroleum expense; at Polyface, it's 5 percent.  That means petroleum could double without significant repercussions.  That's security.

4.  What is your food doing to the overall landscape of America?  Is it building soil?  Hydrating streams and aquifers?  Making cleaner, more breathable air?  

When you look through that plate of food to the farmscape that grew it, do you see natural resource stewardship and happy animals?

Our microbiome is filled with billions of microorganisms trading, communicating, and interacting.  Everything they know about the world comes through our mouth, the great gateway.  

Because of what we eat, what do your internal microbes know about the world?  Do they see a world of happiness and contentment, or a world of disrespect, abuse, and violence?  It does matter if the pig can express its pigness and a chicken its chickenness.

How we respect and honor the least of these creatures creates a moral and ethical framework on which we hang the honor and respect of the greatest of these.  So what world is your food creating?

Okay, dear folks, this is enough for today's tutorial.  

I hope this gives you some starting points to diplomatically but sincerely touch folks within your sphere.  

This discussion is not about alienating; it is about messaging in a winsome way to draw folks into a healing mentality.  

Once we mentally embrace truth, a practical application can follow quickly.  The climate of the mind is what we need to change first.

Thank you for carrying the Polyface message in your heart, mind, and mouth.  We're standing by to serve, one bite at a time.