ATTN: LAST CALL FOR BEEF In light of this years growth and how many of you may be unaware of how this beef pool evolved I have decided to write down a small history of events. A little shy of five years ago when I started Real Food Nashville, and was actively teaching traditional food based nutrition it was evident that it wasnt that our members did not have adesire for the cleaner food items, but rather the access to the meat. If one pairs that with the necessary higher price tag, since farming is not a cheap business then clean meat prices really can break the bank. During the first year of my own family committing to a lifestyle clean from all CAFO (Confinement Animal Feed Operation) meat it became evident that the actual act of acquiring bulk meat was a very real hurdle for many families. Naturally, a solution organically presented itself. My heart is very often burdened by those who believe that this lifestyle is not obtainable. It is true that many food items, when they are free from their tainted artificial counterparts are more expensive, but for my family purchasing that whole quarter cow changed our world! No longer was I floundering a farmers markets and only ever walking away with grass fed ground beef. The days of meat cheating were over. I stopped buying expensive cuts here, and using by back up pink slime there. In my freezer was enough meat to entirely remove the stress that once loomed over me. It also gave me the freedom to explore. Our second whole animal purchase was a whole hog. This was a peace offering, if you will, because I am more of the mind that hog meat isnt the cleanest. However, my husband Jeron is a bacon lovin fool and this was his reward for consuming an endless amount of kale and root vegetables, along with my constant fermentation experiments. Once we tacked along whole chicken orders to this monstrosity, well we have never looked back. The first year we moved towards a bulk beef order I drove up from South TN with my van weighed down by frozen meat, and a slew of beautiful friendly faces awaited me. We were all anxious, but to say it went smoothly would be an extreme over statement. The following year we tripled our requests for meat and that is when we joined up with Oak Hill Farms. NOW here are the answers you have been waiting for! NO! We arent advertising, or selling Oak Hill. They honestly just happened to have the same heart for educating that we had, and to this day we have a no strings attached policy with them. Thats right:-D They are so completely generous in spirit. They will gladly take any available amount of cattle to the processor. We can have what is available, and know that it is only grass fed, and never supplemented. This is truly not a cattle sale in any shape form or fashion. It is a coop beef pool, and this is where Missi Mack Shearer and I still get our beef for every year. So why, all of this explanation? It is to make very clear that we fully support any and all coops of any kind, meat CSAs (please see our CSA document under files), and any and all kinds of farmers markets selling food from and to all of you. It isnt so easy though, for larger families like mine to participate in weekly meat purchases from farmers markets and even CSA packages. At the time this group was established, and even still today I couldnt afford the other clean food items in my home if I didnt participate in whole animal buying. So for those of you who are interested in cutting the cost of your grass fed meat by a drastic amount, well maybe this is for you. The cattle truck is filling up fast. It may be possible to create a second cattle run, but it isnt something that we have currently arranged. Yes, the cows are costing us more this year, and that isnt great news, but the meat is worth every penny, and it will still be much more affordable, specifically for your nice grass fed cuts. We averaged the pricing of 7 popular meat farms in the Nashville area and created a spreadsheet to give folks an idea of what it would cost to purchase a whole cow in this manner as opposed to buying a live cow and self processing. So yes, I am definitely stating that Real Food Nashville supports and encourages whole animal processing. It is one of the absolute best ways to purchase sustainable meat!
Posted on: Tue, 30 Sep 2014 01:17:19 +0000
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