A Goat’s Eye View from the Farm, and Pearls of Wisdom from Jay Leno

A day after my exploration of the theory of the food chain, we gain insight from a farmer as to the challenges of making fundamental changes.

A woman who identifies herself as The Food Lady has an interesting post about the difficulties of transforming a small livestock operation into a truly organic farm. She raises goats for their milk.

It turns out that there are lots of pressures—financial, convenience, and regulatory—to stay conventional. It costs a lot, in upfront cash as well as time and patience, to make the transition. Even if you are able to do it yourself, there is the possibility that runoff of pesticides and hormones from neighboring farms will undo all your work.

If your animals get sick, do you treat them with antibiotics, or risk that they’ll die, and destroy your investment? Congratulations to The Food Lady (she doesn’t identify herself in any detail) for an excellent post.

One other thing I want to mention just because I found it so offensive is the current issue of Parade magazine, which goes to millions of readers as part of Sunday newspapers. It’s the one with Jay Leno on the cover holding a chicken wing, with this heading, “Plus, Jay Leno admits: ‘I haven’t eaten a vegetable since 1969.’” Details are in the article (scroll down when you get to the link), where he says, “I eat a lot of junk food like pizza, hamburgers and hot dogs. When I have a soda, I have a soda—not a diet soda. I don’t think I’ve ever had a salad, actually.”

I really don’t want to be preachy–after all, it’s none of my business what another person chooses to eat. The bigger problem with this kind of thing is that many Parade readers believe what celebrities say, and emulate what they do. So if a major celebrity says he eats unhealthy food, and he looks okay on television every night, many people will assume that it’s fine to do the same. Parade actually publishes some encouraging statistics about Americans trying to eat more healthful foods, but all that is overshadowed because the magazine can’t resist the temptation to put a celebrity on the cover.