The Hamburglar: A Quest for Ethically, Locally Sourced Beef

Hamburger comes from cows. You may say, “no duh Monk-Monk!,” but what I mean is…hamburger comes from dairy cows. You know, the cows that give birth, have their calves taken away and then are milked to death retirement. Instead of sending them to a pastured golf-course with a pension and a “hey thanks for contributing so much of your life to our great dairy industry,” they are slaughtered. Useless old hags that can’t put it out anymore and so they’re disposed of as garbage in the machine that they’ve lived their whole life in.

Um.

Ugh.

I have such a visceral reaction to this new news because hamburger is our go-to meat. While we occasionally indulge in a steak (Daniel’s Broiler anyone? YUM!), as far as red meat goes, hamburger tops the list. I grew up eating spaghetti for probably 7 meals a day, so it’s a hard habit to break. But now I’m in this ethically torn place of squickiness…If I’m going to give up dairy because of its separation of dam/calf, then how, at the end of that dam’s life, consume her? Won’t THAT be contributing to the dairy industry in a sad, roundabout way?

Only one thing to do: research. Can I find an alternative to this, so if I am still on a quest toward ethical omnivority (is that even a word?), then maybe I need some more information.

My frantic google searches have managed to find aproximately ONE GAZILLION family owned farms  in Washington State that sell full, 1/2 or 1/4 of grass raised, loved on beef that are slaughtered on-site in as humane of a fashion as possible. SUHWEET (except most places are in Eastern Washington or tiny little far-away-hick-towns like Duvall…or Enumclaw), but I was on a mission. I will do this by golly. I will buy a local cow and know that I am contributing to its life and death, but also knowing that it has had the most humane life and death possible.

But…

Well…

Conversations with Boof led me to realize that the investment of buying 1/2 (or even 1/4) a cow, right now (at 1600-3200$) is probably not the most financially stable thing…since he started his new (temporary) job aproximately 27 hours ago. And there needed to a deposit now, but slaughter doesn’t actually happen until October, so it’s like we’d still end up with 6 months of random eating until we got Bessie/Bob the cow from local-hick-town-farm.

The pressure to make this decision right-now-because-if-we-don’t-we-won’t-get-a-cow-until-2014-and-that’s-too-long-to-keep-hurting-the-environment panic of a slightly neurotic woman. But, after all of my ramblings around the interwebz, I realized that…we don’t actually eat all that much beef and if I were to buy a cow, right now, I would actually be eating MORE meat than before.

Whoa.

That was sort of a trippy thought, that in my effort to consume less factory farm meat, I would actually end up consuming more meat in the long-run (humane or not). Hmm. I had to think about that for a minute, which led me to the decision that we would not be buying a cow, 1/2 cow or 1/4 cow this year.

In my late-night trippings through google and eatwild.com and other various websites, I found this local(ish) place that sells hamburger, year round, from the SAME cows that are raised on their farm for 1/2 or 1/4 cow purchase. These cows are grass fed, slaughtered on-site and it’s a family owned farm that’s been hanging around the area for a good century.

Whoa.

So Potamus and I are taking a field-trip tomorrow to pick up some of this hamburger. In this way I can help a local farm, save a retired dairy cow, and still eat some spaghetti with meat. On my quest for ethical eating, this choice feels right, for now…

Animalistic vs. Humane vs. Machinistic: A Conversation with my husband about ethical eating

While conversing over dinner about ethical eating options and all of the  disgusting fascinating things that I am learning about the food system and my own eating habits, I used the word “humane,” in relation to what I am hoping for somehow in the new choices I’m making. And he looked at me and said,

“hmm, that’s an interesting word choice. Humane. We wouldn’t use that in relation to other people, just animals.”

Knowing him long enough now, I realized he wasn’t looking for a fight, just merely observing the word choice I had used. And so, rather than get defensive (like I would have done a few years ago), I went down his rabbit trail, replying:

“Well, in the animal kingdom they go for the jugular. They aim to kill, but don’t seem to create elaborate systems of destruction in order to get their dinner. Humane is like getting back to the compassionate, empathetic heart of who we are as people, with frontal lobes. It’s not just reactionary like animals, but it’s like being an animal with a heart.”

As I was talking it just started spilling out, and I kept talking it then he said:

“It’s interesting that the further away we get from being, oh, say, Neanderthals, the less humane we seem to get.”

And I replied,

“Well, I think that’s because we’re heading away from the animalistic-with-empathy and heading toward the machine. I mean, if you think about it, we’re machinistic now. They even say it’s a factory farm, and everything is mechanized and it is taking the soul away from it. It’s about conveyor belts and technology and more-more-more-more-MORE. We’re becoming machines.”

I hadn’t really thought of it like that before, at least not aloud, but it made a lot of sense to me. But I don’t want to be a machine. I want to be human, treat things humanely.

But I’m not giving up technology. I just don’t want to get eaten by it.

Thoughts?