Pasteurization

I learned something very useful from my grandfather this Thanksgiving.

I'd learned some time ago that eating locally harvested honey could help your immune system fight allergies.  What I didn't know is that the locally harvested honey also has to be unpasteurized.  I learned that the honey you find in the supermarket is most likely pasteurized so it keeps longer.  The best way to get unpasteurized, locally harvested honey is to buy it straight from a local beekeeper, and we happen to have a local beekeeper who brings her honey to the weekend farmer's market in town.

Food Inc.

If you haven't watched this documentary and you have a conscience, I suggest you watch Food, Inc.  A co-worker suggested this documentary to me months ago and I finally came across it on Netflix the other night, so I decided to sit through it.  It's only been a few days, but I can tell you this film has already radically changed the way I view the economy, food, politics, and many other things.


I think part of this change in view has at least a little to do with my relatively recent changes in spirituality.  Paganism is an earth-centered religion that values all life.  Some Pagans take this to mean that they shouldn't consume meat, however I believe there is a natural life-cycle and a natural food chain, and humans are omnivores, meant to eat both meat and greens.  I eat meat, and I like the taste of meat, but I am also thankful to the animal who died so I can take in its nutrients.

For a long time I was ignorant to the food industry and it's horrifying practices, and part of me wanted to be.  I watched the documentary Supersize Me when it came out and I swore off all fast food except Subway for a month, but I quickly returned.  I heard about PETA when I was in middle school or high school and I was one of those kids that changed it to People Eating Tasty Animals.  I grew up with a grandfather who was a full-time farmer, and I never heard anything nasty about his career or his farm, so I just figured the mistreatment of animals was all a myth created by vegetarian activists fighting for their own gains.  I was wrong.

Not only are the animals being mistreated, but the farmers, factory workers, and butchers are all being abused as well.  These people can't afford to fight these large corporations so they end up getting the shaft and they're stuck either working in unsanitary conditions, in piles of debt, or against their own ethics just to make a small living.

The good news is that there is an alternative.  Buy local, cook more at home, and buy organic.  If this really gets under your skin like it does mine, write to your congressmen and women and tell them this is a subject that you're passionate about and you want change.