As I’ve said before, I work as a part-time butcher for Rainbow Foods and also at a higher-end restaurant that prides itself in selling local, fresh product. This topic is the part of my work that I honestly have tried not to think about for a long time. Recently I watched a documentary about the crazy guy who swam the entire Amazon in some distant effort to protect the forest from the destruction caused from cattle ranching. It made me begin to think about the implications of what I chose to eat, buy, and even do for work.
Instead of a single prepared meal and its ties to all of this, I am going to rant about my observations and my own knowledge of meat and consumers of meat. To a certain extent, I think a lot of people do actually care a little bit about their food, even at Rainbow. I get more and more questions about organic and grass-fed and free range and wild-caught than I used to. The question that it typically comes down to is what price is one willing to pay for their food to represent their ethical or nutritional or political beliefs? At Rainbow, the answer is not much.
People (myself included) buy what is cheap or on sale. I know that cage-free chicken is good because it allows for a more balanced diet, reduces the necessity of antibiotics to prevent problems caused by overcrowding and dirty conditions, and probably makes for happier chickens (the part I really don’t care about). I am unwilling, however, to pay literally up to five times more money to ensure my chicken was raised outside of a cage. The same is true for natural, grass-fed beef. I just found a website that sells products from smaller, organic farms to the public called localharvest.org. You can buy four 6oz. grass-fed tenderloin steaks for $68.94. That’s about $46/lb. and we sell tenderloin steaks for 14.99/lb. I’ll continue to eat the chemicals and the corn if it’s that much cheaper. I think most consumers are the same way, especially in this economy.
We sell about $100,000 of meat every week. Yes, just meat. Many animals die in order for me to make my union wage. The cheaper we can sell it, the more we sell. In general, people give up on their ethical and health conscious food beliefs when they see the price difference.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Well stated! The topic of ones money was woefully absent for the most part in our discussions, because none of us is a perfectly "rational" person. If you've continued to read Omnivore's Dilemma, this problem is often stated, with only one logical way to cure this trend... let the people see the WHOLE process from cow to steak, at which point many people did change their minds.
ReplyDeleteOf course logic helps... why pay 300 dollars for say a purse or what-have-you and then 5 dollars at McDonalds 'cause its cheap?
Still a great point though as there are, as you said, loads of people who by the cheap stuff out of necessity.
This food section has also had me taking a critical look at food: meat vs. cost vs. health of self and animal. I've abandoned eating red meat unless it's grass fed but I'm not really a red meat eater per say, I figure it's just a stop peg in that epic kettle of spewing corn - it's wasteful and I don't need it. One of the questions that I have regarding free-range, grass fed, ect., products is just how much does it really cost to raise an animal to slaughter age? How much of the price we pay is pure profit? Is it merely an attempt by the eco-industry to maximize profits before these progressive ideas really hit the mainstream and become the standard in meat production (again)? I'm poor so I can't afford $48/pound steaks but I can afford beans at less than a $1/pound - healthier and cheaper.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of being free to choose, the economic factor works to complicate things a bit. We are free to choose within our means. I myself cannot afford to eat the way I would like to. My choice restricted, and therefore, I am forced to buy cheap food; as a result, I am endorsing agricultural processes I may or may not see eye to eye with. We seem to lose some of our agency. Food, economics, ethics, and politics are all deeply connected, and sometimes we are simply forced to choose. What complicates this choice are the implications of our decision. The food we may desire the most, or the food that we can most reasonably afford, may produce the implications we desire the least. Your article speaks to this point nicely, and it was fun to read. Nice post.
ReplyDeleteGreat to have some real food / marketing facts from the center of the business. I know if I had less money, I'd be pulled more and more to the bargains. It causes me physical pain to part with a dime, and every time I buy one of those 'wild caught' salmon steaks, I cringe at the price.
ReplyDelete