Suggestions from "Food, Inc."

Here are suggestions from Food, Inc. to help us avoid illness from foods we eat and to avoid supporting big food industry conglomerates which promote dangerous and inhumane techniques to raise produce and meat products:

(1) Proper handling of meats: We already sterilize cutting boards and wash our hands thoroughly after handling raw meats. However I intend to abstain from poultry that isn't organic, not fed antibiotics or isn't raised free range. Of course 'free range' can merely mean the door of the chicken coop was left open the day the food inspector came to the farm. So we intend to ascertain how our meat was raised before we buy chicken or other meat in the future. We're considering buffalo.

(2) Read labels: We already read the ingredients on everything we buy, because we have multiple food allergies.

(3) Buy locally: We already buy many local products, but we can do better.

(4) Buy organic, non GMO products: We can easily do that at PCC. However, some fruits, which we peel, don't need to be organic. Nevertheless, we can still buy local 'farmers' market more than store bought produce.

(5) Raise your own produce: We already do that and store much of our harvest in the freezer for later consumption. We grow strawberries, blueberries, raspberries and grapes. We also grow lettuce, kale or spinach, carrots, leeks, green beans, peas, zucchini or crookneck or spaghetti squash (depending on the year), brocolli, tomatoes and 20 different herbs. After watching 'Food, Inc.' we discussed increasing the size of our gardens to raise even more produce.

In another post, I will describe how we plan to implement some suggestions from "Food, Inc."