eating local

What we eat should be a function of what our land produces.

It is fashionable to think, and say, that meat should be only a small part of our diet. Michael Pollan's dictum, "Eat food. All kinds. Not too much," hadn't been around long before he rewrote it to say, "Eat food. All kinds. Mostly plants." And, just to name one other, celebrity chef Dan Barber says, of meat in the diet, 'small portions, as flavoring'.

This kind of 'wisdom' partakes of the same group-think that has given us industrial agriculture: one size fits all, what's good for the goose is good for the gander, for, in fact, the entire animal kingdom.

Central Appalachia, like much of the world, consists largely of land that should not be broken to the plow -- or, if it is, in small plots only, rotated often back to pasture. On these hills, thin-soiled and sloping, only grass can be relied on to hold moisture, hold soil, hold fertility; and only animals can harvest that grass and turn it into forms humans can eat. Milk, daily. Meat, often.

On the home farm, our few acres produce, reliably, one steer, a couple of sheep, and two or three hogs per year, well over1000 lb. or more of meat -- plus a few chickens. So, we eat meat. A lot of it. We like it, and we thrive on it.

As folks take on the task of feeding themselves from small acreages, let them not be encumbered by generalities that, while they may be marginally applicable to market foods, have nothing to do with our local ecosystems.