There are many reasons people make the switch to local food, but health is probably the most prominent. This means that it takes one cow in America the same amount of time it would take 20 cows in India to produce the same amount of milk. As these trends become more standard across the industry, options like truLOCAL, which allow shoppers access to a wide range of premium local meats, are filling a vital gap in the market. © Copyright truLOCAL 2020. A lot of this belief comes from a report published by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization titled “Livestock’s Long Shadow.” The report, published in 2006, found that meat production comprised about 18 percent of humans’ carbon foodprint — more, even, than the transportation sector. If you want to discover for yourself just how big a difference eating local meat can make, visit truLOCAL and start building your own meal box today! And if you order your meat online through truLOCAL, you are guaranteed to be getting meat from local farms and suppliers that prioritize healthy meat. The United Nations reports that "livestock now use 30% of the earth’s entire land surface, mostly permanent pasture but also including 33% of the global arable land used to produce feed for livestock." 205.203) Organic livestock must also be fed organically produced feed and cannot be given growth hormones (7 C.F.R. That’s why the best, most sustainable option is to purchase your meat from a family farm that you can trust. One farmer estimates that it takes 2.5 to 35 acres of pasture, depending on the quality of the pasture, to raise a grass-fed cow. They are not mutually exclusive. One of the biggest alimentary trends of the past twenty years has been the resurgent interest in whole foods. Eating Local Meat is Actually More Sustainable than Veganism. The 5 Most Important Things You Can Do for the Environment. In "The Locavore Myth," James E. McWilliams writes: While buying locally produced meat will reduce the amount of fuel needed to transport your food, it does not change the fact that animal agriculture requires an inordinate amount of resources and produces a great deal of waste and pollution. Grain diets are used to fatten up cattle faster, but it has a negative impact on the quality of the meat. You see, a lot of it comes down to landmass. Mailing address: Box 188 Donnellson, Iowa 52625, Mailing address:Box 188Donnellson, Iowa 52625. You may recall a recent study that sounded the alarm that vegan diets are actually kind of bad for the environment. When it comes to making sure you are eating healthy, local meat, being more careful about where your beef is sourced from is also important. As Dr. Frank Mitloehner points out, American livestock farming technologies have majorly increased efficiency. Animals raised organically are still slaughtered, and organic meat is just as wasteful, if not more wasteful, than factory-farmed meat. Dr. Frank Mitloehner of the University of California, Davis, refutes this claim. If you’d like to talk to someone right away, please give us a call! But what about animal welfare? All rights reserved. “When applied to an entire global population, the vegan diet wastes available land that could otherwise feed more people,” QZ explains. Organic or not, the larger farm also has the economy of scale on its side. One family could easily survive off of meat from one pasture-raised cow for an entire winter. Local Meat: Healthier, Tastier, Better For The Environment Eating locally raised meat is one of the best food decisions you can make, and with truLOCAL’s meat box service, having your favourite cuts delivered is easy! Lastly, one can choose to be an organic, vegan locavore to reap the environmental benefits of all three concepts. All the evidence shows that Canadians are becoming more conscious of what they eat, and more intentional about building a diet that is healthy and sustainable. Increasing efficiency, therefore, becomes paramount to sustainability — and a vegan diet is actually not very sustainable at all. Caring about the environment is absolutely a noble cause, and one that we at Heartland Family Farms take seriously. And with truLOCAL, you can get top quality grass fed beef that has been raised right here in Ontario delivered straight to your door as part of your monthly meal box order. While some people eat vegan for strictly moral reasons (and we’re not trying to dissuade anyone from their moral convictions), those whose primary concern is the environment may want to reconsider. For many, this has meant joining the local food movement and committing to learning more about where their food comes form. While eating locally might reduce your impact on the environment, the reduction is not as great as some might believe and other factors are more important. The U.S. alone has 94.5 million beef cattle. We always stand behind our products and we think you’ll find them absolutely great. Caring about the environment is absolutely a noble cause, and one that we at Heartland Family Farms take seriously. Not only does truLOCALs service connect you with Ontario producers, it also provides a high degree of transparency around where its products come from. Manure must also be managed in a manner "that does not contribute to contamination of crops, soil, or water by plant nutrients, heavy metals, or pathogenic organisms and optimizes recycling of nutrients" (7. Free-Range, Cage-Free, Pasture-Raised Meat, Eggs, and Dairy, Why We Have Factory Farming and How to End It. Tara Garnett of the Food Climate Research Network stated: All things being equal, eating locally is better than eating food that has to be transported thousands of miles, but the environmental advantages of locavorism pale in comparison with those of going vegan. However, free-range, organic, or local meats are not the solution. Doris Lin is an animal rights attorney and the director of legal affairs for the Animal Protection League of New Jersey. The only way the U.S. can feed animal products to hundreds of millions of people is to grow grain as an intense monoculture, turn that grain into animal feed, and then give that feed to intensively confined animals. While organic meat does offer some environmental and health benefits over factory farming in terms of residue, waste management, pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers, the livestock does not consume fewer resources or produce less manure. What Are Feedlot Beef, Organic Beef, and Grass-Fed Beef? According to CNN, an Oxfam report titled, "Fair Miles - Recharting the Food Miles Map," found that the way in which food is produced is more important than how far that food is transported. If, however, for whatever unfortunate reason, you are not satisfied with your purchase, just give us a call and we’ll give your money back, no questions asked. And don't expect vegans and vegetarians to get on board. With our planet nearing a population of 9 billion people and deforestation already a tremendous problem, we can’t afford to clear more way for farmland. We hear that one way to be eco-friendly is to eat locally, to reduce the number of resources required to deliver food to our table. Most beef is raised on pasturage before being finished on a grain-based diet. How Does Eating Locally Grown Food Help the Environment? Under the National Organic Program administered by the USDA, organic certification for animal products has certain minimum care requirements under 7 C.F.R. Buying from a small, local conventional farm may have a greater carbon footprint than buying from a large, organic farm thousands of miles away. Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO), B.S., Applied Biological Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Factory farmers are not animal-hating sadists who confine the animals for fun. Finally, as you may recall if you’ve read Michael Pollan’s book “The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” meat is much more calorie-dense than vegetables. 205.237). 205, such as "access to the outdoors, shade, shelter, exercise areas, fresh air, and direct sunlight" (7 C.F.R. Locavores strive to build their diet around food produced within a certain distance from their home. You can learn about our suppliers on our website and discover more about how we source all of our meat from the most sustainable Ontario-based farms and fisheries, from our Caudle’s Catch fish to our Hidden Roots Artisinal chicken.