farm as ecosystem, love animals,
Read on to learn more about healthiest farm practices.
Every time you eat, choose to support local pasture-raised!
Eat with a clean conscious.
In doing so, reap the benefits of
Increasing your health and vitality
Building healthy babies
Ingesting more nutrients, vitamins, and minerals
Participating in building soil
Providing a happy home for thousands of farm animals & wildlife
Animals live wild lives close to nature
Knowing you're building our local ecosystem
Increasing our local economy
Giving meaningful careers and fair jobs
Stabilizing our local food system
What exactly is Pasture-Raised?
Simply put, it's animals living and moving outside, on grass and soil, when the weather is good. 95% of animals raised in the US are not on pasture, and pasture-raised doesn't have an official definition. So when you're paying a premium, we recommend choosing your farm carefully. Recently, the term has gotten so popular that larger corporations have shown interest. We're finding many of the national, so called, "pasture-raised" options are heavily watered down.
To us, Pasture-Raised is centered around the animals ability to move. This means the animals are outside and mobile. The more mobile the animals are the more grass/bugs/soil/ect.. they consume, and the greater the health benefits. The cost of mobility however, is an increase in labor, and in turn, a higher price. So when you're choosing Pasture-Raised, you get what you pay for.
What is regenerative agriculture?
Regenerative Agriculture aims to go beyond the terms "organic" and "sustainable". It's goal is to enhance eco-systems benefits to all life within the system. When we practice Regenerative Agriculture we use specific management techniques. By managing holistically, we can improve, not degrade life as a whole. The ultimate goal is not to sustain life but to regenerate it.
Example: Chickens on Mobile Pasture. Moving chickens across pastureland produces a premium egg product. It also deposits chicken manure onto the pasture, feeding the soil with extra fertility. This fertility in turn feeds the plant community that makes up the pasture. When you feed the plants, more insects show up to feed and breed on the pasture. This in turn feeds the chickens but they also feed the wild sparrows, cardinals, blue jays, and martins. A healthy pasture will also support biodiversity and provide massive breeding grounds for the monarch butterfly's life cycle. Because you are moving the chickens at any given time most of the pasture will be inhabited by wildlife. This is designing with nature, not against it.
What makes our food different?
Food has become so cheap. This age of cheap food has started to rear it's ugly head and more people are searching for real food. 99.9% of food in grocery stores is from an industrial food system. Even the most expensive grocery stores only sell mostly factory farmed food.
For years, Caitlin had an anemia deficiency. This contributed to pale skin, low energy, and not sleeping well. That all turned around when we started sourcing our meats from local family farms. Her face filled with color again, and her energy went through the roof! Dan too, had several food related issues. Diagnosed with psoriasis on his scalp and arms, topical medicine did nothing to help. Only after switching to mostly local diet, did his psoriasis start to clear up. Both of us also had gut issues related to eating out and cheap food. Our stomachs would rumble, and we would have poor digestion. At the time, we would always try to eliminate certain foods. Dairy, wheat, beans, anything we thought could be the problem.
But as we would take a step forward, there would always be two steps back. We realized that our breakfast of bacon, eggs, and sauerkraut was the only agreeable meal. And that all came from a small family farm. A light bulb went off and we realized it wasn't what we were eating, it was HOW our food was being produced.
Yes, even shopping at health food stores didn't get us the health we needed. This personal journey intersects our jobs to create pure, healthy, incredible food. Our quality assurance is tied into our own health.