If you read, you may know that a Californian beef company voluntarily recalled 143 million pounds of beef and the USDA said there is a “remote” chance of adverse health effects. Hallmark/Westland recalled their beef primarily to protect their image after the Humane Society released a video of workers abusing a “downer” cattle (cows that cannot stand because of sickness or injury). Students whose schools participate in the National School Lunch program already ate a fair share of the 143 million pounds of beef shipped by Hallmark/Westland in the last two years. Parke at U.S. Food Policy collected some great commentary on this issue.

Does a recall of two years’ worth of beef ensure people are at ease about meat production? Is it possible that the incident changes consumers’ tastes? Maybe this is the time that people realize that cows are not the downers! They don’t walk up to the slaughter house and say “duhhhh, I may have a disease, I can’t walk.” The cattle didn’t ask to be fed grain, something unnatural for their stomachs, stuck in tight quarters in their own poop and forcibly fed antibiotics. The people are the downers! We put the cows and ourselves in this situation and point at the meat and slaughterhouse as the problem. Maybe if tainted spinach did not scare enough people to change, perhaps children fearing a possibly lethal hamburger will.

So how am I excited about this? I decided that it’s healthy for me to come out with the negative and then evaluate the positive of each action. Ah, balance. We’re at a point where our food system is failing some of the time, so maybe this is where it changes! How am I changing? Oh, this is where I get Irrationally Exuberant- I’m growing my food!!

onion seeds

What you see above is a flat of mini pots made out of newspaper. When planting, you can merely unfold the bottom and the newspaper will decompose in the ground. They’re neat and they have onion seeds in them. For once during this five month winter, besides the accumulation of snow or ice, I will see something grow!

Come summer, I will not have to worry about a company recalling the food I ate two years ago. As always, I’ll be posting about the natural cycle of things in my life. Expect to see these onions grow!