ONL064 Feeding your Family the Local, Humane, and Nutrient Dense Way

In this show, Jon and I chat with Kimberly Hartke, publicist for the Weston A. Price Foundation. Kimberly integrates her values and passions with home and career choices. Along with her supportive spouse, she chooses to purchase most of her food directly from local farmers that grow nutrient dense food humanely. In addition, we discuss the USDA proposed food guidelines for 2010. We have new farm updates. Download the Podcast from iTunes, Zune, Tivo, Stitcher, or click on the link below.

Kimberly is also the author of the informative and popular blog, Hartke is Online! It was a great pleasure to talk with Kimberly by phone, and we hope to meet her an a Weston A. Price event sometime in the future. As a matter of fact, Kimberly is speaking at the 2010 conference. Jon and I have been so busy setting up our systems here at Broad River Pastures, but we greatly enjoy our informative interviews. This interview was recorded about 5 weeks ago, so a lot has happened on the farm since then!

Kimberly discovered Weston A. Price from a health conscious friend who introduced her to Nourishing Traditions. A former vegetarian like many people we’ve interviewed, Kimberly discovered that shunning meat is not your best choice. There are many sustainable, humane options for meat production practiced by your local farmer. For the definitive treatise on the subject, check out The Vegetarian Myth by Lierre Keith, featured in our interview ONL050 In Defense of Omnivores. Like Lierre, Kimberly discovered that shunning meat for political reasons will have long-term health consequences that your body will suffer for many years, if not a lifetime.

Finding factory farming methods and industrial farming to be “abhorrant and inhumane,” Kimberly and her spouse choose to purchase 95% of their groceries directly or locally in Reston, Virginia, a suburban area near Washington, D. C. Kimberly and her husband found that by eating locally they lost fifty pounds between them. Kimberly is experiencing much less pain in her degenerative runners’ knee, her husband lowered his blood pressure and is no longer pre-diabetic, and both of them have energy levels they hadn’t experienced for over 10 years. They legally procure raw milk by participating in a cow share program. For more on Kimberly’s beliefs, read this blog article.

As Jon and I discovered in Atlanta, Georgia, there are ample resources out there. Once you have connected with a Weston A. Price Chapter Leader in your area, it is not difficult to locate them. Other great resources include Local Harvest, The Eat Well Guide, and Eat Wild. Learning how to cook grass-fed meat and wild caught fish can sometimes present a challenge. For those who may want some guidance, Ann Marie Michaels is teaching a 13-week Surf and Turf online cooking class. Registration has been extended until August 21, 2010. To register, click here. For those of you really NEW to cooking and eating real food, we’re excited to share Kelly the Kitchen Kops class, REAL FOOD FOR ROOKIES. If you need very basic information and tips, this is the class for you!

Kimberly also shared the Weston A Price response to proposed USDA 2010 Dietary Guidelines. As we discussed with Jimmy Moore in a recent interview, the new guidelines arbitrarily reduce recommended fat consumption even further, limit egg consumption to the point of choline deficiency, and by default, promote processed foods and vegetable oils while demonizing healthy saturated fats and other nutrient dense foods.

Farm Updates:

In the five weeks since we recorded this interview, a lot has transpired here in Elberton. We’re on a huge learning curve! We have the internet, great neighbors, and resources available to us. It has been a record-breaking hot, humid, and dry summer in Georgia, causing pastures and pastured animals to suffer. Now that we have one pasture in field fence, we got a small flock of Painted Desert Sheep and two Alpine goat wethers. Our lambs have suffered from parasites that killed one of the weakest. Our first lamb born July14th. He is our healthiest. Now one month old, he has grown from 7 pounds to 19.8 pounds and is showing signs of being a good ram for future breeding compared to our 7 month old ramling who weighs only 35 pounds and is submissive to the new lamb.

Because of budget constraints, we’ve only installed field fencing for two acres of property. We purchased bermuda hay to supplement the pasture and get our lambs and goats back into condition. Jon designed a simple hay rack that is installed in our shade shack. In spite of constant access, they are still working on the first bale after a week.

Our eleven year old sheltie, Nicky, has also had difficulty adjusting to the heat. He spent 3 nights at the local vet hospital after becoming dehydrated. He seems to have recuperated from that but we have to keep him in and monitor him closely.

In July we adopted an orange-striped male kitten to live in the workshop. There he will keep mice from the feed storage area. He thinks he is in kitten heaven! He loves playing with the sawdust, chasing crickets and anoles around the compost piles, and teasing the LGDs in the morning from the other side of the field fence. He enjoys running up and down the garage stairs and climbing on the stacks of unpacked boxes. Jon named him Barney.

We have 21 Buff Orpington chicks brooding in our second coop. They are almost one month old now and need to stay inside for another couple weeks before letting them have the freedom of the pasture. Within 36 hours of bringing them home, we lost a young cochin rooster to a hawk while we were away from home. Our friend Sally Robertson told us that roosters will sometimes lure hawks away from the flock. In addition, one of our ducks was attacked. I suspect that the sound of peepers in the brood house attracted the hawk to the area. Since then, the chickens and ducks have become very wary of the hawk and take cover when they hear its shriek.

Our Khaki Campbell ducks are doing well and should start providing us with fresh eggs in a few weeks. The drake is developing a distinct color pattern including a green bill and seal-brown head, distinguishing himself from the hens.

Our UGA interns, Patrick and Andrew, completed their 12 week stint with us this month and will begin their fall semester classes this week. While they were here they installed field fencing, holding pens, built chicken and duck coops, a shade shack, and much more. What a wonderful experience having them here!

Please leave comments below and support our affiliates. If you haven’t been to Selina Naturally lately, they have fantastic products, supplements, Celtic Sea Salt, and kitchen accessories to help you prepare nutrient dense food at home. This post is a part of Fight Back Friday for August 20, 2010.

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