What did your dinner eat for dinner and where did it live?

I often have to remind myself to focus on what my dinner ate for dinner or what my lunch had for lunch. This is of course another way of saying you are what you eat. But you are what you eat eats and here I'm not just talking about a cow or a chicken but also about a carrot and a stalk of wheat. And we are also all the products of our environment, so it is not surprising that our food is too. We are where our food comes from. So the two questions I try to ask myself before I put something in my mouth is: (1) what did it eat and (2) where did it come from? Most of the time, if you're eating the best you can eat (pastured meat, organic or fully pesticide-free produce, etc.) you don't have to worry about the second question. But short of that they both matter. Let's briefly look at this for an animal and a vegetable.

An easy example to start with is a cow. As we know, cows eat grass. Most of the cows we eat in America, however, eat corn. Often they also eat other cows and/or other animals. When you see that your cow at an all vegetarian diet you know what it ate for dinner: it ate corn and perhaps other grains. You also know what it did not eat: other cows (and probably grass). So at least your cow was a vegetarian. But it did not eat what it was designed to eat, so it will be less healthy and it will in turn be less healthy for you. We now know what it ate for dinner. But where did it come from? Did it live on a field or a feedlot (also known as a confined animal feeding operation or CAFO)? If it lived on a field it will be leaner and healthier on its own without the need for drugs and so forth. If it lived in a CAFO the meat will have antibiotics in it. How do you feel about taking unnecessary antibiotics? If you don't care then there is no issue.

The same is true of a dairy cow. If the cow ate grass the milk will be healthier as a cow's milk is the product of its diet no less than a mother's breast milk is the product of hers. If the cow did not eat an organic diet or was not eating grass, there's also a likelihood of it having been given growth hormones. Milk does a body good. Or does it?

Or take a vegetable. When it comes to a tomato, for example, if that tomato was grown in organic soil it ate the nutrients of soil as it was designed to do. If it isn't organic there is a good chance it was grown in soil with chemical-based fertilizers. This will feed the tomato like corn will feed a cow -- quicker, bigger but less healthy. So many studies have concluded that organic methods produce healthier produce that they are becoming difficult to ignore. Here's just one. And where did the tomato live? If it lived on a farm that did not use pesticides (or at least that only used plant-based pesticides) it had to develop its own defenses. This is kind of like the difference between growing up in the city and the suburbs. Were you being driven around in a Volvo when you were 14 or were you taking the subway by yourself? One toughens us up a bit more than the other. A tomato is no different. If it has to fend for itself it will develop defenses that have significant health benefits for anyone lucky enough to eat it.

I am confident that we will only continue to understand how dangerous it is to ignore these questions. What did your lunch eat for lunch? And where did it live? These are tough questions for most of us to answer even when we make our own food -- virtually impossible when we don't. But at least if we eat naturally we can avoid the third vital question: what has been done to it after it was killed? The moment the cow is slaughtered or the tomato is picked, there is a grave danger that it will be processed, preserved or otherwise messed with to make it loose its healthfulness, make it harder for your body to process, and make it the perfect vehicle to deliver unhealthy ingredients into your system. If we don't ask these we cannot possibly know what we are eating.

Reading food packages in the dark

I've already expressed my utter distrust for the USDA (and related agencies). And anyone who cares enough about what they eat to read this probably knows to take certain "labels" and claims on packaging with a grain of salt. Many already know, for instance, that "free range" doesn't really mean that Sally the Chicken is out there living her life under the sun, stretching her talons into nice grass. Rather it means that Sally probably lives in a pretty awful, dirty, cramped building, that has a little door in it that leads to a patch of grass. If Sally wanted she could go out that door and chill for all long as she wants. But she has never been out there and she will never go out there.

What does all this mean? That "free range" is a bunch of b.s. If you want to know that your chicken lived its life as a chicken (meaning it will produce tastier and healthier meat and eggs) then you want it to have lived in a pasture -- "pastured chicken" or "pastured eggs" so to speak. But perhaps more importantly you want to know where it is coming from. The risk here is that so many people realize the virtues of pastured eggs that the word is used inappropriately. Every claim on a package must be read with a massive grain of salt. (Take "all-vegetarian diet" for instance -- it's nice to know that your chickens weren't fed other chickens and may not have some future mad chicken disease but does it mean? Chickens eat worms and worms are not part of a vegetarian diet. From that alone you know it makes no sense. Other reasons we can leave aside for now.)

The concern overall is that people react to what they read and hear. These terms are often not regulated and when they are you can believe one thing: that the big companies will convince the USDA to stretch the regulation to include them. When that happens it has no meaning anymore. Your free range chickens are exactly the same as your not free range chickens.

Advocates and fans of the grassfed or pastured movement are now concerned that it is picking up enough that it will be next. When I think of grassfed cattle I think of a cow who lives its entire life on a pasture eating grass. This would be overseen by a farmer who never injects the cattle with antiobiotics and never feed anything but the grass on the ground or natural hay when the grass isn't growing (and careful here of the "grain finished" meat -- as it's a way a farmer can fatten up its cow at the end of its life using corn). But the USDA doesn't see it that way. As I understand it, grassfed beef farmers (the so called true "grass farmers") have been continually lobbying the USDA to restrict use of related terms to only the meaning as I understand it (as everyone who knows the term understands it). I am not aware of exactly how successful or unsuccessful that lobbying is but I don't have my fingers crossed. If you can make an "organic" twinkie using the USDA's regulated term (you can) then you will someday be able to buy a "grassfed" steak using the USDA regulated term from a cow that never lived on a pasture, was injected with antiobiotics, and who knows what else.

The good news is that we aren't there yet. The most prevelant grassfed beef available in my area is Tallgrass and it is true, 100% grassfed beef. Whole Foods won't buy lamb that is not 100% grass fed in the true meaning (access to pastures its entire life). But the day may come when this ends and it goes back to knowing what you are eating. Much of the beef, lamb, goat, chicken and turkey I've encountered that claims to be pasture-raised comes from farms that have websites where you can read all about the philosophy of the farm and the way the animals are raised. They are also sold at farmers markets where you can meet their representatives and look them in the eye, or at boutique shops that buy directly from the farm and you can look that person in the eye. I have found that such shops know I am serious about my inquiry and will not just say something to shut me up. Provenence in Logan Square (also has a Lincoln Square location) for instance, told me that they did not believe their poultry was pastured. I asked if their grassfed ground beef was grain finished and they looked up the farm on the internet and called them for me before answering.

Now not everyone will go to such lengths and most Americans need to go to Jewel, not Provenence, to buy their meat. But these stores don't change out brands that often so you can do your own research quite easily with a few Google searches and be the educated consumer that helps raise the quality of our food. And I always try to remember that no matter how bright it is under those supermarket lights, it's really dark in there and I can't really see what I'm looking at.