Upon booking a plane ticket home to the Midwest for Thanksgiving, my first thought was “what am I going to eat while I’m there?” Unlike Oregon, there are not very many “alternative” choices in the grocery stores beyond the shrink-wrapped butterballs that seem to be the staple for any Midwest Thanksgiving dinner.
Although it crossed my mind, I did not think a hunger strike in protest of no local, no organic, no sustainably-raised products would get me very far. Just as I was submitting to “when in Rome...” I got news that my family would be purchasing an organic turkey from a local farmer this year. Midwesterners buying organic? And completely unprovoked by me? I was blown away!
Some things are too good to be true, and alas, so was our first-ever local organic turkey. It turns out that the farmer did not end up having a large enough bird to satisfy our ever-expanding family. We settled for a turkey raised by the Amish, about 100 miles away. Altogether, not a terrible option and I was pleasantly surprised to know that my family is making at least a little progress-- although, I opted to not inquire about the potatoes…
After my third turkey dinner of the week (I cannot be as optimistic about the other two birds I consumed), I began thinking about all the people who ate turkeys raised in confinement, treated with antibiotics and fed genetically modified corn. The United States leads the world in turkey consumption with the average American eating almost 18 pounds per year. 46 million birds were raised for Thanksgiving alone—not to mention those of us who ate ham, beef or turducken.
46 million turkeys raised for one day. What a difference we could make, what a message we could send, if we all bought our turkeys locally and knew that America’s family farmers had raised them humanely, healthily, and happily.