Would the Good Shepherd use a CAFO?

This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Woe to you shepherds of Israel who only take care of yourselves! Should not shepherds take care of the flock? You eat the curds, clothe yourselves with the wool and slaughter the choice animals, but you do not take care of the flock. You have not strengthened the weak or healed the sick or bound up the injured. You have not brought back the strays or searched for the lost. You have ruled them harshly and brutally.

Is it not enough for you to feed on the good pasture? Must you also trample the rest of your pasture with your feet? Is it not enough for you to drink clear water? Must you also muddy the rest with your feet? Must my flock feed on what you have trampled and drink what you have muddied with your feet? 
Ezekiel 34:2-4,18-19

I stumbled upon these words recently and found it interesting that God used this analogy to relate to his people. In the context of this passage, God is telling the leaders to do better in caring for their sheep, his people. I assume that cruelty to animals as explained here was looked poorly upon, otherwise this imagery would not have been so effective.

Please don't dismiss this as an "animal rights" argument, because it is not. But God certainly makes it clear that we shouldn't go around wreaking havoc on everything in our path, simply to serve ourselves. And perhaps you are unaware of the way your food choices affect the "flock."

Nearly all commercial meat in the U.S. comes from factory farms, termed CAFO - concentrated animal feeding operations. You may not know what happens to animals in today's CAFOs, but perhaps it is time we take some responsibility.

Here are some CAFO quick facts:

• Animals in CAFOs (most commonly pigs, cows, chickens, and turkeys) are kept in abnormally close quarters, often with very little, if any, outdoor exposure. Animals may not even have enough room to turn around, and they undergo mutilation like beak cutting and tail amputation to make it easier to confine them.
• Living literally in their own waste products, antibiotics are administered on a regular basis to prevent outbreaks of disease, but still disease outbreaks are common. To increase animal growth quickly, additional hormones and antibiotics are often used. Hormone use in poutry and pork is illegal in the U.S. but is commonly used in cattle feed lots.
• Producing an abnormal amount of waste products per square foot, CAFOs present a clear environmental problem. So much manure is present in such a small area that contaminents and bacteria can easily leach into groundwater or run off into surface waters, such as lakes, streams, and drains.

We think there are many reasons to avoid CAFO meat, but above all is the conviction that we have "ruled [the flock] harshly and brutally." As Christians we should consider how our decisions (including our purchase of food and other goods) affect others.  Are you trampling on the world around you?  God holds his people to higher standards, and instructs us to not just take care of ourselves, but to increase in our concern for others and for all creation.

At the end of Ezekiel 34, the same chapter, God says, "You are my sheep, the sheep of my pasture, and I am your God."  What a relief that God doesn't treat his flock like we treat our own flocks and herds!  From him we learn how to care for others in love instead of cruelty, with tenderness instead of harshness.

If you are interested in affecting positive change away from the CAFO methodology, the best thing to do is limit your meat intake.  Secondly, find local, pasture-raised meat sources, or buy organic.  Eating locally sourced food is good for the environment, good for the economy, and good for you!

Learn more:
Time Magazine - The Problem with Factory Farms
U.S. EPA - How do CAFOs Impact the Environment?

Where's the Beef?

We have been doing pretty well so far at reducing our meat intake, so we thought we'd share our first experience!

This past week we put our first goal into practice using some organic ground beef. 1 lb of meat cost us around $5-6. We made 40 meatballs from this adding bread crumbs, rice, onion, and green/red pepper, we froze them and that provided us enough meat for 10 meals (2 meatballs each). This costs less than $1 per meal to add meatballs, and we each eat only about 0.8oz of meat per meal.

Examples of meals we have tried so far:
- Meatballs with sautéed green/red peppers and broccoli, served in a light gravy over rice
- Spaghetti and meatballs in tomato sauce (a favorite)
- Meatballs in fried rice, with peas, broccoli, and carrots
- Meatballs sautéed with cabbage, onion, and green pepper, served in tomato sauce over rice (my quick version of Polish Golabki)

Yummm!

Goal #1: Eat Less Meat

Do not, for the sake of food, destroy the work of God. Everything is indeed clean, but it is wrong for anyone to make another stumble by what he eats. It is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that causes your brother to stumble. Romans 14:20-21

In this verse, the apostle Paul is talking about eating food that doesn't comply with others' religious standards, such as eating non-kosher food. This passage of scripture urges us to not eat in such a way that would cause someone else to stumble in their faith. But we had to ask ourselves - are there other ways in which our eating causes others to stumble? And perhaps this is not limited to a spiritual stumbling, as we often interpret it, but a physical stumbling as well. Can what we eat really cause physical harm to another human being?

The UN World Food Council estimated that using only 10-15% of the amount of grain fed to livestock, we could raise food levels enough to feed the world's hungry. Just take a moment to let that one sink in. Now consider that eating meat is one of the most inefficient ways to gain nutrients from the earth. It takes 10 lbs of grain to get just 1 lb of beef. For pork, the ratio is about 5:1, for poultry 2:1. The inefficiencies aren't just in the grain use, either. They are in water and land use too. Meats have the lowest yield of protein per acre, a whopping 45 lbs/acre compared to 356 lbs/acre for soybeans, 261 lbs/acre for rice, and 211 lbs/acre for corn. In terms of water use, beef is the worst, taking 1200 gallons of water to produce 1 lb. Comparatively, it takes 170 gallons for 1 lb of corn.*

Perhaps reducing the amount of meat we currently eat in America (200lbs/person annually in 2008!!! )** won't automatically feed the world, but most organizations and advocates believe that this is a crucial step in creating a sustainable way for us humans to produce the food we need to survive, without depleting natural resources in the process. It appears to us that we could certainly be harming our hungry neighbors by continuing to eat this way. So our first goal is to eat less meat, make more vegetarian meals, and buy organic and grass-fed meats whenever possible.

*Compassion in World Farming Trust. The Global Benefits of Eating Less Meat. 2004.
**United States Department of Agriculture. 2008 Agricultural Statistics Annual. 2008.