organic food

I threw out a half a steak yesterday and felt ill. I love meat, I love steak and lamb chops, I like chicken and fish but I don’t love wasting food, particularly meat. When we have leftover green things I can toss them in a compost bin and feel absolved. I’m not absolved, but I get the feeling that I am… which is only sort of okay.

Over the years I’ve been vegetarian and vegan too. Vegetarian while eating dairy wasn’t the best I’ve ever felt. I did feel incredibly good and strong as a vegan but to be fair I was in my early 20’s and would have felt good and strong in any event. I also spent an inordinate amount of time planning my meals. I’m not interested in living that way.

These days I languish… no I anguish at the meat counter of Whole Foods wondering if I’m inhumane because I buy my family $16 a pound beef that’s grass fed as opposed to the $24 a pound beef that’s also organic. What I’m really concentrating on these days is buying the proper amount. I serve meat in 5 ounce portions… except for when Mr. G gets a porterhouse, then it’s total Flintstone style where I fill his plate and delight in watching him enjoy his food. There are never leftovers with Porterhouse Steaks.

Lately though I’ve felt stuck. Like when I handle the meat raw I don’t want to eat it, and when my kids eat restaurant food I get panicked that they’re eating the sick and dying cow that got sent to slaughter just because no one gives a shit anyhow. I can’t smell bacon without thinking of the fake pigs that are live in metal pens shitting a river below them. It’s not that I don’t want to eat meat, it’s that I want to eat meat from real animals like chickens with normal sized breasts. Remember when turkeys had more dark meat than white?

I get a little obsessive about food and when I walk through the grocery store I’m pretty sure that the food processors are trying to poison us all. Most of my breakfasts and lunches are vegan but I don’t want my life to be vegan. I just want to be able to feed my family meat that isn’t full of corn, antibiotics or disease.

I’m looking for alternatives, where can I buy sustainably farmed meat in Los Angeles?