Last month I had the honor of visiting Polyface Farm, in Virginia’s beautiful Shenandoah Valley, for the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund benefactor event. Joel Salatin gave the group a three-hour tour, that was fascinating and inspiring; it really touched my heart to be there.
The video below was recorded a couple of years ago by USA Today. It’s a succinct view of the Salatin philosophy of sustainable, symbiotic farming. I hope you enjoy it!
If you want to learn more about Joel’s philosophy and work, and how you can access nutritious, delicious real food, check out Joel Salatin’s book, “Folks This Ain’t Normal: A Farmer’s Advice for Happier Hens, Healthier People and a Better World,” just released this week.
Friends, if you read just one blog post from me – ever – will you please let this be the one?
Today’s the day: genius farmer, Joel Salatin’s book, “Folks, This Ain’t Normal,” hits the bookstores! I pre-ordered mine, and received it last week. Watch this one-minute video with Joel, and then read the message below that includes highlights of Joel’s book from Weston A. Price Foundation leader Sally Fallon Morrell.
FOLKS THIS AIN”T NORMAL
by Joel Salatin
We live in abnormal times. Really abnormal times. Times when most people think Twinkies, Cocoa-puffs, and Mountain Dew are safe but raw milk, compost grown tomatoes, and Aunt Matilda’s homemade pickles are unsafe. The average morsel of food travels fifteen hundred miles between point of production and point of consumption. Indeed, the average T-bone steak sees more of America than the farmer that grew the cow.
Never in the history of civilization has a culture eaten foods it can’t pronounce, foods that can’t be made in a domestic kitchen, or foods that won’t rot. Living foods mold, rot, and decompose. How long can an M&M remain on your counter without altering its appearance?
Until extremely recent days, people had to think about energy, whether it was providing for draft animals for transportation and power, or accumulating firewood to keep the stove burning in the winter.
We are the first culture to abdicate domestic culinary arts in favor of microwavable boxes of processed, stabilized, extruded, reconstituted, dye-colored, amalgamated, irradiated, nutrient-compromised, transgenic modified, prostituted pseudo-food. Modern America now has the highest rate in history of chronic, debilitating diseases, and leads the world in unhealthiness.
We’re the first culture to invent supermarkets and to universally equate children’s chores with abuse. We’re the first culture to confine animals in factories, use pharmaceuticals on our food, and break the soil-building carbon cycle on a massive scale.
These themes, discussed in historical context, conventional modern-day thinking, and future response, position Joel Salatin’s new book FOLKS, THIS AIN’T NORMAL as a must read for Weston A. Price members. Indeed, he even uses the book to acquaint the world with WAPF as well as the Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund.
“When a major publisher (CenterStreet, an imprint of the Hachette Book Group) decided to put their weight behind this project, I decided that part of my objective would be to let the world know about all these wonderful groups and thinkers who really have all the answers to people’s fears. I get tired of seeing the media wringing their hands as if solutions don’t exist, when in fact, they do. I hope this book draws thousands and thousands into the WAPF camp–just mentioning the organization should drive people to the website.”
Never one to allow victimhood excuses, Salatin ends each chapter with a bulleted list of “things you can do.” This broad book addresses issues as varied as food police, soil development, Disneyfication of the culture, and scientific findings proving pasture-based livestock is far more nutrient dense than factory-farmed counterparts. It will warm your soul.
If you’ve ever wondered how to articulate how ridiculous many modern assumptions are, this book will give some sound bites. Filled with stories, satire, and humor, FOLKS, THIS AIN’T NORMAL was released today in hardback, Kindle, and audio-book.
The Healthy, Happy Eater 