Pure Salatin

I love reading and listening to Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms. He is an original, and a pioneer in the realm of local food systems and community-based agriculture, and a staunchly politically-incorrect advocate for reclaiming freedom for traditional food growing and purchasing choices.

I am rereading my copy of his book Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal. I love this book, and I'll be posting now and then some quotes found within its pages. Here is today's:
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Our whole culture suffers from an industrial food system which has made
every part disconnected from the rest. Smelly and dirty farms are supposed
to be in one place, away from people, who snuggle smugly in their cul-de-sacs
and have not a clue about the out-of-sight-out-of-mind atrocities being
committed to their dinner before it arrives in microwaveable four-color labeled
plastic packaging. Industrial abattoirs need to be located in a
not-in-my-backyard place to sequster noxious odors and sights. Finally,
the retail store must be ocated in a commercial district surrounded by lots of
pavement, handicapped access, public toilets and whatever else must be required
to get food to people.

The notion that animals can be raised, processed, packaged and sold in a
model that offends neither our eyes nor noses cannot even register on the
average bureaucrat's radar screen. Or, more importantly, on the radar of
the average consumer advocacy organization. Besides, all these single-use
megalithic structures are good for the gross domestic product. Anything
else is illegal.

Joel Salatin, Chapter 1, pp. 4, 5 Everything I Want to do is Illegal