Welcome to our Holden's Hide a way farm

Holden's Hide-A-Way Farm is a diversified farm that produces a wide variety of meat product, in much of the same manner as a farmer would have 100 years ago. Our ideas on how to raise livestock come directly from mother nature. We raise grass fed beef and lamb because that is what mother nature intended. Our pigs are free to root and roam through out the warm seasons. Winters are spent in a barn with ample space and lots of hay to eat and root around in. Poultry is raised on pasture where they get lots of fresh air and can do the things poultry likes to do.

Tuesday, 30 October 2012

Wheat Belly

I just bought the book called Wheat Belly, written by William Davis, MD. Dr. Davis is a cardiologist in the USA. The book basically describes the effects of wheat on our bodies and the reasons why. He describes how wheat causes a multitude of physical problems primarily related to blood glucose levels. The book also details how wheat started out as an innocent grass that was manipulated by man to create wheat, then in the last fifty years man began to really change the genetic makeup of wheat in an effort to increase yields and decrease losses through disease, drought, insects etc.
While Dr. Davis specialises in wheat all of agriculture has shared the same focus for the last fifty years. Yield per acre is what is considered most important. In the process nutrition and health have been sacrificed. Most people concerned with the issues realise that corn and soybeans, the next two most consumed agricultural products, have gone through the same transitions as wheat. However almost all consumable agricultural products have gone through the same process. Meat production has changed drastically. Our ruminants (cattle, sheep, goats) are being force fed grains to increase growth. Antibiotics and growth hormones are given to increase growth rate. Even the breeds have changed. Angus cattle have increased in size. Other breeds have taken over as the most popular breeds such as Charolais, Limousin, Belgian blue, etc. These are huge animals requiring huge amounts of feed. These cattle are ready for butcher at 12-14 months. Traditional breeds on grass take up to 30 months. Many new breeds carry a mutated gene that causes "double muscling" making the livestock look like body builders. Milk production has gone through the same process. The milk of today is far less nutritious than our grandparents drank. Hog and poultry production has turned into a factory operation where workers where coveralls, breathing and hearing protection. The manure has become a polluting concern. Years ago hogs were raised outside like cattle. Manure was not an issue. Hogs and chickens were raised on grain and garden waist. In fact that was what the hog was for years ago. The first recycler. Any farm waste was fed to the pig and turned into a meat product. Now waste is landfill, adding to our garbage problem. Meat is not the only issue. Vegetables are going through the same issues. Anything is sacrificed in the name of production. Vegetables are fed a steady diet of liquid fertilisers accompanied by a mix fungicides, pesticides and herbicides to decrease disease. Vegetables are picked before being ripe and "chemically ripened" in the back of transports as they are shipped around the world. Tomatoes and peppers are raise in hot houses with their roots bare, not even in soil. The chemists raising and experimenting with these vegetables are arrogant enough to believe they have out smarted mother nature.
Testing done on the products is usually minimal and irrelevant. The tests always seem to favour the new producing product. A large number of tests have been published lately that state organic is no better then conventional production. I do not dought that these same scientist are experts in hydroponics, because they must be smoking something. Something people have to remember is that the companies producing these engineered plants and animals have invested allot of money in their production. They will spend more money to make sure their product is accepted and flourishes. The people growing organically do not have patents on their products. They have no money invested(outside the farm). They also have a much smaller market. The money simply is not their to defend their way of production. The only time we get noticed is when someone like Dr. Davis writes a book that gets attention and gets people talking.
For your own test go to the grocery store and buy some organic and conventional bananas. Do your own taste test. Then tell me there is no difference.

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